Anna Thornton earned her BSE from Princeton University and her Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Dr. Thornton began her career as a faculty member in MIT’s Mechanical Engineering department. During her time at MIT, her research focused on product development, manufacturing, and quality systems. After leaving MIT, Dr. Thornton was a senior partner in Analytics Operations Engineering, where she worked with over 40 large companies to implement, streamline, and improve their product development, manufacturing, and quality systems. As the Director of Engineering and Quality at Dragon Innovation, she helped over 30 new hardware startups transform prototype designs into final products. Dr. Thornton is the author of many articles, blogs, and a book, and she is a frequent speaker in multiple university and industry forums.
Event Overview
In this keynote, a panel of seasoned hardware entrepreneurs will share their experiences in the rapidly growing and flourishing hardware sector, discussing their startups and offering advice to aspiring hardware founders.
What You'll Learn
- How entrepreneurs can take advantage of technological advancements to make their physical products better and their businesses more sustainable
- How hardware startups can overcome the unique challenges they face
- Resources and organizations that support hardware founders
Speakers
Deanna Kocher completed an integrated degree in Mechanical Engineering and Product Design at Lehigh University and a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at Cornell. She started her career in high-rise construction before quickly pivoting to product development and consulting, where she has worked on medical products, toys, and robots. Ms. Kocher is passionate about innovative products that promote people and planet and about helping startups streamline their development processes to bring those innovative products successfully to market.
Micah Green is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of Tailos (formerly Maidbot), a robotics company building Rosie — the world’s very first housekeeping robot for hotels. Rosie is a safe and cost-efficient automated solution for the hospitality industry which decreases the time to clean rooms and public spaces while reducing work-related injuries and improving the room attendant and guest experiences. Rosie also acts as an indoor mobile data platform to empower management with actionable information.
Mr. Green manages the company and product vision, sales strategy, cash flows, investor relations, and team development. Over the past decade, he has been a serial entrepreneur starting multiple businesses, including two successful smartphone applications. Mr. Green strongly adheres to the words of Abraham Lincoln: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
With a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell and an MBA from Yale, Ryan Li co-founded ReVert – a company incubated by Rev Ithaca Startup Works and backed by Techstars – to reimagine household products with AIoT and to pioneer an elegant, connected, and low-carbon lifestyle. Before the hustle, Mr. Li designed green hydrogen plants and managed deepwater rigs as an engineer for Shell and led Alibaba’s business and corporate development in the U.S. He just loves making things big and small, hard and soft, but only for people and the planet.
Anna Thornton earned her BSE from Princeton University and her Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Dr. Thornton began her career as a faculty member in MIT’s Mechanical Engineering department. During her time at MIT, her research focused on product development, manufacturing, and quality systems. After leaving MIT, Dr. Thornton was a senior partner in Analytics Operations Engineering, where she worked with over 40 large companies to implement, streamline, and improve their product development, manufacturing, and quality systems. As the Director of Engineering and Quality at Dragon Innovation, she helped over 30 new hardware startups transform prototype designs into final products. Dr. Thornton is the author of many articles, blogs, and a book, and she is a frequent speaker in multiple university and industry forums.
Deanna Kocher completed an integrated degree in Mechanical Engineering and Product Design at Lehigh University and a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at Cornell. She started her career in high-rise construction before quickly pivoting to product development and consulting, where she has worked on medical products, toys, and robots. Ms. Kocher is passionate about innovative products that promote people and planet and about helping startups streamline their development processes to bring those innovative products successfully to market.
Micah Green is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of Tailos (formerly Maidbot), a robotics company building Rosie — the world’s very first housekeeping robot for hotels. Rosie is a safe and cost-efficient automated solution for the hospitality industry which decreases the time to clean rooms and public spaces while reducing work-related injuries and improving the room attendant and guest experiences. Rosie also acts as an indoor mobile data platform to empower management with actionable information.
Mr. Green manages the company and product vision, sales strategy, cash flows, investor relations, and team development. Over the past decade, he has been a serial entrepreneur starting multiple businesses, including two successful smartphone applications. Mr. Green strongly adheres to the words of Abraham Lincoln: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
With a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell and an MBA from Yale, Ryan Li co-founded ReVert – a company incubated by Rev Ithaca Startup Works and backed by Techstars – to reimagine household products with AIoT and to pioneer an elegant, connected, and low-carbon lifestyle. Before the hustle, Mr. Li designed green hydrogen plants and managed deepwater rigs as an engineer for Shell and led Alibaba’s business and corporate development in the U.S. He just loves making things big and small, hard and soft, but only for people and the planet.
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