Matt Marshall / VentureBeat : BT invests in WiFi community start-up, FON

Max Levchin (b. 1975) is a Russian-born American computer scientist and entrepreneur widely known as co-founder (with Peter Thiel) and former Chief technology officer of PayPal. Originally from Kiev, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), he moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1991. He received his bachelor's degree in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 and co-founded two companies that made Internet-tools, …

Shai Agassi used to be the CEO of SAP. Today he is planning to rebuild the automobile industry from the ground up. With Better Place , he has a business model that may make electric cars real, tomorrow. He began when he was asked a simple question at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: How do you make the world a better place by 2020? Being an engineer, he took that question seriously and began thinking about moving transportation off oil, completely.

Mark Coker - Founder Mark founded the agency in 1993. He is an active entrepreneur, angel investor and business advisor to technology startups. His primary role at Dovetail is business development and employee training. In addition to his responsibilities with Dovetail, Mark is prepping his next startup, Smashwords , a digital publishing venture. Smashwords is in stealth, and will be incubated within Dovetail.

Sunil Paul is an investor and entrepreneur in early-stage clean energy companies. He has backed Advent Solar and NanoSolar, among others. He is co-founder and former CEO at Brightmail, which was sold to Symantec. Before that, he was co-founder and chief executive of FreeLoader, and was Internet product manager at and director of corporate development at America Online.

Angel investor and president of Dovetail Public Relations (www.dovetailpr.com) in Los Gatos, a tech PR firm specializing in taking vc-backed startups from launch to IPO and beyond. Over the last 13+ years since founding Dovetail, we've launched and sustained numerous tech companies. Some of the companies who most influenced my learning include: BestCalls.com - '97-03. I founded this company, and have never had so much fun professionally. Taught me to respect the power of passion and just . . .

Tim is a Principal at Norwest Venture Partners, focusing on Wireless and Digital Media investments, and also leads Norwest’s China initiatives. Prior to Norwest, Tim was a Principal at Gabriel Venture Partners, where he established and led the Wireless investment practice. He is also an accomplished musician and actor, and continues to perform around the Bay Area. Tim holds both a B.S. and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from Stanford.

Matt: Ram’s points are right on, but it is well known to most entreprenuers, especially US-based, who have built teams out of India.

Sze said Facebook has only “scratched the surface” on its efforts to expand in new markets, including international and post-graduate communities. Facebook launched a product for high schools last year, and recently launched a version of its site for mobile devices. It also introduced photo-sharing several months ago.

Patricia Handschiegel has worked in tech and Internet infrastructure for seven years and has been a freelance journalist covering fashion, technology and business for more than four years. She's the founder/CEO of StyleDiary.net, an online social media company, Look|Shop|List.com and the blog Industry Girl, and has held ghost writing positions for a Today show correspondent and major national media journalist. She lives in Los Angeles.

Larry Chiang 10.5.06 | 8:51 pm Clint, I love an even more community college flavored litmus test: ‘would I want to rep this product locally?’ . My bar for taking meetings is 1) is s/he a passionate registered user, 2) are they able to set aside their pedigree, vaseline rubbed, ivory colored glasses, and 3) do they consume mainstream goods/services.