The

KEYNOTE SPEAKER Mitch Kapor

Mitch Kapor is a pioneer of the personal computing industry and has been at the forefront of information technology for more than 30 years as an entrepreneur, software designer, and investor. He is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the "killer app" of the 1980s that made the personal computer universally adopted in the business world.

                                                   
Impact, design and access continue to play center stage in Mitch Kapor’s life. Through Kapor Capital, he is a seed-stage investor in social impact startups. He was the founding investor of UUNET, the first commercial Internet Service Provider; the founding chair of the Mozilla Foundation, the maker of the open source web browser Firefox; a founding investor of Real Networks, the first company to offer streaming media over the Internet; the co-founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation, which protects freedom and privacy on the Internet; and a founding investor and chair of Linden Research, the creator of the online virtual world Second Life.
 
As a philanthropist, Mitch Kapor is dedicated to ensuring equal opportunity for education. He is a director and major funder of the Level Playing Field Institute (LPFI) founded in 2001 by his wife, Freada Kapor Klein. LPFI works to increase fairness in education and the workplace by closing the opportunity gap and removing barriers to success. LPFI operates the Summer Math and Science Honors Academy (SMASH), which prepares students from under-represented communities to be competitive in science, technology, engineering, and math-related studies at top universities. Additionally, Mitch is a director of the Mitchell Kapor Foundation, which supports organizations that provoke social change in communities of color.