Keynotes

Jonathan Marshall

XBMC is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. Created in 2003 by a group of like minded programmers, XBMC is a non-profit project run and developed by volunteers located around the world. More than 50 software developers have contributed to XBMC, and 100-plus translators have worked to expand its reach, making it available in over 30 languages.

Jonathan has been a developer on the project since 2003 and is currently the president of the XBMC foundation, a non-profit set up to provide direction to the XBMC project. He is a self described "Mathematician currently masquerading as a Statistics lecturer" in the Statistics department at Massey University.

Jonathan will talk about the XBMC story: From underground to hotels and superyachts.

Sebastian Marino

Wellington-based New Yorker Sebastian Marino has has swapped a glittering lifestyle at the pinnacle of the US film industry for the quieter shores of New Zealand where his new company is creating software designed to revolutionize the fashion industry.

Sebastian is a film industry veteran with over 15 years of experience as both an artistic supervisor and lead researcher with A-list studios including Industrial Light + Magic, Sony Pictures Imageworks & Weta Digital. In 2002 he received an Academy Award (Science & Technology) for his contribution to Industrial Light + Magic's "Creature Dynamics System", which included tools for creating computer generated cloth, hair, skin and musculo-skeletal structures.

He has published 7 papers at top-tier ACM conferences, which have been cited over 300 times. Sebastian is a member of ACM/SIGGRAPH as well as The Visual Effects Society.

Sebastian will discuss his thoughts on the software bottleneck in the digital fabrication revolution.

David Brebner and Ben Wilde

Palmerston North-based Unlimited Realities develops and markets software that delivers the next generation of user experience for consumer PCs and tablets. They help their customers - global PC manufacturers (OEMs) - differentiate their products by focusing on the ease of use, fun and quality of the users’ interaction with the device. Their Fingertapps brand was launched in 2008 with the first multi-touch and GPU accelerated consumer software on the market, marking the start of a strategic shift away from their original service-based operations. They work across a range of technologies and platforms with a core focus on interaction and rendering to provide the best user experiences.

David Brebner, founder and CTO of the company, is responsible for its technology strategy and development, and leads its extensive programme of research and development into user interaction and computer graphics.

Ben Wilde, VP Marketing and Business Development, has played a key role in the transformation and growth of the company. He brings 15 years experience in the global software industry, and a strong commercial and product focus, to the company’s strategy and operations.

David and Ben will be giving a candid presentation on the challenges that the company has faced, will share some of their successes to date and present a glimpse into what the future holds for what is fast becoming an internationally successful software development business.