Audience

Forest Baskett, PhD
General Partner, NEA

Forest joined NEA in 1999 as a Venture Partner and became a General Partner in 2004. Forest focuses on information and energy technology investments. Present board memberships include Aprius, Arch Rock, Audience, Azuray Technologies, Bandgap Engineering, Chelsio Communications, Fulcrum Microsystems, Fusion-io, Illumitex, Luxtera, Serious Materials, SiBEAM, Solar Junction, and Tableau Software.  Prior to NEA, Forest was Senior Vice President of R&D and Chief Technology Officer of Silicon Graphics Inc. He founded and directed the Western Research Laboratory of Digital Equipment Corporation from 1982 to 1986 before joining SGI. Prior to that, he was a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University from 1971 to 1982. Dr. Baskett received a BA in Mathematics from Rice University, a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

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Steve Hall
Managing Director, Vulcan Ventures

Steve Hall is a Managing Director and head of the Venture Capital investment effort for Vulcan Capital. He has over 9 years of direct venture capital experience, having executed early stage investments across a range of technology sectors. His investment focus areas include Web services, Semantic Web, embedded networks and alternative energy. He oversees Vulcan's investments in Ember Corporation, Zoominfo, Radar Networks, Audience, Evri.com, Infinia Corporation, Vulcan Spectrum and Imperium Renewables. He also sits on the board of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Early in his venture career, Mr. Hall was profiled by Upside magazine as a "VC to watch" in the article, "Bold: A New Generation is Changing the Face of Venture Capital." He has been a frequent guest lecturer on venture capital investing and deal structuring at Columbia, UCLA and UC Boulder law schools.

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Carver Mead
Gordon Moore Professor of Computer Science, Cal Tech

Carver Mead is a key pioneer of modern microelectronics. His 40-year academic and industry career touches all aspects of microelectronics, from spearheading the development of tools and techniques for modern integrated circuit design, to laying the foundation for fabless semiconductor companies, to catalyzing the electronic design automation field, to training generations of engineers, to founding more than twenty companies. He is the Gordon and Betty Moore professor emeritus at the California Institute of Technology, having taught there for over 40 years.

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George Pavlov
Partner, Tallwood Ventures

George brings broad experience in venture capital, private equity, operations and technology to Tallwood. His ability to take a high-level business perspective helps him guide portfolio companies through complex decisions. George spends a portion of his time thinking about how Tallwood can expand beyond its early stage venture practice, which helps the firm plan for the future. George serves on the boards of directors of Amulaire Thermal Technology, Astute Networks, Audience Inc., Calypto Design Systems, Crossing Automation Inc., M2000, Quintic Corporation, and SVTC.

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Lloyd Watts, PhD
Chairman, Founder & CTO, Audience

Lloyd Watts is the founder of Audience, and as CTO provides ongoing guidance and impetus for the company's core technology direction, as well as the vision of neuromorphic computing for voice systems. Prior to Audience, he was principal researcher at Paul Allen's Interval Research Corporation, where he collaborated with the world's leading auditory neuroscientists on his vision of a machine that could hear as people do. Before Interval, Watts developed integrated circuits and software for satellite communications systems, telephony systems, optical character recognition systems and LCD displays for Microtel Pacific Research, Synaptics, and Arithmos. He also invented a low-delay digital speech coding algorithm that was sold to Cisco in 1999. Dr. Watts is the author of 3 issued and 7 pending patents. He holds a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, a Master's degree from Simon Fraser University in digital speech coding; and a BS in Engineering Physics from Queen's University.

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Peter Santos
President & CEO, Audience

Peter Santos brings to Audience more than 20 years experience in product management, business development and engineering in semiconductors, software and telecommunications. Before joining Audience, he was VP of Marketing & Business Development at analog IP & tools supplier Barcelona Design, where he led the company's product & business model definition as well as its product launch and early revenue. As VP of Marketing at DSL technology provider Voyan Technology, Santos led the company's identification and penetration of the DSL market opportunity. Previously, he was head of worldwide ASIC product marketing at LSI Logic, driving revenue from $600M to $1.2B. Santos also was Director of Design Services Marketing at Cadence Design Systems, providing operational structure which enabled a doubling of annual bookings two years running. He holds a BA in Chemistry from Colby College, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.

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