Confirmed 2010 Finalist Competition Judges |
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Kevin Harrington, CEO of TVGoods.com, LLC is widely acknowledged as the pioneer and principal architect of the “infomercial” industry. Since producing the industry’s first infomercial in the 1980s, Harrington has financed more than 500 product launches resulting in sales of more than $4 billion worldwide with 20 products reaching individual sales of over $100 million each, and creating dozens of millionaires. In his latest venture, Harrington is an investor on a new ABC show called “Shark Tank”, in which budding entrepreneurs compete in pitching their potentially moneymaking ideas to business experts in hopes of securing investment financing. Harrington’s book, ACT NOW!, explains how he innovatively turns ideas into million-dollar products. Examples of popular products available through TVGoods.com currently are: Tony Little fitness, George Foreman cleaning, Jay “the Juice Daddy” Kordich Health, Flying Lure fishing, Wolfman Jack music, and the Dual Saw, marketed by the late legendary pitchman Billy Mays. One TVGoods.com product, the Air-Cutter, a precision vacuum haircutting system, will be featured in the upcoming film Father of Invention starring Kevin Spacey.
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| Karen Holbrook, Ph.D. Dr. Holbrook is Vice President for Research and Innovation at the University of South Florida, one of the nations top public research universities and one of the public universities designated by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Prior to her appointment at the University of South Florida, Dr. Holbrook retired from the Presidency of Ohio State, the largest university in the nation, after serving from 2002 to June 2007. Before joining Ohio State, Holbrook held executive-level positions at the University of Georgia and the University of Florida. She spent the majority of her academic career as a professor of biological structure and medicine at the University of Washington, School of Medicine. For more information on Dr. Holbrook, click here. |
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Jen Holloway, former Bay News 9 anchor, is also an accomplished inventor and finalist on Every Edisons with her innovative exercise product Workout 180. Jen graduated with a degree in Journalism from Kennesaw State University in Atlanta. She also started her broadcast career in Atlanta at WTLK TV-14 as host of the city's only week night, live, entertainment program. After Atlanta, Jen worked at KPRC Channel 2 in Houston, TX for a couple of years.....then on to Tampa Bay. Jen is an active volunteer and fund-raiser for The American Cancer Society, The Red Cross, The Leukemia Society and Junior Achievement here in the Bay Area. For more information on Jen, see www.jenniferholloway.com |
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Sebastian Dewhurst, Ph.D. In 2000, Dr. Dewhurst developed the concept of a new Rapid Application Development software product, later to become EASA. He recruited the EASA team, closed the first sales of the newly released EASA product, and obtained a US Patent covering the EASA concept. In 2008, Seb oversaw a management buy-out of EASA, which continues to grow, and to serve customers such as Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, Zurich Financial, and Canon. Dr. Dewhurst obtained a First Class degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oxford in 1988, with an internship at NASA’s Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. From 1988 to 1993, while working for AEA Technology’s Environmental & Process Engineering group, Dr. Dewhurst authored six papers which were accepted at various international conferences, as well as obtaining his Doctorate from Oxford. His doctoral thesis, entitled “The Application of Three Dimensional Laser Doppler Anemometry”, covered subjects such as fluid mechanics, turbo-machinery, heat and mass transfer, computational fluid dynamics and data visualization, and was relevant to industrial applications such as aircraft engines and nuclear reactors. He also held lectureships in Mathematics, Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics at the University of Oxford. For more information, see www.easasoftware.com |
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Valerie McDevitt is Assistant Vice President for Research in the Division of Patents & Licensing for the University of South Florida. In April 2008, Ms. McDevitt was appointed by Governor Charlie Crist to the Governor’s Task Force for the Study of Biotech Competitiveness. As a Congressional Science Fellow with the American Chemical Society in Washington, DC, Ms. McDevitt worked as a subcommittee professional staff on a variety of topics including Superfund Reauthorization and Clean Water Act issues. A graduate of Emory University School of Law, Ms. McDevitt also has an MST in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Florida and a BS in Chemistry from Siena College. For more information on Valerie, see http://www.research.usf.edu/pl/ |
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| Israel Morejon is CEO and President of LEDNovation, a developer and manufacturer of environmentally-friendly, state-of-the-art LED lighting technology. He founded Integrated Engineering Technology (IET) designing technology for lighting, hearing aids, kidney dialysis systems, robots and the core waveguide technology used in speed guns. At Johnson & Johnson he designed acute care patient monitoring products. At Jabil Circuit, he architected a diverse group of products including automotive, wireless, storage, computing devices, laptop docking stations, camera modules, PDAs, smart phones. wireless modem technology and optical tomography cancer systems in addition to architecting LED-based technology. A prolific innovator, Mr. Morejon has numerous pending and granted patents in a variety of technology areas. Mr. Morejon is an engineering graduate from the University of South Florida. For more information, see www.lednovation.com |
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