Tony Chen secured for Digital Directions
Managing director of Group M China – Tony Chen – will speak at Digital Directions.
The announcement:
Thursday 3 March 2011, Doltone House, Sydney
Sydney, February 18, 2010 – One of China’s foremost digital media strategists, the Managing Director of Interaction GroupM China,Tony Chen, will be speaking at Digital Directions, Australia’s leading conference day for digital thought leaders, on March 3, 2011.
China now has more than 420 million internet users and is predicted to reach 1 billion mobile subscriptions this year, and with a 70% year-on-year growth in digital advertising.
From his 16-year career developing and managing leading digital media brands in China, Chen will share many of the insights he has gained while working for companies like Dell, RealNetwork, eBay and Yahoo! China. He will also share his predictions for the emerging trends and lessons to be learned about online and mobile advertising, and what can be learned from the dynamics of the China market.
Other confirmed speakers include media reformist and Professor at Columbia University Tim Wu, entrepreneurial journalist and strategist Kevin Anderson, and Vanessa Fox, creator of Google’s Webmaster Central and author of Marketing in the Age of Google.
Digital Directions will be held in Sydney on March 3, 2011. See digitaldirections.com.au for further details.
Confirmed Speakers
Kevin Anderson is a London-based digital strategist, freelance journalist and journalism trainer, with more than a decade of experience with the BBC, where he was the first online journalist outside of the UK, and The Guardian, where he was blogs editor, then its digital research editor. He has also worked for global news services Reuters and Al Jazeera. He now helps global news organisations develop and execute digital journalism strategies.
Tony Chen, managing director for GroupM Interaction, is responsible for the strategic growth and operation of the group’s digital business in China. His 16-year career in China saw him as general manager for Dell consumer direct, chief operating officer for RealNetwork, marketing vice-president for eBay China and vice-president of operations for Yahoo! China. He has a master’s degree in Communications from New York University and an EMBA degree from Fudan University.
Vanessa Fox is the creator of Google’s Webmaster Central and the author of Marketing in the Age of Google. She’s also an entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners, contributing editor at Search Engine Land, and host of the weekly podcast Office Hours. She shares her marketing perspectives at ninebyblue.com and content for developers at janeandrobot.com. Seattle Business Monthly has called her a “cyberspace visionary”.
Tan Le is the co-founder and President of Emotiv, a neuroengineering company with interface technology for digital media taking inputs directly from the brain, transforming the way humans interact with computers. Le, a technology entrepreneur, also co-founded and ran SASme. In 1998, she was named Young Australian of the Year and voted one of Australia’s 30 Most Successful Women Under 30. The World Economic Forum named her a Young Global Leader in 2009.
Safdar Mustafa is the Head of Mobile Media at news network Al Jazeera based in Doha, Qatar. In this role, he is responsible for using mobile media to broaden audience use, distribution and engagement with Al Jazeera content through initiatives such as mobile websites, applications and widgets for a range of different platforms. His previous experience includes positions with Ericsson, Lucent Technologies and IBM in the UK.
Rajat Paharia is the founder and chief product officer of Bunchball, which develops platforms to motivate user behaviour online. Paharia has a background in design and technology, having been co-director of the Software Experiences Practice at design firm IDEO. He has a Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, with a focus on Human Computer Interaction, and an undergraduate degree from the University of California Berkeley.
Anthony Rose is a technical and product visionary, most recently chief technology officer for YouView, the venture creating an open IPTV platform that brings internet connectivity to the UK’s free-to-air platforms. His career spans back through work with the BBC, where he was Future Media Controller for the Vision & Online Media Group, a CTO role at Kazaa/Altnet, and a position as Vice President for Technology at Sega Australia New Developments.
Robert Tercek is one of the world’s most prolific creators of interactive content with creations on every digital platform including satellite TV, game consoles, the internet, interactive TV and mobile networks. Most recently the President of Digital Media at The Oprah Winfrey Network, he has also been Senior Vice President of Digital Media at Sony Pictures Entertainment and Creative Director at MTV. He has co-founded five start-up ventures, including video game developer 7th Level.
Baratunde Thurston is the web editor at satirical website The Onion, capitalising on a career as a comedian and author specialising in technology and politics. He co-founded the black political blog Jack & Jill Politics in 2006, and hosts Popular Science’s Future Of on the Science Channel. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair and The Independent (UK), as well as on radio station WNYC. He is the author of three books, with the fourth to be released this year.
Tim Wu is a Professor at Columbia Law School and the chair of media reform group Free Press. His work includes papers on censorship, network neutrality and telecommunications policy, and he writes for publications such as Slate magazine, the New York Times, and Forbes. He is the author of two books, 2010’s The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, and Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World with Jack Goldsmith.
Source: Digital Directions press release
