Ever seen the show ‘Shark Tank’? We’re bringing the hit series to life at this month’s Tech in Motion DC event! Join us as 5 local startups pitch their products to a panel of respected local entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists, etc. This event will specifically spotlight companies local to the DC tech scene looking to make a name for themselves, who will receive constructive feedback on their pitch, the market viability of their product, and other constructive input.
Our Shark Tank will be held at the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston, located at 12012 Sunset Hills Road. There will be pizza and soda available for this event.
Leo X. (Lex) McCusker, PhD, is the Director of the New Venture Competition at George Washington University. Previously, he was Dean of the Business School at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ.
Prior to joining Stevens Institute, Dr. McCusker worked for 23 years at AT&T and Bell Laboratories in software development, professional technology services, technology licensing and intrapreneurship. He was CEO of the AT&T text-to-speech startup, Natural VoicesTM.
He is also an angel investor and member of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the Keiretsu Forum.
Lex holds a doctorate in Experimental Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Dartmouth College.
Andrew Der joined Verizon Ventures in 2013 and focuses on strategic marketing and business development for the firm. Andrew has over 10 years of experience in innovation, strategy, digital marketing, and emerging technologies, focusing primarily on consumer products and web / mobile products. Before coming to Verizon Ventures, he was the Senior Manager of Digital Strategy & Innovation at American Express and worked at futurethink, Coty, EffectiveBrands, and Aon Hewitt. Andrew received his BBA in Corporate Strategy & International Business from the University of Michigan.
Evan MacQueen is a Vice President at Core Capital Partners, having joined in 2011 and focuses on investments in the analytics, cloud, cyber-security, mobile, and technology infrastructure spaces.
Previously, Evan was an Associate at BIA Digital Partners, a family of mezzanine funds focusing on the media, telecommunications, and technology-enabled services sectors.
Evan is a mentor at Acceleprise, an active member of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association, and a frequent speaker and panelist on venture capital and entrepreneurship. He also heads VC in DC, a networking group for DC-area investors at DC-area seed, venture, and growth investors.
Evan holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Washington and Lee University.
Andrew Winslow joined Grotech Ventures in 2013 and is a Vice President at the firm. He focuses primarily on investment opportunities in software, e-commerce, healthcare IT, and payments. Andrew is an active board observer for Healthcare Interactive, Parse.ly, Passport, SpotRight and White Ops. Prior to joining Grotech Ventures, Andrew was an Associate at WestView Capital Partners, a middle market private equity firm. Previously he was an Associate at Summit Partners, a venture capital and private equity firm.
Andrew received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance along with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame.
Conor has been involved with e-commerce and business enabling technology since the 1990s. His in-depth knowledge of software, business and technology comes from designing and implementing emerging technologies as an advisor to and an executive at startups, multiple successful angel investments and contracting with various branches of the military and intelligence community.
Conor puts his knowledge to work at Higher Logic, where he leads his team in implementation of software solutions designed with clients’ needs in mind.
In the past he served as a Network Security Engineer with BBN Technologies, the organization that architected the Internet and first e-mail technologies. Conor graduated with a B.S. from the University of Virginia after completing the requirements for both Electrical and Computer Engineering and he received his MBA from University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business.
