Turning Passion into Success with Jon Kraft, Co-Founder of Pandora

Few people have the opportunity to turn their passions into reality, but Southern California is bursting at the seams with people doing just that! Orange County continues to push boundaries in the tech world. To kick off the summer, Tech in Motion (http://www.techinmotionevents.com/) is excited to have Jon Kraft, cofounder and previous CEO of Pandora Media. Beyond Pandora, Jon has followed his passions creating several successful companies. Jon will discuss his previous experiences with the most popular music brand in the world and how he is influencing technology now through his most recent startup, Thrively.

About Jon Kraft (https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=14711&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=iZxt&locale=en_US&srchid=2118136121399937814447&srchindex=1&srchtotal=30&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A2118136121399937814447%2CVSRPtargetId%3A14711%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary)
Jon has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur in software and consumer digital media. He is currently CEO and co-founder of Thrively, a software start-up focused on helping children discover and pursue their passion in life, as well as being a co-founder of the early stage business accelerator, LiftOff. Before launching his latest ventures, Jon was Chief Operating Officer and a member of the founding team at UberMedia, Idealab’s prominent Internet start-up and currently the world’s leading independent developer of mobile social apps. Before that, he was Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer for Big Stage Entertainment, Inc., an advanced avatar platform company recognized by Forbes in 2009 as one of America’s 20 Most Promising Companies, and sold to Image Metrix (IMGX:OTC) in 2010. Jon previously served as Co-founder and CEO of Pandora Media, the largest and fastest growing online radio product in the world with over 150M registered users in the U.S. (NYSE: P). Jon was also a Co-founder of Stanford Technology Group, an innovator in the relational OLAP market, funded by Sequoia and Hummer Winblad, and acquired by Informix Corporation in 1995. Jon served four years as Chairman of the Technology Council of Southern California, and seven years as a board member of the Beverly Hills Basketball League. Jon holds a B.A. from Stanford University.

About Thrively (http://www.thrively.com/)
Thrively is a family website that help kids discover and pursue their passions in life. Their approach is to focus on children’s strengths and introduce them to those activities where they are most likely to Thrive. The Thrively Strength Assessment is the world’s first comprehensive online assessment for kids. They developed it in collaboration with two of California’s seven board certified pediatric neuropsychologists, and designed it to be fun and engaging as well as highly accurate. It measures everything from focus and creative thinking to analytical skills and athletic ability. Their patented algorithms then find the activities in their database that best fit each child’s core strengths. Their goal is to be the one trusted resource for families that understands their children’s strengths and helps nurture those strengths to unlock their potential.

With more than 120,000 enriching opportunities for kids, their activity database is the largest of its kind. More than simply storing the basic information about each activity and the organizations that offer them, they have encoded these opportunities with core strength metadata driven by the same strength taxonomy used to build the Thrively Strength Profiles. Their database includes a critical mass of local activities within most major metropolitan areas, as well as offering tens of thousands of unique online and national opportunities. Thrively also curates thousands of inspirational videos and shares them with kids whose strengths and interests are aligned.

Schedule:

6:00pm-7:00pm Networking

7:00pm-7:15pm Introductions

7:15pm-8:00pm Discussion/Presentation

8:00pm-8:15pm/8:30pm Q&A

A heartfelt thank you to our sponsors, Workbridge Associates (http://www.workbridgeassociates.com/) and Jobspring Partners (http://www.jobspringpartners.com/) for their generous financial support.

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