Corralling the Crowdsourced Community

Jennifer Pahlka is moving on from the role of co-chair and general manager of the Web 2.0 Expos for TechWeb to become Executive Director of a new non-profit, Code for America. Previously she chaired Enterprise 2.0, and before that was the director of the Game Group at CMP. During her tenure in the games business, she oversaw the dramatic growth of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) from 1995 to 2003 and launched a number of notable programs, including the Independent Games Festival, known as the Sundance of the game industry, and the Game Developers Choice Awards. Her roles included publisher of Game Developer magazine and Gamasutra.com, the premiere web site for game developers, and executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), an independent non-profit association serving game developers around the world. She has served on the advisory boards of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and the GDC and held a board of directors position on the IGDA for three years. She is a graduate of Yale University.

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Jen Bekman is an art-dealer, curator, writer, and entrepreneur whose inventive approach to the art world has created new models for connecting artists and collectors. Her experience as an internet media executive informs a multi-faceted enterprise, including her eponymous Manhattan gallery (which pioneered the Lower East Side art scene upon its opening in 2003), the online endeavor 20×200 (a place to buy limited-edition fine-art prints at ridiculously affordable prices), and the international photography competition Hey, Hot Shot!

Jen Bekman’s projects have been featured in numerous international publications including, The New York Times, Art in America, Der Spiegel, Martha Stewart Living, and Wired. She frequently lectures and participates in panels about art, technology, media and marketing and is a popular portfolio reviewer at photo festivals. Her writing has appeared in GOOD Magazine and photo-eye Booklist. American Photo named her an Innovator of the Year in 2006 and she was honored with the Rising Star Award at Griffin Museum of Photography’s annual Focus Awards in 2008. 20×200 was recently named one of “America’s Most Promising Startups” by BusinessWeek.

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Jeffrey is your average 29-year-old tattooed metal-head with an eye for design and nose for tomfoolery. His time is spent as partner and Chief Creative Officer of the Chicago-based, community-business-centric skinnyCorp.

Jeffrey started out as a design partner for the Threadless website, but soon joined the team full-time. As CCO, Jeffrey oversees design and strategy for skinnyCorp’s numerous community-based web projects. These projects range in scale from Threadless, a multi-million dollar tee shirt business and ongoing design competition, to YayHooray, a just-for-fun design and technology community site.

Jeffrey’s work has been published numerous times, and he has had the pleasure of speaking to students and peers all over the world from MIT to the University of Copenhagen to CNN to NPR.

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