The South Florida Technology Alliance celebrated the 30th anniversary of the birth of the IBM personal computer in Boca Raton. The South Florida region has produced tech innovations that have shaped today’s IT platforms on a global level. The development of the PC, the first Smartphone, application virtualization are just some of the technologies that were created in South Florida. Chris Fleck VP of Mobility Solutions at Citrix Systems hosted a panel discussion with these notable contributors that helped change the world and made it a smaller place.
John Sculley – the former President and CEO of Apple
Mark Templeton – Current President and CEO Citrix Systems
Ed Iacobucci – the founder of Citrix in Fort Lauderdale, and the original Microsoft-IBM OS/2 Architect.
Patty McHugh – one of the infamous 12 at IBM that developed the PC in Boca Raton. Also known as the “Mother of the Motherboard”
Gary Wisgo – led engineering for the “Simon”, the first Smartphone a joint development of Bellsouth and IBM
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The meeting was held on site of the original IBM Boca campus. On display was the original IBM PC 5150, the IBM XT, the BellSouth-IBM Simon Smartphone, Motorola devices and other significant tech memorabilia developed in south florida and elsewhere. ( South Florida Business Journal Photo Gallery)
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Local Editor of InfoWeek’s BrainYard, David Carr wrote this story from his coverage The Power of a Good Video
SFBJ Editor Kevin Gale covered the event in his article Tech seeds still growing 30 Years after the IBM PC’s launch
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In addition to the Tech legend panelists, the “Who’s Who in South Florida Technology” that are building our tech future also planned to attend this historic event including:
- Dr. Zee Aganovic – CEO and Founder of HiConversion, the leader in web conversion optimization
- Frank Azor – General Manager and Co-Founder of Alienware, now the gaming PC division of Dell
- Dr. Tom Bradicich – Fellow at National Instruments, former IBM Server CTO
- Dan Cane – Founder of Blackboard the leading provider of education apps and services, now CEO of Modernizing Medicine
- John Duffy – CEO and Founder of 3Cinteractive, the fastest growing Mobile Software provider on the Inc. 500
- Bob Fleming – Founder of Prism Venture Partners the $1.25 billion Tech VC firm, now Managing Director Inlet Partners
- Will Fleming – CEO & Founder of MotionPoint, the world leader in website translation & globalization
- Rene Garcia – Co-Founder and President of Software FX , a leading data visualization software company
- Gary Gofman – President of IFFT provider of inovative tablet PC’s and eReaders found at major distributors and retail stores
- Bob Greenberg – Microsoft Employee # 5
- Jerry Huang – CEO & Founder of Gladinet, provider of Cloud access solutions for Desktop and file servers
- Chet Heath – IBM Inventor of Plug-n-Play technology & Co-Founder of OmniCluster Technologies the pioneer of Blade Servers
- Traver Gruen-Kennedy – CEO and Founder of Molecular Power Systems
- Scott Moody – Co-Founder of Authentec, the top provider of Fingerprint sensors shipped on hundreds of millions of devices
- Brad Pedersen – Chief Architect and Senior Fellow at Citrix Systems
- Michael Platner – Co-Founder of Layered Technologies a leading Cloud provider, also a partner at LBBS Law
- Lee Rautenberg – Inventor & developer of “PC Anywhere” the original remote PC software solution
- Akshay Sharma – CTO of early smartphone firm Calypso Wireless and VoIP entrepreneur, currently an Analyst at Gartner Inc.
- Dr. Tom Walsh – CEO of NEXX Systems, a leading Semiconductor Equipment manufacturer enabling the next generation of mobile devices
- Myk Willis – CEO and Founder of Myxer, a leading mobile technology company with 47 Million users
