Nova Spivack
Mr. Spivack is a recognized expert on emerging technologies, knowledge management, and high-tech entrepreneurship—particularly in the areas of the Internet, software, and online services.
In 1994 Mr. Spivack co-founded EarthWeb, one of the first commercial Internet ventures in the world, where he was responsible for leading corporate strategy, product development, marketing and business development. At EarthWeb he was responsible for acquiring and managing major customers and partners including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Stock Exchange, Bertelsmann, Sony, AT&T, IBM, Reuters, Sun Microsystems, Reuters, US West, Morgan Stanley, LexisNexis, The Red Cross, Digital Equipment, Macmillan Publishing, Microsoft, and others. In 1995 Nova worked closely with Sun Microsystems to help launch and promote JavaT technology by starting www.Gamelan.com—the first open-source software community and marketplace for JavaT software.
In 1998 Mr. Spivack helped EarthWeb complete the first-ever Internet "business-to-business" IPO—one of the all-time biggest first-day gainers in Nasdaq history. Mr. Spivack left the board of EarthWeb in 1999. Subsequently he co-founded nVention, an incubator, with Sarnoff Laboratories and SRI International, and advised and angel-invested in numerous startups in areas including the space industry, energy, MEMs, software and the Internet. In 2001, Nova started Lucid Ventures to incubate proprietary advanced technology ventures. At that time he also formally initiated Radar Networks, Inc. as an in-house venture.
In the late 1980's Mr. Spivack developed advanced hypertext database software for leading technology companies including Thinking Machines and Xerox/Kurzweil. Mr. Spivack also worked as a business intelligence analyst at Individual, Inc., where he was responsible for using artificial intelligence to filter approx. 1000 news sources in order to provide daily strategic news feeds for the top decision makers of dozens of Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 technology companies.
Mr. Spivack also helped to pioneer space tourism in 1999, when he flew to the edge of space and participated in zero-gravity training with the Russian space agency. Mr. Spivack gained a BA in philosophy (focus on artificial intelligence and cognitive science) from Oberlin College in 1991, also participated in undergraduate computer science and physics research at MIT, attended the University of Massachusetts as a high-school student, and earned a professional degree from The International Space University (the international business school for the space industry) in 1992.