Andrew Laffoon is the visionary CEO and Co-Founder of Mixbook, the #1-rated photo book company. With an award-winning platform and collaborations with brands like Martha Stewart, Crayola, and Hallmark, Mixbook has helped millions of customers transform photos into cherished keepsakes.

Mixbook has been at the forefront of innovation in the space, including launching the first fully customizable photo book service in 2008, introducing the first dedicated photo book creation app (Mosaic) in 2012, and pioneering the first AI-driven photo book platform (Montage) in 2013.

Recognized by Inc. Magazine’s “30 Under 30” and Forbes as “America’s Most Promising CEO Under 35,” Andrew started coding at age 10, started his first tech company at 15, and has co-authored more than 20 patents. Before Mixbook, he received a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UC Berkeley, where he continues to serve on the Advisory Board and lectures through the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.

Andrew’s passion for cultivating a trusting and open work environment has helped Mixbook become a culturally rich organization that empowers creativity and fosters meaningful connections. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his family where he continues his focus on shaping Mixbook into the go-to platform for people who want to turn their photos into beautiful, shareable, and timeless art.

Andrew has attended every Visual 1st conference except one, which he missed due to a new baby!

Andy is a Managing Director at Palmarés Advisors with over 20 years of product, corporate development and general management experience in wireless, mobility, and cloud services. As a General Manager at Amazon Web Services, Andy built and ran several businesses in the Mobile and IoT cloud services segment and helped to identify and acquire several companies.

Prior to Amazon, Andy worked at Nokia as a corporate development and operations executive leading the acquisition of Avvenu, Oz Communications, and Novarra. Andy led the Novarra team and launched the Nokia Xpress mobile web service growing the team to 250 people while growing the user base to more than 100 million active users.

Prior to Nokia, Andy worked in product management and engineering roles in software and semiconductor companies including Nokia Networks/RoofTop Communications, S3, Exponential Technology, and Intel.

Andy holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MBA from the University of California-Berkeley. Andy is a registered Series 79 and Series 63 investment-banking representative.

Arturo completed his Bachelors in Science in Mechatronics Engineering (Summa Cum Laude) in 2012 at Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria, and later received his PhD from University of California, Santa Barbara in Dynamical Neuroscience in 2018 working under Miguel Eckstein.

During his PhD, Arturo’s work encompassed themes such as visual metamerism, peripheral processing, visual search and human-machine interaction. He then moved to Harvard University's Department of Psychology to work with Talia Konkle to explore the role of foveation in humans and machines.

Arturo is currently a postdoctoral research associate at MIT's Center for Brains, Minds and Machines working with Tomaso Poggio on theories of visual representational learning in humans and machines and biologically-plausible solutions to adversarial robustness.

He has published works in ICLR, NeurIPS and CVPR, and is one of the co-founders of SVRHM.

Arturo is also a talented Artist.

Bill is the President and CEO of DirectMail 20|20, the parent company of the flagship product Frintz™. With over 37 years of experience as a printing and marketing entrepreneur, Bill consistently stays at the forefront, driving innovation and success including partnerships and global expansion, demonstrating his leadership and "lead by example" work ethic. He is well-regarded for his ability to bring forward creative ideas that push the boundaries of the industry.

The inception of Frintz came from a brilliant idea Bill shared with a local inventor. Bill's determination led him to secure trademarks, patents, and copyrights to protect Frintz's intellectual property.  Utilizing patented technology, Frintz offered high-quality printed photos delivered to customers free of charge, funded by advertisements placed by businesses within each order. This innovative approach resulted in a win-win situation, where customers enjoyed their free photos while advertisers reached a highly engaged audience with a 100% open rate.

Bill Testa's journey exemplifies entrepreneurial spirit, community engagement, and dedication to making a positive impact, both in business and beyond.

Brian has led as Gooten’s CEO for seven years, transforming the business into a software company pioneering the future of eCommerce and winning contracts with the world’s largest retailers. Brian has a deep background in finance and operational excellence at venture-backed, early-stage growth companies and focuses on managing Gooten's risk, cash, and operating position.

Brian has established himself as an on-demand thought leader and has built a deep network of relationships across the industry, having now worked in it for nearly half the time it has existed. Internally, Brian acts as Gooten’s chief operator, running the supply chain, finance, legal, compliance, and operations divisions of the company.

Prior to Gooten, Brian gained experience in the accounting and finance industries, previously serving as the Chief Financial Officer of Buzz Points, Inc, based in Austin, Texas, a FinTech company delivering local rewards for community banks and credit unions. Before that, he worked at Deutsche Bank in New York and the Venture Capital Services Practice at Deloitte in the Washington DC area.

At Deutsche Bank, he focused on serving clients in the Industrial Technology and Global Diversified subsectors in a variety of capital markets and M&A situations, including both public and private transactions as well as both domestic and cross-border Mergers & Acquisitions. At Deloitte, Brian aimed his energies at venture-backed early-stage growth companies, providing accounting and audit services ahead of potential public market share offerings, private sales, or further growth capital raises.

Brian holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from James Madison University in Virginia and an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

Bruce has been at the intersection of photography and electronic output since the onset of the digital age, then running professional photo labs and supporting many of the major Northwest brands of the 1980’s.

Moving full-time into digital imaging in the early 90’s, he was chosen by Bill Gates to build out the initial image library at Interactive Home Systems/Continuum Productions, which became Corbis.

Entering the 2000’s, Bruce began supporting new and existing companies in digitizing and monetizing their content, growing the initial Apple iPhoto book business, and supporting many companies moving into the direct-to-consumer print model.

In 2005 he joined the founding team at Blurb.com, where he managed global print product development and production strategy, print technology, order fulfillment, partner relationships, customer support, large order services, and logistics.

He currently is an Executive Consultant at PrintReady Network LLC.

The volume photography industry is still growing and is as stronger than ever.  Parents still love and desire the great tradition of school photography and yearbooks.  Since the pandemic, nostalgia has run stronger and deeper in the hearts of people and our culture. 

However, during this same time, the industry has seen dramatic technological advances that radically impact quality, operational efficiency, printing, and customer experience.  In the same breath comes  regulated changes that also impact the industry in things like student data privacy and cybersecurity.

During the pandemic, David Crandall had the idea to bring back the former school photography industry trade association known as PSPA and after weeks of calls and meetings, leaders in the industry all over the US agreed.  They founded SPOA or School Photographers of America, a 501c6 trade association, whose mission is to educate, advocate, promote, protect and preserve the great traditions of school photography and yearbooks. 

Today, David leads the trade association and its efforts on standards and guidelines to not just protect the industry but increase its participation and awareness. 

In addition, SPOA has partnered with a few industry leaders to create a charitable arm of the association through a new foundation to serve displaced students that may not have the means to afford a yearbook or school picture package.  The American Foundation of School Pictures and Yearbooks will be the nation's leading provider in gifting deserving students with the great memories of school pictures and yearbooks.

Davide achieved a master's degree with top marks in electronic engineering from the University of Udine, Italy, in 2016.

In 2022, he successfully completed his Ph.D. in Information Technologies at the University of Klagenfurt.

During the same year, he co-founded PiktID, a startup where he assumed the role of CEO.

PiktID originated from the idea of safeguarding individuals' personal identities in media and has since evolved into a multi-product company that develops innovative solutions using generative AI.

With his expertise as a skilled problem solver, Davide enjoys combining technology and human creativity.

With 15 years of experience in the stock content industry, Dmitry has led global production studios to create one of the world's most extensive stock portfolios.

As the visionary behind everypixel.com, a leading search engine for licensable images, Dmitry is a pioneer in AI-driven content innovations and introduced solutions in computer vision, AI keywording, and synthetic content creation.

Today, Everypixel Labs offers APIs for technologies, including face swapping, text-to-speech, and text-to-face.

Holding a degree in Applied Mathematics and based in Bali, Dmitry is an avid surfer and a passionate neuro-art enthusiast.

Elodie is a recognized creative and business leader in the visual media space. She is the CEO of CatchLight, a media organization building a new collaborative model for visual journalism at the local and global levels. 

In 2016, Elodie was named a JSK fellow in media innovation at Stanford University where she researched the monetization of photography in the age of platforms. During her 11 years at Getty Images, she oversaw and helped build Getty Images’ content offering and helped lead its strategic development. Elodie was Getty Images’ Senior Director of Strategic Development based in the Bay Area focusing on Getty Images’ relationships with platforms such as Google, Instagram and Pinterest.

Previously, she managed content partnerships with over 300 large media companies globally such as Vice, Conde Nast, National Geographic, amongst others.

Elodie co-founded Getty Images' high-end portraiture and fashion division, Contour, which she led until 2014 representing the work of over 100 high-end portrait and fashion photographers.

She also co-founded the Getty Images Instagram grant.

Elodie is the author of numerous essays as well as two books: one2one, published by TeNeues and Kant In Between Hope and Despair, published by L’Harmattan.

Eray, an entrepreneur and investor with a background in computer science and design, co-founded IMG.LY in 2017. His drive to blend technology and design has helped the company create innovative solutions that streamline the development of creative tools, workflows, and automations for businesses.

IMG.LY's flagship product, CE.SDK, helps hundreds of brands such as Brother, Disney, and HP to deliver cutting-edge photo editing and personalization experiences for their users. IMG.LY technology is integrated in a wide range of printing products, starting with photobooks, greeting cards, stickers, and apparel design.

Eray believes that streamlined, easy-to-use editing and personalization experiences, combined with generative design or automations like variable data printing, are a massive growth opportunity for the industry. With IMG.LY, he now helps his customers unlock this potential.

With a keen interest in generative AI and large language models, Eray also continues to explore new frontiers and contribute to the growth and innovation of the creative tools ecosystem. 

Hans is president of Suite 48 Analytics and chair of Visual 1st. He is also member of The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA).

Prior to founding Suite 48 Analytics, most recently Hans was sr. director of market research at multimedia software company, Nero, and director of product strategy at desktop publishing software company, Quark. 

He has directed the first European Future Image Mobile Imaging Summit and chaired various Seybold Seminars PDF Conferences, as well as the Electronic Publishing Magazine Print Workflow Summit.  

Hans co-founded Piczo, a teen photo sharing site that in its heydays counted over 25 million registered users. 

Hans was also director of professional solutions at imaging software company, Live Picture.  

Hans holds a Masters degree in Industrial Economics from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. 

Dr. Ilke Demir leads Intel’s Trusted Media research and productization, where her research focuses on generative models, 3D vision, deepfakes, adversarial generation, geospatial ML, and computational geometry.

She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in CS from Purdue and her B.S. in CEng from METU. Afterwards, Dr. Demir joined Facebook as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist, where their team developed the breakthrough innovation on generative street addresses.

At the intersection of art and science, Dr. Demir contributed to several animated feature and VR/AR short films in Pixar Animation Studios and Intel Studios, respectively. Prior to Intel, she had a brief startup experience (with a successful acquisition) and she was also a visiting scholar at UCLA. She received numerous awards and honors such as Jack Dangermond Award, Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship, ACM Distinguished Speaker, and IEEE Industry Distinguished Lecturer, in addition to her best paper/poster/reviewer awards.

Her scientific articles received significant attention from 150+ media outlets around the world, including The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, and BBC. She has been invited to over 120 talks and panels worldwide, on the wide range of topics her work spans.

Israel (Iz) is the CEO and Co-Founder of GoodOnes, which brings order to the chaos in our camera rolls with AI.

Before GoodOnes, Iz was leading Product Management and Engineering teams at Google, Airbnb and Dropbox, and before that, Israeli Intelligence Corps.

True to the Bay Area cliché, Iz is an avid hiker, biker, camper and photographer with 80,000 photos in his camera roll.

Jae is the co-founder and CEO of Twelve Labs, an AI research and product company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Twelve Labs specializes in advancing multimodal video understanding, aiming to transform the way we interact with videos—making them as accessible and comprehensible as text. The company's suite of APIs offers unparalleled video search, classification, and text generation capabilities based on video content.

Prior to Twelve Labs, Jae held engineering and research positions at the Korean Cyber Operations Command, Amazon, and Samsung.

He earned his bachelor's degrees in computer science from UC Berkeley.

Joaquín has 18+ years experience in the tech industry and is co-founder and CEO of Freepik, a world leading design and creativity company that provides a wide range of content creation tools such as Freepik, Flaticon, Slidesgo, Videvo and Wepik.

With a background in engineering, and while working in Paris, he helped develop Loquo, a classified ads website that was sold to eBay in 2005.

Later on, Joaquín founded Panoramio, the first Spanish company bought by Google, where he spent 3 years working, in Zurich, as Tech Lead of Panoramio itself. Once settled in Málaga, he co-founded Freepik in 2010.

Joaquín has been named one of the Top 100 Entrepreneurs in Spain, he’s given several tech and entrepreneurship related speeches in national and international forums and has co-founded other digital companies such as PressPeople, Thumbr.io or BeSoccer.

John leads the Google Photos engineering team, helping people share and reminisce about their life’s memories.

He’s based in Los Angeles where he is a site lead for Google and has been at Google for over 16 years.

Prior to Photos, John focused on building fan-creator communities at YouTube.

John received a BS from UCLA and an MS from UCSD.

He loves photography, travel, and spending time with his 2 daughters.

Jordan, ICD.D, is a dynamic entrepreneur with expertise in strategy, marketing, and privacy and cyber security governance.

Jordan is currently the VP, Marketing and Product and Chief Privacy Officer at Edge Imaging, the largest Canadian-owned digital imaging company focused on school photography and yearbooks.

She is also the Founder of bumpboutique.ca, a maternity and nursing wear e-commerce boutique.

Giving back is important to Jordan. She has spoke at many school photography industry conferences and volunteers her time on various non-profit Boards. She is currently a Board member with Give a Mile.

Jordan is based in Dundas, Ontario, Canada where she and her partner Kris are raising their four wonderful daughters aged 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Michael Francello (or “Francello,” as most people call him) is Director of Innovation at Shutterstock, a leading global content and creative platform.

He spends his time collaborating both internally and externally to understand how Shutterstock.AI-powered tools and applications can help clients navigate an uncertain future and ultimately create with confidence.

Francello resides in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, Rebecca, and their cat, Torche.

Michael Liou is President, corporate strategy and development at Chooch, a leading Silicon Valley based visual artificial intelligence startup, where he brings a diverse set of strategy, marketing, investing, venture capital, and product development skills.   

He has an extensive background in venture capital where he has been an active early-stage investor investing in numerous early-stage startups. Notable investments include Robinhood, Zapier, Rescale, Policy Genius, FLYR, Paystand, TrueAccord, and Carbon Health.

Michael currently is an Intel Ignite Mentor, serves on the Waterman Ventures Investment Committee, and serves on the board of Microsoft’s Digital Native Customer Advisory Board. 

Previously, Michael worked for Citi Private Bank serving ultra-high net worth family offices in the Bay Area. Prior to his role at Citi, Michael founded Anvil Capital Advisors and spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs as a managing director overseeing several business units both in NY and SF.

Upon graduation, he started his career at Bell Laboratories Research. Michael holds an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business, a MS from Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a BS from Brown University. 

Mike Tringe is the Co-Founder and CEO of CreatorUp, a digital content studio and generative AI platform company based in Los Angeles with offices worldwide. He has over twenty years of experience in entertainment, and technology, working as a filmmaker, and executive.

Under Mike’s leadership, CreatorUp has transformed how digital content is created and purchased. Its unique “Studio as a Service” platform allows organizations of all sizes around the world to create generative AI, animated, live-action, immersive XR, and live-streamed content at scale by combining CreatorUp’s proprietary GenAI platform (Daisy) with a global network of talented creative professionals.

Daisy was launched In early 2023 and helps creators produce engaging content, including lifelike avatar videos, while streamlining their workflow processes. Hundreds of companies globally have relied on CreatorUp for custom content that has positively impacted their organizations.

Prior to CreatorUp, Mike worked in development positions with Blip Networks, Vuguru, Creative Artists Agency, and National Geographic Films.

He received his B.A. in History and Science from Harvard University and his M.F.A. in Film Production from the University of Southern California.

As an LGBTQ+ founder, Mike is passionate about making great jobs accessible to a diverse pool of global creative talent through training and technology. CreatorUp is the product of that vision.

As Managing Director of Soquel Group, Robert Blumberg specializes in patent prosecution, and portfolio analysis. He works with clients to create patent portfolios that have strategic value and that build company value. Robert has prepared, prosecuted and evaluated patent applications for a wide range of companies. Topics covered by these patents include digital imaging, artificial intelligence, rights management, social networks, gesture recognition, e-commerce and alternative energy devices. Robert typically acts as a part of the management team when working with smaller companies, determining IP tactics and strategy, and assisting with acquisitions.

Formerly, Robert co-founded and served as executive vice president of Live Picture Inc., where he directed, variously, engineering, product management, and marketing for more than ten imaging and Internet products that won over 30 industry awards. While at Live Picture, Robert co-founded and served as the Chairman of the Board of the International Industry Imaging Association (I3A), a consortium that develops new standards for digital imaging.

Robert technical background includes a M.S. degree in engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a B.A. degree in computer science from the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC). While at UCLA, Robert worked under a Hughes Aircraft Fellowship, developing advanced radar systems.  After receiving his M.S., Robert spent several years with Contel Information Systems building computer networks for aerospace, defense and intelligence applications.

Robert is a registered US patent agent. He has authored articles on data management and holds numerous patents.

Sami is a general partner at Spintop Ventures, a Nordic early stage tech venture capital firm.

Sami has his roots in mobile imaging technologies as co-founder of Scalado, which grew to become a leading mobile imaging software company in the world with more than 1 Billion licenses sold worldwide to essentially all the OEM’s and many of the sensor/chipset makers.

The company was acquired by Nokia in 2012, and later integrated into Microsoft where Sami served as Director of Photography reporting to Seattle HQ's.

As the Senior Director of Content for Adobe Stock, Sarah drives strategy and execution for content and the artist community on the Adobe Stock marketplace business.

For over a decade in stock photography, she has helped build financially successful collections driven by data and trend analysis. She has also dedicated herself to championing artists and helping creative professionals succeed.

Prior to joining Adobe, Sarah served as co-owner and CEO of Blend Images, a leading stock photography agency focused on diversity and inclusion. She is past President of the Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA) and Board Member.

Troy is CEO of IMAIGE, an AI platform that personalizes automated multimedia curation and insightful media labeling. Before IMAIGE, Troy helped establish the San Diego Legion, a Major League Rugby franchise, as the founding COO. His experience in crafting engaging experiences allowed him to contribute significantly to the team's growth.

He established that expertise as a Director at KPMG, a prominent management consulting firm, where his focus on human-centric digital strategy helped organizations optimize and achieve digital transformation.

Outside of applying AI to solve large-scale problems, Troy dedicates his time to family, creating art and social advocacy.

Yong is the director of LibAI Lab, an institution dedicated to artificial general intelligence. He is an expert in the field of artificial intelligence and founder of two successful AI platforms, cutout.pro and promeai.com. Prior to starting up the LibAI Lab, Yong has worked in internationally renowned consulting engineering firms.

Yong’s primary areas of expertise include computer vision and large language models. He has also extensively worked on generative AI applications in fields such as e-commerce, architecture, and interior design. Additionally, he has experience in operations research, genetic algorithms, multi-objective optimization, and high-performance computing.

Yong received his Ph.D. in Computational Science, Civil Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University in 2007. He has published several papers in prestigious conferences and magazines and has been awarded multiple times for his work.