Speakers

Meet our Speakers, Panelists, Judges, and Workshop mentors. 

Photo of Bill Reichert

Bill Reichert

Partner, Pegasus Tech Ventures

Veteran Silicon Valley legend and global early-stage investor

Bill Reichert is a Partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, specializing in deep technology investments and serving as Chief Evangelist of Startup World Cup. With 20 years in venture capital, he co-authored “Getting to Wow! Silicon Valley Pitch Secrets for Entrepreneurs” and has a diverse background including entrepreneurship, consulting, and public service. Bill is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Photo of Ron Weissman

Ron Weissman

Chair of Board of Director, Angel Capital Association

Ron Weissman is not only Chair of Board of Directors for ACA (250 US Angel groups, largest in the world), but he is also the Chairman of the Software Industry Group of the Band of Angels (original angel group in Silicon Valley).

Ron Weissman has been a venture capitalist and angel for nearly 25 years, with 70 investments and has served on more than forty boards of directors. He was CMO at Verity when the company won the large-cap Turnaround of the Year. Before Verity, he was a direct report to Steve Jobs at NeXT and was recruited out of Brown University where he ran Academic Computing. A former professor of Italian Renaissance History, he worked concurrently at civilian and national security agencies of the US Government. Ron has spent much of working life in Europe and is a former Fulbright Scholar. For the past 25 years, Ron has advised startups, mature companies and regional and national governments about private capital investing best practices and angel group formation, often partnering with US MAC. For this work, Keiretsu Forum (NW) has awarded Ron its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Photo of Ron Weissman

Berthold Baurek-Karlic

CEO of Venionaire Capital AG;

President of European Super Angel Club

Berthold is founder and CEO of Venionaire Capital AG. As venture capital expert, M&A deal-maker, serial entrepreneur and angel investor he is the driving force behind key operations and scaling business development of our company. Berthold studied Management Science at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). In 2023, Berthold Baurek-Karlic was awarded as Business Angel of the Year in recognition of his longstanding contributions to the startup ecosystem in Austria and his exemplary dedication to his portfolio companies.

Colin Donohue

CEO, Kernel
Co-founder, Global Innovation Dojo

Venture catalyst- bridging founders, investors, and expertise

Haytham El-Azaizy

Managing Parner, Intuitio VC (Saudi Arabia)

Top 40 Under 40 MENA

An exited founder with over 16 years of extensive experience in
senior leadership and digital transformation, Haytham specialize in auditing
companies and providing financial advisory services. His expertise
extends to evaluating companies and creating detailed reports for
investors looking to allocate funds across various stages, including
pre-seed, seed, series A, B, and C.

Sameer Sortur

Founding Partner, SquareCircle Ventures

Global Startup Ecosystem Connector

Sameer Sortur is the Founder & CEO of SquareCircle Ventures, a global impact investment and advisory firm based in Palo Alto. With over 20 years of experience, he specializes in scaling growth-stage tech ventures across MEA, APAC, and the US—covering B2B SaaS, AI, PropTech, and fintech. Sameer is also MD‑GCC for Founder Institute and a seasoned mentor, having guided 50+ startups valued over $50M

Aditya Kathpalia

Director of India and MENA, Orbit Ventures

Aditya has been an active evangelist of entrepreneurship and innovation for more than a decade. He is leading Orbit Ventures in India and the MENA region. Orbit Ventures has invested in 250 emerging-markets startups with value-added capital and partnership.

He was previously associated with Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority as an Innovation Consultant for their Anjal Z program and Chiratae Ventures, one of the leading VCs from India as the Head of Ecosystem & Growth initiatives.

Over the many years he has advised and supported some of the top firms like Shell, Reliance Jio, Target, Maersk GSC, NetApp, Intel, Google, Amazon AWS, YES Bank and Axis Bank with their initiatives for startups across Energy, FinTech, Enterprise SaaS, Health and Hardware tech sectors.

Aditya holds a computer science engineering degree and got exposed to technology and coding at an early age. He is a track certified race car driver and is known for his enthusiasm for traveling and networking.

Avigail Manashe

Founder, Turkic-American Angel Network

Avigail is the founder of Turkic-American Angel Network – a platform bridging angels across Central Asia, Turkey and Azerbaijan and their US disapora with investment opportunities in both geographies. She is also the Chapter President of Insider Circle for Central Asia.

She has led national and international initiatives in tech ecosystem development, venture infrastructure, financial education, and civilizational storytelling, collaborating with institutions such as Bloomberg, working with USAID, JETRO, UNDP, GIZ and the governments of the Turkic states and USA. Her leadership contributed to Kyrgyzstan’s venture investment law, increase national ICT exports, and bring international attention to the region’s rising talent and vision.

Indica Amarasinghe

Ecosystem Leader, Qatar

Indica has more than 20 years been in the technology industry, both in the private and public sector. He is a business and marketing professional, being a Fellow of the Chartered institute of Marketing, UK and the Chartered Management Institute, UK. He holds a master’s in business administration and is a Certified lean startup coach. 

Indica has been part of the Startup Ecosystem in Qatar for the past nine years plus and has been actively involved in training, coaching and mentoring startups with the incubators and accelerators in Qatar. He is closely connected to the local and regional angel investor network and has also been a judge and mentor for many local, regional and global startup initiatives. He is currently the Chapter Director of Startup Grind Qatar.

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