GreenBeat 2009: Utility Experiences with Smart Energy

Andres Carvallo

Andres Carvallo is currently the Chief Information Officer at Austin Energy, where he is responsible for the technology vision, planning, development and operations across the enterprise. Since February of 2003, Andres Carvallo has been driving a wireless and SOA transformation to deliver a fully-integrated and self-healing enterprise.

Andres Carvallo coined the term Smart Grid in April of 2007 and he is the Chief Architect of the first Smart Grid built in the US in 2009. In addition to his responsibilities as CIO, Andres Carvallo is member of the 8 person executive team, and member of the Innovation and Opportunity Development executive board. Outside of Austin Energy, Andres Carvallo is Chairman for the Large Public Power Companies' Smart Grid Task Force, Chairman of the Operations, Systems Integration and Modeling Group at the Pecan Street Project, a board member of the Center for Commercialization of Electric Technologies, and a technology advisor to GE Energy, AT&T, Center for Electromechanics at the University of Texas, and several start-ups.

Andres Carvallo is a requested speaker on CleanTech, Smart Grid, SOA, Wireless, and Running IT as a Business. He is co-author of Information Technology Leadership and CTO Best Practices Collection. And he is an honoree to many awards, including IT Executive of the Year by the Association of Information Technology Professionals in 2005, Premier 100 IT Leader by Computerworld in 2006, Best in Class of Premier 100 by Computerworld in 2006, CIO 100 Award by CIO Magazine in 2006, InformationWeek 500 by InformationWeek Magazine in 2007, 2008, and 2009, Computerworld's Top 12 Green IT Companies in 2008 and 2009, and Computerworld Honors Laureate, Finalist, and 21st Century Award Winner in 2009, Hispanic Business Top 100 Influentials in 2009, and CIO of the Year by Energy Central in 2009.

Andres Carvallo has over 23 years of experience and great knowledge of the Energy, Software, Computer, and Wireless industries. Prior to Austin Energy, he held senior executive titles at four start-ups and large companies like Philips Electronics, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Borland. Andres Carvallo started his career as at Microsoft. Andres Carvallo received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas, and has completed executive management programs at the University of Idaho, Stanford University, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Paul De Martini

Paul De Martini is vice president of Advanced Technology in the Transmission & Distribution Business Unit of Southern California Edison (SCE). Advanced Technology is SCE's R&D organization responsible for SmartGrid development, which includes advanced grid technologies, electric transportation, smart metering and integration of energy smart consumer products.

Prior to joining SCE in 2002, Paul De Martini held senior management positions with ICF Consulting, Sempra Energy, Coastal Corporation and PG&E Corporation. Paul De Martini is a member of the California Energy Commission's PIER Advisory Board, EPRI's Smart Grid Advisory Committee, the Utility Smart Grid Executives working group and co-chair of the Western Electric Industry R&D Collaborative. Paul De Martini earned a MBA from the University of Southern California and a BS from the University of San Francisco. He also completed the technology management program at the California Institute of Technology.

Paul De Martini is currently a Fellow of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Matt Marshall

Matt Marshall is the editor and CEO of VentureBeat, which he founded in 2006. He covered the venture capital and startup beat for the Mercury News from 2001-2006. Marshall significantly expanded the newspapers coverage of venture capital and startups during that time, in daily articles and a weekly column called the VC Insider, and then online with his blog SiliconBeat from 2004.

Marshall was awarded Journalist of the Year by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists in 2002, and the James Madison Freedom of Information award in 2003. These awards were for a series of articles he wrote in conjunction with two successful Mercury News lawsuits, in part instigated by Marshall, against California's public pension fund (CalPERS) and the University of California. The lawsuits sought disclosure of the financial performance of venture capital and other private equity funds that CalPERS and UC had invested in, arguing that state taxpayers and retirees had a right to know these results. As a result of these laws suits, public employees now have full access to information on the performance of their retirement investments.

Marshall was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 through 1998. In 1999 he wrote a book while in Germany, The Bank: the Birth of Europe's Central Bank and the Rebirth of European Power. He has also written for the Washington Post and several other publications. Marshal is also the executive producer of DEMO.

Marshall has a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University.

Dan Yates

Daniel Yates, CEO and Founder, is responsible for the vision, strategy, and leadership of OPOWER. OPOWER is the second company that Daniel Yates has started. Prior to founding OPOWER, Daniel Yates was founder and CEO of Edusoft, the leading educational software company providing assessment platforms to US public school districts.

Daniel Yates led the company from inception to national success and recognized leadership in the market and sold the 150-person, $20M revenue company to Boston-based publishing company Houghton Mifflin in 2004. After his departure from Houghton Mifflin, Daniel Yates embarked on a year-long adventure with his wife, driving from the Arctic Sea in Alaska to the southern tip of South America. Over the course of this trip, Daniel Yates became aware of the shocking degradation of the environment, and he subsequently resolved to dedicate his life to sustaining what's left of our beautiful natural world.

In 2009, Daniel Yates was named a "Tech Titan" by Washingtonian magazine and was a finalist for the Ernst and Young 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year award. Daniel Yates received his B.A. in Computer Science, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Harvard University.