Victoria Slivkoff

Victoria Slivkoff is the Executive Managing Director of Extreme Tech Challenge, the world’s largest startup competition and ecosystem for founders building tech innovations to improve the world, as inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She also serves as the Head of Ecosystem at Walden Catalyst Ventures, a VC firm helping early-stage companies in the U.S., Europe, and Israel build the next generation of category-defining businesses in deep tech, with a focus on AI and data.

Victoria is passionate about driving high-impact vision, strategy, and operations to transform complex innovation ecosystems at scale, and serving as a trusted partner for entrepreneurs with breakthrough technologies creating future-defining companies.

Victoria comes from a multidisciplinary background in corporate development, investment, investor relations, business strategy & operations, and management consulting. She’s experienced in forming public-private partnerships to drive investments and scale innovative technologies in the U.S., Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

Young Sohn

Chairman of Semiconductor Advisory Board, Samsung Electronics
Chairman of HARMAN Board of Directors
Former Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer, Samsung Electronics
Founding Managing Partner, Walden Catalyst Ventures
Co-Founder, Extreme Tech Challenge

Young Sohn is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose passion is building businesses and fostering emerging technologies that have the potential to transform the world for the better. Currently, he serves as Chairman of Semiconductor Advisory Board, Samsung Electronics and Chairman of the Board of HARMAN. He is a Founding Managing Partner at Walden Catalyst Ventures, and most recently was Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung Electronics, where he led strategy for global innovation, investment, new business creation, and spearheaded the company’s $8 billion acquisition of HARMAN.

Young served as CEO of two successful, public Silicon Valley companies and on the boards of Arm, Cymer (ASML), and others. Under his leadership as CEO and board member, he took PLX Technologies, Synnex Technologies, and Inphi public. He was also a seed investor in some of the industry’s most innovative companies including Berkeley Lights, Fungible, Zoom, Graphcore, and TTTech Auto.

Young co-founded the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC), a global startup competition inspired by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He also serves as a senior advisor to the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, is a member of the board of directors at Cadence, and is an advisor for the University of California Innovation Council.

Bill Tai

Angel Investor; Partner Emeritus CRV; Co-Founder, Extreme Tech Challenge

Bill Tai has been funding startups as a Venture Capitalist since 1991 and has had 22 of his startups become listed companies. He has served as Board Director of 8 publicly listed companies (AWRD EGHT HUT8 IAWK NPIX TMTA TUNE and IMGO) that grew from startups he funded at their formative stages. Originally trained as a chip designer, he holds a BSEE with Honors from University of Illinois and an MBA from Harvard. He co-founded as Chairman – Treasure Data (acquired by ARM/Softbank), IPInfusion.com (Tokyo TSE:4813) and iAsiaWorks (IPO via Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley) and is Board Chairman of Hut8 Mining (NASDAQ:HUT). He is among the first angel investors in Canva, Color Genomics, Class.com, Dapper Labs (Cryptokitties / NBA Topshot), Safety Culture, Tweetdeck/Twitter, and Zoom Video, where he was the 1st committed backer. He is co-founder of ACTAI Global a 501(c)3 community of Athletes Conservationists Technologists Artists & Innovators supporting 1) environmental conservation and 2) economic empowerment via entrepreneurship. He is creator or cofounder of the worldwide startup competition www.ExtremeTechChallenge.org, the annual www.NeckerBlockchainSummit.com and the annual www.WestTechFest.com, Western Australia’s largest technology festival held annually in Perth where he is an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University.