Team

Victoria Slivkoff
Executive Managing Director

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.

Shail Rajan
Process and Operations Lead
John Martin
Head of Ecosystem

Board Members

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

Young Sohn

Chairman of Semiconductor Advisory Board, Samsung Electronics

Chairman of HARMAN Board of Directors

Board Member of ARM

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 business executive and investor. Young is currently a Founding Managing Partner at Walden Catalyst Ventures, an over $550M early-stage venture capital fund dedicated to deep-tech investments focused on data & AI across North America, Europe, and Israel.

Previously Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer for Samsung Electronics, as well as CEO of two successful Silicon Valley public companies (Inphi, Oak) and board member of Arm, Cadence, Cymer (ASML), and others, he now serves as Chairman of the Board of HARMAN International. Young was also an important seed investor for various innovative companies, such as Berkeley Lights, AI21 Labs, Zoom Video, Graphcore, and TTTech Auto.

Young is a co-founder of the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC), a global start-up competition inspired by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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

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.

Catherine Bischoff
CEO at Sovereign Nature Initiative
Lars Reger
Chief Technology Officer & Executive Vice President, NXP Semiconductors

Advisor

Karin Schmid
Advisor

Karin Schmid

Karin has a track record of 24 years experience in the international energy infrastructure development. Her activity as an EPC contract manager involved expatriations in Europe, Africa and Asia. She looks back at a dozen construction projects for oil & energy majors, before turning to the development of offshore wind farms in France, South Korea and Taiwan. Karin earned a Master of Arts degree in Italian, English and German at the University of Vienna, Austria, after obtaining a diploma at an Austrian vocational institute specialized in business administration. She completed her education with executive training at HEC Paris.

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