Riccardo Donadon was born in Treviso and, after graduating from high school, embarked on a psychology degree course. In 1990 he started working with his father but his great passion was the internet, so halfway through 1995 he accepted the challenge to create a work crew whose purpose was to tell the world the story of the Benetton sports teams via the internet. A few months later the first Italian virtual mall Mall Italy Lab (http://www.mall.it) was set up. In 1999 it was signed over to Infostrada and is still present in the commercial area of the Italian portal Libero.it

September 1998 marked a turning point: Riccardo Donadon left Verde Sport together with the 8 people who had accompanied him along the Mall adventure and founded E-TREE (www.e-tree.com). From this moment on, it is all about e-nergy, enthusiasm and pure e-speed

With Riccardo Donadon, in just a few months E-TREE became a reference point throughout Italy for its way of working, its informal outlook, its rapid growth, its business method and the undoubted skill in the solutions created. In 2001, when the company reached a 26-billion lire turnover and employed 160 people, it was sold in its entirety to the Etnoteam group.

In September 2003 Donadon left E-TREE and spent almost a year looking after his garden, relaxing and pondering new ideas and new initiatives.

In January 2005 Donadon founded H-FARM, the first private Italian incubator, with the aim of transforming innovative ideas into successful startups. H-Farm was born in the countryside of Ca' Tron, near Treviso, and in May 2008 the second epicentre in Seattle, WA, USA was established. H-farm already boasts an operational office in Mumbai, India, which will soon become the third epicentre for business.

Maurizio Rossi was born in Italy in '64 and belongs to the "bad boy" generation. He is connected to creative culture and inspired by design because it shapes new things as well as people's minds. He likes to observe and understand people's lifestyles and their local traditions.

In his previous-century experiences, Maurizio worked for a family-run company called Rossimoda, market leader of luxury women's footwear, at present part of the LVMH fashion holding, where his main commitment was new product-line spin-offs and market expansion. In 1990, within his family group, Maurizio launched Vista Point, a business unit dedicated to internationally expanding leading US action-sports brands such as NoFear, Spy Optics and DC. He has been involved in both retail and wholesale distribution networks and believes that the 21st century will bring the big shift; the internet, new information technologies together with clean energies and environmental issues will be the driving forces of this great opportunity and Maurizio Rossi has joined and invested in H-Farm to make his contribution to innovating models and to support the shift that is coming.

Franco Roman, graduates in Electronic Engineering with a thesis on technology for digital music at the University of Padua. He continues conducting research at the University until joining Data General, a company operating in Information Technology. While in Data General, he covers various technical and commercial positions until his appointment as Director of Indirect Sales, from where he spearheads the building of an extensive national network of dealers for the SMB market. In 1988 he becomes part of the startup team of Sun Microsystems during its very early days of in Italy. He takes the position of Indirect Sales Manager and the task of organizing the Italian market's burgeoning sales network. Later on, as a member of the management team, he follows the growth of the multinational company, with different at the international level responsibilities, including Internet Marketing Manager Europe, Marketing Director for Southern Europe, Director of Partner Sales. He leads the launch of Java and the creation of Java Developers Community, also through the organization of large events like the Italian Java Conference. In 2008 he is part of the international team responsible for the launch of Sun's Cloud Computing. He is a member of the board of directors of Sun Microsystems Italy Spa from 2000 to 2009.

Franco Roman joins H-Farm as a partner in September 2009. He brings his experience to support internationalization, alliance- and partnership-building as well as to advise and mentor startups at the Farm.

Vladimiro Mazzotti was born in 1969 in Cesena, Educated to think globally, everything about is future became crystal clear in 1984 when he bought his first Macintosh. Fueled by an insane passion for technology and innovation, in the mid 90s he started scouting new hi-tech products all over the world, building a strong network of relations and helping several companies penetrating the Italian market. In 2000 he cofounded E-Motion, with the idea of innovating the consumer electronics distribution business. E-Motion rapidly became the reference partner for foreign companies to succeed in Italian retail market and contributed in the successful launch of several iconic brands (Palm,Handspring,TomTom,Apple,HTC among them). Father of two, in November 2008 he decided to step down from his role as CEO of E-Motion and dedicate full time to his kids and wife. He couldn't resist to his friend Riccardo's challenge and in 2010 he joined and invested in H-Farm to bring additional enthusiasm and competence and to fully back up the journey.

Paolo Giovine was born in Turin in 1972, soon he started surfing the net with a Macintosh LC and VideoOnLine. He collaborates with many cultural initiatives in Turin and joins the publishing house Lindau as a partner, working with the firm until 1999. From 1999 to 2011 he covers several different positions in the publishing group "L'Espresso", first as the group central controller and later as CFO of the Internet Area (ex-Kataweb), leaving upon its restructuring in 2005; from 2005 to 2011 he is General Manager of the Radio&TV Area, leading operator in the Italian private radio sector, covering various aspects of the media business, managing the team that ran the digital switchover and built a new TV channel. Since 2010 he has invested in the creation of a new publishing platform for tablets, which also aims to create wonderful books for his three kids. Paolo loves his family, his friends, red wine, the countryside in autumn and books in any format; he would love to use the best of the past to create a better future.

Massimiliano Ventimiglia was born in Taranto in 1976 and studied between Rome and Venice, developing a growing interest in the world of communication, art and new media. After graduating in Business Economy, followed by a year’s studying at Warwick Business School in Great Britain and specific courses in internet marketing both at Venice International University and at SDA Bocconi University, Massimiliano started to work as a new media project consultant for many different companies, especially in the north-east of Italy. It was a valuable experience that gave him the opportunity to get to know several business realities and to solve their problems in the media communications area. During 2002 he began his collaboration with E-TREE, in charge of the Internet Marketing activities and soon became the point of reference for the agency’s major plans, thanks to his great competence, his ability to innovate and his creative sensibility. At the end of 2004 he left E-TREE and contributed to Riccardo Donadon’s new project, participating as a partner of H-Farm and founding, in 2005, H-art, aiming to create innovative experience for all digital media and becoming its Chief Executive Officer.

Rishikesh Shintre is a Chartered Accountant, Cost Accountant and a Company Secretary qualified from the respective institutes in India. He was a Gold Medallist in the final examination of the Chartered Accountancy course.

He is a very sincere and dynamic professional with experience of 10 years post qualification.

Rishikesh started his career as a consultant with Ernt & Young Corporate Finance in India. After working with E&Y for nearly 5 years, he co-founded a boutique Corporate Finance and Business Consultancy Company “Mindspring Advisors’ in 2004 at the young age of 28. About two years ago, Mindspring entered into a joint venture with an Italian advisory group and launched Agre, a specialized Indo-Italian consulting firm.

He has advised a number of corporates on M&A transactions (domestic and cross-border), private equity deals, corporate restructuring, debt restructuring, debt financing and feasibility studies. A few recent examples of strategic equity transactions include the amalgamation of Datar Switchgear with Larsen & Toubro, private equity transaction for the ‘Meru’ taxi service and divestment of a leading printing materials business to Saati SpA of Italy. A few examples of debt transactions include the debt raising for ‘Meru’ taxi service and Vanity Case Group of companies. He has also advised clients on new alliances, examples being Fami-Godrej and H-Farm-Times of India Group.

Rishikesh is an independent Director on the Boards of mid-sized companies and advises them on their business strategy in India, internal systems development, etc.

As a philosophy, he believes in not only working with clients as an advisor, but truly integrating with the client’s organizations and indeed becoming part of them as an integral member of their Management.

Max Ciccotosto was born in Italy, but he soon moved to USA for his studies. He is the founder of Wishpot is third startup. Before Wishpot Max founded two companies in Italy; one focused on consumer events and another a technology service provider. An experienced manager of both people and businesses, Max spent seven years at Microsoft before returning to his entrepreneurial roots. In the past three years he worked in mobility where he was granted for four patents and actively engaged in licensing deals with Nokia, SEMC, Palm and Motorola. Max holds a MS in Electrical Engineering from UW.

Riccardo Donadon was born in Treviso and, after graduating from high school, embarked on a psychology degree course. In 1990 he started working with his father but his great passion was the internet, so halfway through 1995 he accepted the challenge to create a work crew whose purpose was to tell the world the story of the Benetton sports teams via the internet. A few months later the first Italian virtual mall Mall Italy Lab (http://www.mall.it) was set up. In 1999 it was signed over to Infostrada and is still present in the commercial area of the Italian portal Libero.it

September 1998 marked a turning point: Riccardo Donadon left Verde Sport together with the 8 people who had accompanied him along the Mall adventure and founded E-TREE (www.e-tree.com). From this moment on, it is all about e-nergy, enthusiasm and pure e-speed

With Riccardo Donadon, in just a few months E-TREE became a reference point throughout Italy for its way of working, its informal outlook, its rapid growth, its business method and the undoubted skill in the solutions created. In 2001, when the company reached a 26-billion lire turnover and employed 160 people, it was sold in its entirety to the Etnoteam group.

In September 2003 Donadon left E-TREE and spent almost a year looking after his garden, relaxing and pondering new ideas and new initiatives.

In January 2005 Donadon founded H-FARM, the first private Italian incubator, with the aim of transforming innovative ideas into successful startups. H-Farm was born in the countryside of Ca' Tron, near Treviso, and in May 2008 the second epicentre in Seattle, WA, USA was established. H-farm already boasts an operational office in Mumbai, India, which will soon become the third epicentre for business.

Maurizio Rossi was born in Italy in '64 and belongs to the "bad boy" generation. He is connected to creative culture and inspired by design because it shapes new things as well as people's minds. He likes to observe and understand people's lifestyles and their local traditions.

In his previous-century experiences, Maurizio worked for a family-run company called Rossimoda, market leader of luxury women's footwear, at present part of the LVMH fashion holding, where his main commitment was new product-line spin-offs and market expansion. In 1990, within his family group, Maurizio launched Vista Point, a business unit dedicated to internationally expanding leading US action-sports brands such as NoFear, Spy Optics and DC. He has been involved in both retail and wholesale distribution networks and believes that the 21st century will bring the big shift; the internet, new information technologies together with clean energies and environmental issues will be the driving forces of this great opportunity and Maurizio Rossi has joined and invested in H-Farm to make his contribution to innovating models and to support the shift that is coming.

Moshe is currently a General Partner at Atlantic Capital Partners, a European investment firm. He has created several successful software companies in the past, which were sold for over US$ 700 million in aggregate. Furthermore, he is a frequent Angel investor in high-tech start up companies, and acts as a board member of a number of successful companies and start-ups. He is also a Venture Partner at Deutsche Telekom's T Venture. The author of several books, he was also a senior editor at Byte Magazine for over six years. Additionally, he was a member of the faculty at Tel Aviv University in the early 2000s. Before entering the high-tech business, he was a career officer in the Israel Defense Forces.

Thomas Panto was born in Treviso in 1975, he is President of TVision, the company that owns 3 Television networks in the Northeast regions of Italy. Moreover he is the CEO of PANTO Spa, the family company, leader in window frame production. He is also the Founder and President of the Onlus Foundation Giorgio Panto, a non-profit organization wicht operates in the Veneto Area to support the weaker population. He is the President of Light Farm, an initiative that aims to make the Foundation Giorgio Panto self-sufficient economically, by the realization of a big technology park for renovable energies. This project is developed together with Telecom Italia, is producing an important cash flow and aspires to be the place of reference in the territory for meetings and training activities.

Patrizio Bof born in Treviso 42 years ago, married with two children. From the school time he has been passionate from emergent technologies and how technologies could support the business evolution. He used his resources to propose the more appropriate solution during the technology evolution, improving offers to the continuous Business Management needs.

Patrizio Bof operates on the IT industry from eighteen years, he dedicated special attention to support organisations to manage their relations with customers. This special attention to "manage the customer" affirmed Patrizio Bof to be the Italian precursor on the CRM. Eighteen years ago Patrizio Bof founded his company (PAT Srl) after few years PAT become the Italian reference on the CRM solutions, in few years he expanded the company's subsidiaries and customers in many European countries. His just established company developed not only a CRM but also a Help Desk Software able to support organisations on the growing need to manage their customers. It was the period when organisation become more customer-centric, and the Patrizio Bof's vision to offer CRM solution has been winning, and place PAT as the CRM software solution reference in Italy and abroad.

Patrizio Bof dedicate high attention not only to produce internal solution but also looking for the best opportunity of partnership, dealing with important softwarehouse relevant partnerships in order to propose a complete and complementary overall solution to his customer. Alliances, partnerships, new products development, complete the wide vision promote from Patrizio Bof, oriented to support organisation to manage their customer using many technologies and modeules: mobile, Web, Call Center, Business Intelligence, Geomarketing support, Sales force automation.

Customers' offer has been always drove from the market standard, to whom Patrizio Bof dedicate particular attention in order to supply solutions "standards compliance". Patrizio Bof offer his professional competence to promote standards diffusion, become part of important associations with the scope to diffuse standards or recommendations, as ITIL for example.

During the 2009, Patrizio Bof become the majority shareholders not only in H-CARE but also in Soluta.Net. Patrizio Bof established a Group of company able to sustain each organisations' request relative to the customer management. H-CARE introduce an important innovation on the customer management, the extensive use of a Digital Assistant, in form of intelligence Human representation, as direct interface for the final user, interacting via voice and image throughout web, mobile, kiosk, and any interactive device. Soluta.Net has been wanted in the Group from Patrizio Bof for the extensive use of Software Engineering consultant activities, that in the future will influence the way companies could produce software and integrate Customer Management with Enterprise Architecture.

Once again Patrizio Bof had undertake an innovative union in his Group with the final objective to support organisation to adapt at the market changes, on it he maintained his passion and his commitment unchanged from his first steeps on the Information Technology world.

Andrea Messuti was born in Genova in 1976, he got his degree in Law at the University of Genova and the official qualification as a lawyer in October 2004. Immediately after he graduated he moved to Milan, where he started cooperating with the most important law firms at an international level, being involved with corporate law and M&A and extraordinary finance operations.

From 2007 to 2009 he lived in Boston, USA, where he worked for Sullivan & Worcester LLP, one of the first law firms in Boston and took part to several transactions of Venture Capital and M&A, both domestic and cross-boarder, mostly in the areas of Life Science and ICT. He also worked on projects of found formation for the constitution of national and international funds in Private Equity and Venture.

During his stay in Boston he also achieved an LL.M. in Banking and Financial Law at Boston University School of Law.

As a speaker, Andrea periodically attends workshops and conventions about legal subjects related to investments of technology Venture Capital. Andrea is married and father of three dughters. He likes jogging, skiing and he loves mountains and good cuisine.

Luca Marzotto was born in Rome in 1971. Graduated in Law in 1995, he starts working for the Marzotto Group. His on site experience covers the whole textile chain, from production to management control and marketing. From 1997 until 2003 he gains experience on the Asian market, while in June 2003 he is appointed Director of Marlboro Classics, the sportswear division of Valentino Fashion Group SpA.

The Zignago Group. Since September 2005 he has been (and still is) CEO of Industrie Zignago Santa Margherita SpA (at the present time Zignago Holding SpA) and Vice Chairman of Santa Margherita SpA. Within the Zignago Group, he holds the positions of Chairman of SM Tenimenti Srl, Sole Director of Zignago Servizi Srl, Vice Chairman of Kettmeir SpA and Cantine Torresella Srl, Director of Ca’ del Bosco Srl. In 2008 he becomes the Chairman of Zignago Power Srl and Bagnolo Power Srl. Finally, he is Director of Zignago Vetro SpA, Vetri Speciali SpA and Vice Chairman of New High Glass Inc.

Other Businesses. Luca Marzotto’s businesses range over a wide variety of fields. In fact, since March 2007 he has been Director of Banca Popolare Friuladria SpA and since June 2008 he is one of the Chairmen of Federvini. In the world of fashion, he is a Director of Valentino Fashion Group as well as of Hugo Boss AG.

Environmental Sustainability. Luca Marzotto is an engaged upholder of the current environmental policies, paying a particular attention to the energy issue. In his role of Chairman of Zignago Power Srl, he has been promoting the realization of a biomass power plant, conceived in compliance with the most advanced technologies aimed at the production of green energy based on renewable sources.

Nicola Riello was born in Legnago the 20th december 1971, with a law degree from the university of Bologna, Master of “Bilancio e Controllo di Gestione Aziendale” from the University of Padova and degree in business english from the University of San Diego.

Nicola continued his professional path by covering various management roles within family industrial organisations. In 2001 Nicola Riello founded the Riello Investimenti group, a private equity holding of industrial participations. Today Nicola is the president and Chief Executive Officer of the company which manages around 35million euros worth of investments.

In 2007, the company becomes Riello Investimenti Partners SGR and launches its first investment fund, Gate, reserved for institutional investors and dedicated to private equity operations. The fund is now worth around 65 million euros with many important financial and banking institutions and industrial groups taking part of it.

Stefania Baruffato was born in Vicenza in 1970. She graduated in Arts and Philosophy in 1995 at the University of Padua. She won a scholarship at IRIGEM Institute and at the same time she started studying as gemologist. Her idea was working in goldsmith companies in the Vicenza area with a specialization that would have helped her having a more global view of this field.

At the same time she was studying and working and travelling all over the world: Australia, India, Africa,... After a short work experience in publishing and two years spent as a teacher, she signed a contract for the" Educational intervention planning" related to the Europen Social Funds. This assignment was interrupted as she was employed by an italian Bank in January 1998. Her bank experience last 13 years , her main tasks being related to the private customers portfolio's management.

While she was working for the bank, she took a Master degree in "Banking & Financial" at Bocconi University in Milan. In february 2011, she left the Bank to hold the role of CEO for the Red Circle Investment, a Financial Company of Renzo Rosso 's family. This adventure begins with the acquisition of the 20% of H-Farm, in the Board of Directors as councillor on the behalf of Renzo Rosso 's family.

Stefano Rosso Head of Strategic Brand Alliances Diesel Spa