Tony Karrer, Ryan Barker, Grant Wiles, Zach Asman, & Mark Pace

Tony Karrer

Dr. Tony Karrer has been defining technical strategy and leading the development of web/software solutions for more than 20 years. He has been a part-time CTO at numerous startups and is known for being the original CTO of eHarmony. Tony was an associate professor of Computer Science and has consulted to many companies seeking to use technology in innovative ways including Credit Suisse, Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan, Universal, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun and Symbol. He was valedictorian and attended USC as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, receiving an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science. He is well known for his eLearning Technology blog and organizes the Los Angeles CTO Forum.

Ryan Barker

Ryan Barker is the Chief Technology Officer for Zefr, leading the effort to sanitize the largest UGC platforms in the world through the use of cutting-edge data science technology. Ryan brings over 20 years of experience bringing data science solutions to life that help make the world a better place. Prior to Zefr, Ryan was a software architect for eHarmony, where he led the platform engineering team.

Grant Wiles

Grant Wiles is the VP of Data, Research, and Polling at NextGen America. A veteran of Democratic campaigns, Grant has worked on campaigns on both the state and national level including stints at the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Zach Asman

Zach Asman is the Analytics Engineer at NextGen America. Prior to starting his tenure there in Summer 2021, Zach served as the Nevada Data & Analytics Director for the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign. He also has seven years of experience in the private sector, working in Analytics and Business Intelligence in E-Commerce, AdTech, online marketing, and healthcare consulting.

Mark Pace

Mark Pace has been working with Internet technologies since the late 80's, starting his career in his teens as one of those nerds who worked in the back of the computer store. In the 90's, he evangelized using the internet while many were calling it a fad. He continued to work with internet technologies including founding one of the first social networking sites in the mid 90's that combined searchable pictures, video streaming, and over 2M users. In the 2000s, he invented and patented a content identification technology that is used in every cloud-based spam detection engine. From then until now, he continued to work with internet and video streaming, ultimately ending up as CTO of a low latency streaming leader, Red5. Of course, he can't be held to just one segment of emerging tech, so he's jumped on AI train and provides consulting and design services based on the latest LLMs and tooling.