Gil Elbaz is an accomplished entrepreneur and pioneer of natural language technology. In 1998, Gil co-founded Applied Semantics Inc. (ASI) which developed contextual advertising products, including ASI’s AdSense. In 2003, Google acquired ASI and Gil stayed on as the director of engineering for the Santa Monica office, continuing to work on AdSense and other products. Prior to founding ASI, Gil worked in engineering roles at IBM, Sybase and SGI. In 2007, Gil left Google to found Los Angeles-based Factual, which provides access to definitive global data for powering web and mobile apps, mobile advertising, and enterprise solutions. Factual’s first offering is its Global Places suite of data and APIs, which provides access to more than 58 million places in 50 countries along with entity mapping, resolution, and geo ad-targeting services. Factual is funded by Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures. Gil earned his bachelor’s degree from Caltech with a double major in Engineering & Applied Science and Economics. Gil is on the Board of Trustees at Caltech and the X-Prize Foundation, and is also an active angel investor.
The Forest for the Trees: The Meanings of Data
This session from Techonomy 2012 looks at how technology allows for rapid insights into huge swaths of data, and what this means for business and society. Appearing as speakers are Qliktech’s Lars Björk, Factual’s Gil Elbaz, Vivek Ranadivé of TIBCO Software Inc., and Rick Smolan of Against All Odds Productions. Justin Fox of the Harvard Business Review moderates.
Conferences
Techonomy 12
Techonomy focuses on how the exponential pace of technology progress makes possible a new world. A wave of accelerating change driven by technology’s advance is washing over our lives, bringing great potential for business and social progress.
