2023 Wedgwood Annual Event
Technology, Entertainment, and the Divine
Dates: Wednesday, November 8th – Friday, November 10th
Location: El Prado Hotel - Palo Alto, CA
Overview: With the rise of Apple, Amazon, and Netflix as entertainment leaders, the power has shifted from studios to platforms. Technologists distribute stories via our phones, smart TVs, and gaming consoles. Where do we find contentment amidst this steady stream of content?
What does creativity and investment look like in the age of generative A.I.? The Wedgwood Circle invites you to our 2023 Showcase: Technology, Entertainment, and the Divine.
The Schedule
Plan to arrive by the late afternoon on Wednesday, November 8th for our Opening Night Reception & Dinner and stay through lunch on Friday, November 10th. For those interested in extending their stay through the weekend we’ll have a few extra excursions and events.
Wednesday, November 8th:
6PM to 7PM Opening Night Reception
7PMto 9PM Dinner
9PM to 11PM (Dessert, Drinks and Live Music)
Thursday, November 9th:
9AM to NOON: Morning Session (Panels & Presentations)
NOON to 1PM: Lunch
1:30PM to 4:30PM: Afternoon Session (Panels & Presentations)
Break
6PM to 7PM: Reception
7PM to 9PM: Dinner
9PM to 11PM (Film Screening TBD)
Friday, November 10th
8AM to 9AM: Breakfast
9AM to 11AM: Closing Session
Panelists + Presenters
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Filmmaker | Director of Narrative Films at Uncommon Voices
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Kenneth Chang is a visionary creator deeply rooted in spirituality, cinematic arts and storytelling. Having studied English Literature at UCLA and later immersing himself in Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, Kenneth possesses a unique blend of academic rigor and spiritual insight.
For over two decades, he was a public speaker across diverse platforms: from colleges and churches to retreats and corporate arenas. Through these events he met countless young people whose dreams and vulnerabilities helped shape Kenneth's commitment to producing content that is honest, thoughtful, and beautiful. As a co-writer, co-director, and actor, his multifaceted talents shone in "Refuse", which premiered at the prestigious Asian Pacific Festival in Los Angeles. The film has since attracted the interest from multiple production companies for feature adaptation.
Kenneth, as the creative director and editor-in-chief, brought forth "Don't Look Away: The Horrors of Holy Scripture". This groundbreaking devotional delves into the horror stories within the Bible, compelling readers to confront these narratives and derive profound truths. The buzz it created among churches and seminaries was undeniable, eventually securing nearly double its initial Kickstarter goal. The devotional is published through Alabaster Bible Co.
In his role as the director of programming for the Fearmakers conference, Kenneth spearheaded conversations that bridged the worlds of horror filmmaking and theology. This pioneering event awarded industry stalwarts like Carey and Chad Hayes, the creative force behind "The Conjuring", and featured eminent personalities like actor Tony Hale among other industry leaders.
Serving as the Director of Narrative Films and Content at Uncommon Voices Collective, Kenneth embodies the ethos of creating art infused with purpose.
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CEO & Creative Director at thatgamecompany
Jenova Chen is the visionary designer of the award-winning games Cloud, Flow, Flower, Journey and most recently Sky: Children of the Light. After earning a bachelor's degree for computer science in his hometown of Shanghai, Chen moved to Los Angeles, where he got a master's degree in the founding class of University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division. Following school, he founded thatgamecompany with fellow graduates, where he remains its Founder and Creative Director.
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Founder of Uncommon Voices and CEO of Million Dollar Baby Co.
Daniel Fong was born in Hong Kong. After graduating from Worcester Academy and Harvard College, he returned to Hong Kong in 1979 to work for his father’s premier denim weaving factory for four years and then for Li & Fung, one of the world’s largest trading companies, for six years. At the end of 1989, Daniel, along with his wife and two children, immigrated to Los Angeles and started Million Dollar Baby on April 1, 1990, as one of the smallest companies in the baby furniture wholesale industry. After 33 years in operation, Million Dollar Baby is now the premier company in the industry and operates with a business theology at the cutting edge of excellence and as a faithful witness of God’s will for humanity. His partnership with Alabaster, a six-year-old startup, is challenging the traditional publishing industry by focusing on “bringing forth beauty” in every book they publish. While studying for his Master in Arts and Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, Daniel started Uncommon Voices Collective, a non-profit dedicated to exploring the “follow the Holy Spirit” project, which is completely different from the conventional practice of strategic planning that focuses on values, missions, visions, goals, and results. The production of the horror short film Refuse, the first horror devotional “Don’t Look Away,” a podcast collaboration with Christianity Today names “Be Afraid,” and the Fear Makers conference are all glorious examples of the project
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Co-Founder and General Partner of LVP
David joined EA as the 11th employee in 1982 and went on to found the European business unit in 1986. Leading the unit from 1995 where he grew it to $1B in gross revenue and 1200 employees. David became part of the global management team based in California in 2004 after the European success. His expanded responsibility included international growth into Asia and he was responsible for nearly half of the company’s annual revenue when he departed in 2007 to return with his family to live in Europe.
David became CEO of Atari S.A. to complete a childhood dream of running the most famous name in computer games. The turnaround objective was marked by the successful sale of Atari’s physical distribution company, the privatisation of the US public entity and the purchase of Cryptic studios which delivered the majority of the company revenue and R&D spending into the new digital economy. In 2007 he was awarded an OBE on Her Majesty’s birthday honours list for services to British business and is Vice President of Games for BAFTA.
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President of Angel Studios
Jordan is a Co-Founder and President of Angel Studios, the distribution studio behind crowdfunded shows like The Chosen, Dry Bar Comedy, and recent box office hits His Only Son and Sound of Freedom. As President of Angel Studios, Jordan oversees all incoming projects and works with filmmakers to manage, brand, market, and crowdfund their films.
Prior to Angel Studios, Jordan served as co-founder and Head of Marketing at Cove, a national, forward-thinking home security company. During his tenure, Jordan designed and led the company’s overall marketing strategy, which helped Cove grow into a $100 million business in just four years. Previous to Cove, Jordan served as Chief Marketing Officer at VidAngel, a streaming company empowering parents to skip and mute objectionable content in popular movies and TV shows. He also served as a marketing consultant to Harmon Brothers, helping the agency behind popular internet ad campaigns such as Squatty Potty, Purple, and Lume grow revenues with multiple companies by more than 300%. Beginning his career as one of the pioneering social media marketers, Jordan earned his B.S. in Web Development and Design from Brigham Young University–Idaho.
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Head of Production - Amazon Games
Dan Hernberg has been in the games industry since 2007. He started as a community manager and quickly moved into production, working on parts of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty's online experience. He then spent 8 years at Blizzard Entertainment working on games such as World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo 3, and Hearthstone. In 2011 he moved to Austin and started Blizzard's first remote development studio and ran it for 4 years. After getting an MBA he tried finance for 18th months, which he realized is not as fun as video games. He quickly returned to video games as has been working on large IPs and games such as Apex Legends, Wolfenstein, Forza, Doom, and Star Wars games. He currently works as a leader in Amazon Game Studios, working to build the next generation of video games.
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Ozone Story Tech
Rich Hurrey is a 25+ year veteran in the Animation / VFX Industry, spending over fifteen years as a Character TD. He is passionate and skillful in modeling, rigging, teaching, and team building. Rich brings passion, energy and enthusiasm to anything he does. He is an excellent teacher of in-depth complicated processes and making sure fundamentals are prioritized and taught, a patient mentor and smart problem solver. He is the founder of Silent Planet, AirliftC3, and Kitestring Online. Over the last two years he has embarked on building Ozone Story Tech: a company dedicated to the development of unique technology, storytelling, and educational experiences. He is grateful beyond measure to be on this journey with his amazing wife and two incredible children
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Author
Abigail Hing Wen works at the intersection of storytelling and technology. She is a New York Times Best Selling Author, woman-in-tech leader specializing in artificial intelligence, a filmmaker as well as a mother of two. She writes and speaks about tech, AI ethics, women’s leadership, implicit bias, equity, and transforming culture.
Abigail's first novel, Loveboat, Taipei, has been adapted to the screen as the Paramount+ original film, Love in Taipei.
Abigail holds a BA from Harvard, where she took coursework in film, a JD from Columbia and MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. In her career in tech, she has negotiated multibillion-dollar deals on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley worked in venture capital and hosted Intel’s Artificial Intelligence podcast featuring leading industry experts, including Andrew Ng, Facebook’s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun and US Congresswoman Robin Kelly.
She also served with the Partnership on AI. Forbes describes her as, “One of the most respected voices in fairness and AI.”
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CEO & Co-founder of Gam3r Studios
Bree is an expert in the intersection of technology, gaming, and finance. Her visionary approach at Gam3r Studios has led to the development of groundbreaking blockchain innovations, trailblazing user-friendly solutions of merging web2 and web3 technologies. With a unique blend of expertise, including a formal education in software engineering and anthropology, and a background in finance, Br33 brings a holistic perspective to the gaming industry. As a long-time serial entrepreneur and angel investor, Br33 has a proven track record of identifying emerging trends and investing in promising ventures.
She believes strongly that gaming will soon no longer be just a pastime or form of entertainment but will integrate itself into all forms of technology. “The inevitable gamification of business, jobs, and education will create a truly global economy, blurring any lingering political or cultural boundaries.”
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Co-Founder of Kabam
Holly Liu co-founded the unicorn mobile gaming company Kabam, that made games with Hollywood IP, such as Marvel, The Hobbit, Star Wars, Transformers, The Hunger Games and many more. In 2017, Kabam sold to Netmarble and FoxNext. After exiting, Holly was a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator, an early stage accelerator that has birthed companies like Twitch, Airbnb, Dropbox and many others.
She now runs a startup with a curated community in fandom with Patrick Lee (founder and former CEO of Rotten Tomatoes , Kun Gao (founder and former CEO of Crunchyroll) and Kevin Lin (founder of Twitch). Together with this team and community, we have invested in over 30 startups as PKO Investments, focused on entertainment and tech with 40% focused on games.
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Wedgwood Board Member
Christina Lee Storm is an award-winning creative producer and executive recognized for her groundbreaking work at the intersection of storytelling and technology spanning film, television, animation, documentaries, virtual reality, augmented reality, and XR.
Founder and CEO of ASHER XR, Christina’s consultancy drives the strategic and creative development of emerging technologies for linear, digital, and multi-platform storytelling. As former Director of Virtual Production at Netflix and Vice President of Business Operations, Strategy, & Emerging Technology at DreamWorks Animation, Christina drove innovation and creativity for studio IP and franchises including "How to Train Your Dragon," "Trolls," "Abominable," "Kung Fu Panda," and “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”
Beyond her creative achievements, Christina helps shape the future of the industry by serving on the Television Academy's Emerging Media Program Executive Committee and as Co-Chair of the AI Working Group, the Producers Guild of America's National Board of Directors, as Board of Governors for the Advanced Imaging Society, and Board Member of Wedgwood Circle. Supporting women in STEAM, Christina is a proud Founding Member of DreamWorks Animation's TECHWomen.
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Founder - Storyland Studios
Peter McGowan is an immersive storyteller with over two decades of experience bringing iconic stories to life in physical, digital, and strategic spaces. As co-founder, President & Chief Storyteller at Storyland Studios, Peter has worked with some of the most recognizable corporate and creative brands in the world, including The Walt Disney Company, Universal Studios, LEGO®, Ubisoft, Mars Wrigley M&M'S®, Nissan, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, FAO Schwarz, and many more.
Peter is a champion of bringing brands’ unique stories to life by broadening their visual vocabulary beyond words and helping shape the cultural influence of their organizations. His robust background in technology, art, and architecture has equipped him to skillfully integrate multiple fields of design to tell immersive stories on the graphic and environmental stages. Peter is especially passionate about partnering with non-profit and cause-based organizations through PlainJoe - A Storyland Studio to reflect their missions with excellence and heart. He sits on the Board for Christianity Today, Atlas Free, and Emotionally Healthy Discipleship.
At the end of the day, he loves spending time with his wife, Jennifer, and their three kids making memories that usually involve LEGO® sets, Star Wars, Disney, or all three.
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CCO - SOMA GAMES
Chris Skaggs is the Founder and Chief Operations Officer of Soma Games and Soma SoulWorks. Created in 2005 Soma Games fancies itself the “C.S. Lewis of video games” and strives to do the epithet honor by making artistically excellent games for people who may never go to church, but find themselves having fun while pondering eternal things. Soma SoulWorks is the ministry side of Soma’s coin producing teaching and podcasts that seek to reach young adult “creatives” especially those working in arts and entertainment. Chris is an Intel Black Belt recipient and frequent speaker at mobile and game-developer conferences, including GDC (Game Developer Conference), CGDC (Christian Game Developers Conference), Casual Connect, Serious Play, and Intel Innovators Forum.
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Founder & CEO at Immerse
Recently named Forbes 30 under 30. He built the world's first virtual world where you can practice speaking new languages with real human beings in live, instructor-led classes.
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Producer | Head of Creative Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp.
Ralph Winter is an American film producer who has helped to produce blockbuster movies such as the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Star Trek series as well as I, Robot and Planet of the Apes. His films have grossed collectively over $2 billion (USD).
Winter is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Recently Ralph Winter stepped in to be the Head of Creative for the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. and has been instrumental in the launch of The Sphere project in Las Vegas.
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Vice President of The Faith & Media Initiative at Radiant Foundation.
Brooke currently serves as the Executive Director of Radiant Foundation’s Faith & Media Initiative. She’s working to improve the way religion, faith, and spirituality are portrayed in news and entertainment.
Most recently she worked in the technology industry leading as VP and COO. She worked for a Texas-based private equity firm leading a portfolio company to scale. Prior to that, Brooke developed communications expertise leading a San Francisco-based advertising agency servicing Fortune 500 companies in the financial, technology, and hospitality industries including Bank of America, InterContinental Hotels, Visa and Sony.
During this time, Brooke was the co-founder of several companies that partnered with brands such as L’Oreal, Turner Classic Movies, Cartier, Paramount, Warner Brothers, and Range Rover. Her work has been recognized in Forbes Life, CNN Money, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and Esquire.
Interested in attending?
If you are interested in attending the event, please fill out the form below and choose which event pass you’d prefer and someone from Wedgwood will be in touch with you shortly. If you have questions about the event please email us.