Amilya Antonetti

Amilya Antonetti spent the first years of her son’s life in hospital emergency rooms. Doctors offered her short-term remedies for her newborn’s frightening breathing difficulties, severe rashes and heart breaking tantrums but no one seemed to be able to tell her why he was continually ill. Without answers or compassion there was a moment when a doctor even advised her to “let him go.” Unwilling to give up, Amilya decided to take it upon herself to find out what was making David so violently sick.

Amilya quit her successful executive career and committed herself to her son. Soon she pieced the complex puzzle together and discovered it was the ingredients in common household products that were slowly killing him as she unsuspectingly cleaned her home. She immediately began researching natural products, and with the help of her grandmother discovered a recipe to make pure cleaning products right on her own stove. Her kitchen was her lab and neighbors, friends and family become her test market.

Amilya knew in order to make real changes in the health of our children and families she would need to change a long standing industry and get her natural soap line selling side by side leading products in main stream supermarkets to allow consumers to make a safer choice. Experts, the industry, family and friends all said it could never be done. A decade later not only did she move her natural products into the major grocery chains across the USA and Canada she helped to redefine the cleaning aisle and usher in the “human and earth friendly” movement which consumers are embracing in waves today.

Amilya has received numerous entrepreneurial awards and been lauded by her peers. Her story of Amilya’s Soapworks has appeared in books, newspapers, magazines such as Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneurial Soul, People, Working Mother, First for Woman, Smart Money, Inc. and Time. She has been featured on Oprah, CBS This Morning, Extra, and countless international radio and television shows. Amilya is a favorite guest of “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch” and her “Smart Choice Mom” lifestyle and organization tips can be read in Parent and Child and Family Circle Magazines.

Her first book, Why David Hated Tuesdays has continued to make her a much sought after guest and public speaker. Amilya has addressed audiences along side the greatest speakers of our generation, including Tony Robbins, Zig Zigler, Oliver North, Katie Couric and Hillary Clinton.

With the sale of Soapworks she has moved on to the helm of AMA Productions, Inc and Amilya.com which delivers real world information, products and services to help 21st century consumers make smarter, healthier lifestyle choices. And together with three other of the country’s top entrepreneurs she has co-founded “The Lucky Napkin” a venture catalyst firm dedicated to helping others birth their great ideas and change the landscape of the market.

Amilya is living her life doing what she loves: speaking, writing and illuminating the pathway for others. But as busy as she is Amilya never forgets her first job, which is a mother of a now 14-year-old son David and her 18-month-old daughter. They remain and will always be her purpose in life as well as her first passions.

Tim Draper
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Founder, Managing Director

Timothy C. Draper is the Founder and a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. His original suggestion to use "viral marketing" in web-based e-mail to geometrically spread an Internet product to its market was instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and YahooMail, and has been adopted as a standard marketing technique to hundreds of businesses. On behalf of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mr. Draper serves on the boards of Glam, Flux, SocialText, decentral.tv, Meebo, Lund 3 Aps, Wigix, Increo, and Chroma Graphics. Previous successes include: Skype (EBAY), Overture.com (YHOO), Baidu (BIDU), Parametric Technology (PMTC), Hotmail (MSFT), PLX Technologies (PLXT), Preview Travel (TVLY) and Digidesign (AVID), among others.

Mr. Draper launched the Draper Affiliate Network, an international network of early-stage venture capital funds with offices in over 30 cities around the globe. He founded or co-founded DFJ EPlanet (global),  Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham (NYC), Zone Ventures (LA), Wasatch Ventures (Salt Lake City), , Draper Atlantic (Reston), Draper Triangle (Pittsburg), Timberline Ventures (Portland), Polaris Fund (Anchorage), DFJ Frontier (Sacramento and Santa Barbara), and DFJ Dragon (Shanghai).

As an advocate for entrepreneurs and free markets, Mr. Draper is regularly featured as a keynote speaker in entrepreneurial conferences throughout the world, has been recognized as a leader in his field through numerous awards and honors, and has frequent TV radio, and headline appearances. He was #7 on Forbes Midas List and #52 on the list of the most influential Harvard Alumni.

Mr. Draper is also the course creator and Chairman of BizWorld, a 501c3 organization built around simulated teaching of entrepreneurship and business to children. He served on the California State Board of Education. In November of 2000, Mr. Draper launched a statewide cyber-initiative on school choice for the California General Election. He is a member of Singapore’s Economic Advisory Council and Ukraine’s Orange Circle. He is on the Board of U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Donald F. Kuratko
Indiana University

Dr. Donald F. Kuratko (Dr. K) is the Jack M. Gill Chair of Entrepreneurship; Professor of Entrepreneurship & Executive Director; at the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, The Kelley School of Business, Indiana University -Bloomington. Dr. Kuratko is considered a prominent scholar and national leader in the field of entrepreneurship authoring or co-authoring over 160 articles on aspects of entrepreneurship and corporate innovation in journals such as Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Operations Management, and Journal of Small Business Management. Professor Kuratko has authored 24 books, including one of the leading entrepreneurship books in the world today, Entrepreneurship: Theory, Process, Practice, 8th ed. (2010), as well as Corporate Entrepreneurship & Innovation (2008) and New Venture Management (2009).  In addition, Dr. Kuratko has been consultant on Corporate Entrepreneurship to a number of major Fortune 100 corporations and he is the Executive Director of the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC), an organization of over 200 top university entrepreneurship centers throughout the world. Professor Kuratko’s honors include earning the Entrepreneur of the Year for the state of Indiana; induction into the Institute of American Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame; the George Washington Medal of Honor; the Leavey Foundation Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise; the NFIB Entrepreneurship Excellence Award; the National Model Innovative Pedagogy Award for Entrepreneurship (USASBE); the National Outstanding Entrepreneurship Educator (USASBE); and a 21st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellow. Dr. Kuratko was honored by his peers in Entrepreneur magazine as the #1 Entrepreneurship Program Director in the nation. In 2007 The U.S. Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship honored him with the prestigious John E. Hughes Entrepreneurial Advocacy Award for his career achievements in entrepreneurship. Also in 2007, the National Academy of Management honored Professor Kuratko with the highest award bestowed in entrepreneurship – the prestigious Entrepreneurship Advocate Award - for his contributions to the development and advancement of the discipline of entrepreneurship. Under Dr. Kuratko’s leadership Indiana University’s Entrepreneurship Program has been ranked the #1 Graduate Business School for Entrepreneurship(Public Institutions) and the #1 Undergraduate Business School for Entrepreneurship (Public Institutions) by U.S. News & World Report. In 2007 Indiana University was awarded the National Model MBA Program in Entrepreneurship by the U.S Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (USASBE) for the MBA Program in Entrepreneurship & Innovation.

Christopher Lane
Personal Fitness Trainer/Business Owner

Christopher Ross Lane has been an active part of the fitness industry for the last 10 years.  He spent most of his life as an athlete and competed on the national level as a springboard diver throughout high school and college.  A graduate of the University of Arizona with B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Lane continued his love of sport and fitness as a coach in the U.S. and South Africa.  After moving to Los Angeles in 2002, Christopher transitioned into full time personal training and in 2003, started his own private training company.  Since he began, Lane has trained some of television, film and the music industries biggest names as well as solidifying a name for himself in fitness.  For the last few years, Christopher has worked with Jillian Micheals as a client and as her back-up trainer on the hit show “The Biggest Loser”.  As 2009 approaches Lane is preparing to embark on a nationwide college speaking tour and looks forward to the release of his first book.

Rob Ukropina
Black Diamond Ventures

In 1992, Rob founded Overnite Express with the idea of picking up after FedEx, UPS and DHL – 9pm – and delivering California, Arizona and Nevada early 9am the next morning. Overnite Express is now the premier west coast overnight delivery company and will deliver in excess of three million packages this year. In February 2008, Overnite Express was sold to Norco Corporation a privately held California based 50 year old distribution company.

In 2008, Rob joined Chris Lucas, founder of Black Diamond Ventures, a venture capital firm, as his partner heading up their Newport Beach office.  

Rob sits on various entrepreneurial advisory boards, including C2 Reprographics, Red Roller, Allyance Communications Networks, United Document Storage, GameDar and the USC Entrepreneurial Center.

In 2004, Rob was awarded “Excellence in Entrepreneurship” by the Orange County Business Journal. In 2006, Rob was selected by Southland Development Corporation as “Small Business Person of the year” Orange County. In 2007, Rob was selected by the SBA as “Small Business Person of the Year – California”.

In 2007 Rob was featured in several business articles including, Forbes Magazine, Smart Business, the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times.

Rob is a guest lecture at USC, UCLA, Chapman, UCI, The Young Entrepreneurs Organization, The Christian Entrepreneur Organization, The Entrepreneurship Institute and the Orange County Business Forum. Rob was the keynote speaker at the Harvard Business School Annual Entrepreneur Conference in 2008. Rob is a graduate from the USC Marshall School of Business.

Rob is married to Joyce, also a USC graduate and entrepreneur. They have three grown children, two who have graduated from USC and one who is a junior. They are residents of Newport Coast.