Connected the Tech, Design & Entrepreneur Community from 2011-2019

A Conversation with Bill Liao, Oct 25

Join Tech Toledo on Wednesday October 25th for a special opportunity to have a conversation with visionary entrepreneur Bill Liao. We will talk about coding, startups, community, venture funding, and saving the planet. See Bill’s bio below for more about his impact worldwide.

Don’t miss this special opportunity to hear Bill’s compelling perspective on the impact of creativity and technology, and why they are essential for the revitalization of our community. Bill is on a short tour of the USA (from Ireland) and we were fortunate enough to bring him to Toledo for one day to have a conversation with us.

We will be at 25 Huron, Redsson’s new downtown Toledo headquarters.

  • RSVP at Eventbrite. FREE! Seating is limited and we anticipate filling up.
  • Where: 25 S. Huron St, Toledo, Ohio (across from Grumpy’s).
  • When: Wednesday, October 25, 5:00pm – 7:00pm. Doors open at 5:00pm and the conversation with Bill starts at 5:30pm.
  • Parking: Free street parking is available nearby.

Inside 25 Huron

Entrance to 25 Huron

When you register, we recommend you submit your own question for Bill. Bring that question with you, or think up a better one to ask Bill in person. Some of the questions that we might ask:

  • How did CoderDojo come to be and why has it been so successful?
  • What are the differences between doing an IT-based start-up and a synthetic biology start-up?
  • What is the #1 thing that business leaders do not get about social enterprises?
  • What is your favorite TED story?
  • What are your favorite paraprosdokians?
  • Based on what you know about the Toledo region, what is the #1 thing we should be doing to be successful economically in the future?

Register to be a part of the conversation with Bill Liao.

Bill Liao Biography

Bill (Wikipedia, LinkedIn) is General Partner at SOSV (Venture Capital for Startups), supporting, mentoring and investing in companies and startups at all stages of growth. Bill founded SOSV’s life sciences practice and currently runs RebelBio in Europe, focusing on entrepreneurs building technologies in or around the field of synthetic biology. Bill is also the lead investment partner on SOSV II (Ireland fund) and is responsible for sourcing and managing investments for that fund with the Irish government.

Bill is a co-founder of CoderDojo, a free global network formed to assist young people with learning computer programming.  CoderDojo Toledo, in its third year, was inspired by a conversation with Bill about what’s possible at the intersection between creativity and technology and the impact on/by youth. Bill also co-founded XING, a pioneering enterprise social networking platform. Prior to these endeavors, Bill served as COO of Davnet, a telecommunications carrier which achieved the fastest capital value growth in the history of the Australian Stock exchange. Davnet was acquired by Japanese telecommunications carrier Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) in 1996.

Bill serves as a special diplomatic envoy for St Kitt’s and Nevis, with an emphasis on sustainable development and the environment, and founded WeForest, an NGO that has planted over 15 million trees globally, with a stated goal of planting two trillion trees by 2020.

The author of three books (including one with a foreword written by Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu), Bill is a speaker at events such as The World Economic Forum, The Globe Forum in Sweden, TED and TEDx, and also at major institutions such as The London School of Economics and The House of Commons.