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Mil Ovan, Senior Vice President, Firefly Energy:
"Developing Strategic Alliances on the Path to
Commercialization and Volume Production"
(Topic Info TBA)
About Mil Ovan:
Mil Ovan is a senior executive with more than 20 years of experience focused on introducing innovative high technology products and services and creating new market categories. Mil has built and run start-up companies, and has created new divisions at Fortune 500 companies.
Mil is currently co-founder and Senior Vice President of Firefly Energy, a Peoria, Illinois-based company which has developed a next generation battery technology that has the opportunity to address major portions of the $30 billion worldwide battery marketplace. Firefly’s MicrocellTM foam-based battery technology can deliver a unique combination of high performance, extremely low weight and low cost, all in a battery which utilizes the best aspects of lead acid chemistry while overcoming the corrosive drawbacks of this same chemistry. The company was formed in 2003 after its technology, technical founder, and initial seed funds were spun out of Caterpillar, Inc.
Prior to Firefly, Mil served as President and Co-founder of Verascape, a $10 million start-up providing voice recognition infrastructure to major enterprises and carriers. Prior to Verascape, Mil was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for WarpSpeed Communications, a $30 million Bay Area start-up funded by AT&T, 3COM, and New Enterprise Associates, providing broadband-on-demand Wide Area Network services. Before joining WarpSpeed, Mil spent 12 years at Motorola, where he was at the forefront in the creation and/or advancement of new communications categories such as Cellular Telephones and Systems, Wireless Local Area Networks and Wireless PDAs. Just prior to leaving Morotola, he was the co-founder and executive director of the Wireless Broadband Systems division.
Mil received a Masters of Business Administration in Marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in International Business from Elmhurst College. A business innovator and pioneer, Mil is active in High Tech, education, civic and industry organizations, is a noted speaker on high technology issues at major industry conferences, as well as a quoted expert in high tech marketing in such media as Fortune Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. He is past President of Elmhurst College’s National Alumni Association, and is the 2007 winner of the College’s Alumni Merit Award.
