Nova Spivack is a technology industry visionary, strategist and entrepreneur. In 1994, Nova co-founded EarthWeb, one of the first Internet ventures in the world. In 1998 he helped lead EarthWeb to successfully launch the Internet industry’s first business-to-business IPO.

EarthWeb’s IPO, which closed up 247% on the first day of trading, was at the time, the 6th largest first-day gaining IPO in NASDAQ history and is largely credited with re-opening the market for technology IPO’s in 1998.

The grandson of management guru Peter F. Drucker, Nova brings a lifelong heritage in strategic planning and innovation as well as more than 15 years of hands-on technical, marketing and management experience on the cutting-edges of emerging science, technology and new media.

Nova has worked in areas such as supercomputing, artificial intelligence, desktop software, groupware, information services, print and television media, CD ROMs, the Internet and online services, interactive TV, scientific research and development, and early-stage technology venture capital.

While in high-school, Nova attended the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Nova then attended Oberlin College, where he studied philosophy, AI and cognitive science. He also participated in computer science research at MIT in the areas of parallel scientific computing. In 1992 Nova was invited to participate in the graduate international business-school program at The International Space University, the premier professional training program for the international space industry sponsored by NASA, ESA, and other leading space agencies. This background led Nova to eventually fly to the edge of space with the Russian Air Force and participate in zero-gravity training with the Russian space agency in 1999 (Nova’s adventure was recently featured on the Discovery Channel).

Nova has authored and co-authored several books and software products and has produced dozens of leading Web sites. He also is a co-inventor of a patented fundamental technology for Internet-to-television convergence that is now the basis for a major public interactive television venture.

With an intuitive feel for what's next and a long track record of innovation, Nova has spearheaded numerous pioneering projects and industry firsts including:

1980's

• At MIT, Nova pursued his interest in complex systems, by participating in research projects at the Laboratory of Computer Science focused on cellular-automata simulations of physics, chemistry and population biology. Cellular automata was virtually unknown at the time but is now growing to become an important new approach to scientific computing and complex systems simulation in general.

• Worked at Xerox Kurzweil AI, on the first-generation of intelligent character recognition products. This software was among the first commercial products that could scan, recognize and read printed text intelligently.

• Worked at Thinking Machines during the heyday of supercomputing. Thinking Machines was the premier parallel supercomputing venture that built The Connection Machine, the most powerful massively parallel supercomputer in the world.

1990’s

• Worked at Individual Inc., in 1993-94, the premier AI-based news-filtering venture, Nova was in charge of supplying personalized daily strategic technology news wires to the top management and strategy teams of 30 top global corporations. Nova managed approximately 100 AI filters that could intelligently find articles of strategic interest for top business leaders. Nova also had to personally tune the output of these filters, which required him to read, remember, and prioritize approximately 1600 technology breaking press releases and articles each day for over a 6 month period!

• Co-founded MassNet in 1993, one of the first state-wide Internet initiatives in America, to get the state of Massachusetts online.

• Co-founded ReliefNet in 1994. ReliefNet, a 501c3 non-profit, was the first Internet service for charity and put two dozen leading International charities (Red Cross, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, and others) on the Internet for the first time. ReliefNet built the first online payment donation system for charity on the Internet and received the first donations to charity over the Internet. In addition, ReliefNet launched the first online benefit concert on the Internet, in partnership with Warner Bros. Records.

• Nova Co-founded and co-led EarthWeb with Jack and Murray Hidary. EarthWeb was one of the first commercial Internet ventures.

• EarthWeb developed the first Internet strategies, and launched the first Web sites, for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Stock Exchange, and many other leading organizations. EarthWeb also built major Web online services for companies like US West, Sony, AT&T, BMG Music Club, Morgan Stanley, Reuters, and many others.

• As the high-end Web consulting business became increasingly saturated, EarthWeb evolved its strategy to develop its own online services for a market it understood intimately: high-end IT professionals. This led to the creation of Gamelan, EarthWeb.com, Developer.com, ITknowledge.com, and the acquisition of Datamation, and numerous other online properties.

• EarthWeb matured into the leading B2B portal for IT professionals, eventually acquiring MeasureUp and DICE.COM. Later, the content portion of the business was sold to Internet.com. EarthWeb Inc. changed it’s name to DICE.COM and today continues to run and grow DICE.COM and MeasureUp.

• Nova co-invented and patented the core technology for HyperTV, a key infrastructure for Internet-television convergence, now in use by major cable networks.

• Nova catalyzed the early adoption of Java software technology by working closely with Sun Microsystems to lead Gamelan.com and the world-wide Java Developers Alliance, the leading independent voices of the Java technology developer community.

• Started the EarthWeb press imprint, a leading technology publishing imprint with Macmillan Computer Publishing.

• Nova wrote EarthWeb’s IPO S1 Prospectus.

• In 1999, Nova co-founded nVention, with Sarnoff Laboratories and SRI. nVention is an advanced technology incubator designed to spin-off dual-use defense industry technologies into commercial products for consumers and businesses.

• Also in 1999, Nova helped to pioneer "space tourism" when he flew to the edge of space, trained with the Russian space agency and helped to angel-fund Zero-Gravity corporation, a new venture that is commercializing zero-gravity parabolic flight in the USA.

• Started Lucid Ventures to develop proprietary ventures and advise clients in areas including superconducting, nanotechnology, energy, medicine, aerospace, wireless services, new media technologies and online services

2000-Present:

• Nova advises and angel-invests in numerous startup technology ventures. Provides strategic consulting to venture capital funds and their portfolio clients.

• Since 2002, Nova has been primarily focused on developing his own new early-stage technology startup ventures.

Nova has been featured in Business Week, CNN, CNBC, CBS Evening News, CNN-FN, Discovery Channel, The New York Times, Washington Post, WIRED Magazine, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Communications Week, Interactive Week, Internet World, Reuters, Newsweek, Red Herring, Silicon Alley Reporter, Interactive Age, Web Week, Java Developer’s Journal, and has spoken at numerous conferences and industry events.