Board of Advisors
Believing that the key to a successful start-up company is to surround yourselves with the best and the brightest, the founders of Armida Technologies have formed an advisory board of talented and experienced entrepreneurs and advocates. Their diverse backgrounds and knowledge base provide Armida’s management team with guidance and advice regarding critical business and technology decisions.David Smith
Vice President of Consulting, Alliances, and Education, Technology Futures, Inc
A noted futurist and technologist with over 30 years of experience, Mr. Smith combines these disciplines to deliver consulting and research services that focus on the broad, emerging trends of the technological future. He is an expert at relating these emerging trends to the specific interests of clients and providing a future-focused analysis of what developments and opportunities can be expected in the near and more distant future in a particular industry or organization. Mr. Smith then assists organizations in determining steps to take to be successful in this emerging environment. He offers expertise in technology transfer, strategic and technology planning, communications, roadmapping, consortia startup and management, and collaborative alliances.
Since joining TFI in 1996, Mr. Smith has assisted in creating and implementing plans for a range of industry and academic orgnizations and government agencies including Boeing, CIA, Coca-Cola, Intel, and Lockheed Martin. As a leader in innovation, his work includes establishing the framework and process for In-Q-Tel, the intelligence community's research and development venture capital solution.
Mr. Smith's dynamic keynote presentations are popular at conferences and leadership meetings around the world. He also regularly presents and teaches at university, industry, and conference events. Recent presentations include keynote speeches for the U.S. Senate Conference on Emerging Technology, Information Management Forum-CIO Leadership Conference, and Lockheed-Martin Technology Leadership Conference. As a noted futurist, Mr. Smith is regularly quoted by newspapers and industry publications. Recent broadcasts of National Public Radio (NPR) and issues of Business Week, American Demographics and Intel's Circuit News prominently feature his views on technology trends.
Mr. Smith was on the start-up teams and held key positions in two of the largest and most successful consortia in the United States - SEMATECH and the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC). He is a recipient of the SEMATECH Eagle Award for the 1992 Strategic Plan and the Council of Consortia award for Extraordinary Contributions and Achievement in Technology Transfer. Mr. Smith is a senior reserach fellow at UT's IC2 Institute, and holds a bachelor degree in Radio, Television, and Film from the University of Texas at Austin.
J. Collier Sparks
President and CEO, MDI Inc.
James Collier Sparks brings more than 20 years of security industry management experience to MDI, where he currently serves as CEO and President of MDI, Inc., and is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company. Mr. Sparks previously served as Senior Vice President of the Company and as President of the Company’s MDI Security Systems business unit. Prior to this, he led successful operations and business development efforts as Vice President of the Electronics Division at Southern Steel, the leader in providing total integrated security and perimeter systems to the correctional market. During his career Mr. Sparks has held a variety of executive and hands-on managerial positions within the security industry, including a prior role as President of Oron Incorporated.
Frank Robles
Founder & CEO, CityNAP
Frank Robles is widely known for defining the metropolitan Gigabit Ethernet networking market, contributing to the success of many Silicon Valley companies. Founding NanoSpace, later renamed to YIPES, Mr. Robles deployed over 36,000 miles of metro Ethernet fiber networks in the top 20 Metro Areas in the United States. This is now a standard service offering by almost every telecommunications company today. At NetCom, one of the first ISPs, he contributed to the launch of the company with the first integrated web browser "NetCruser" designed by Peter Kaminski and its initial network deployment of 86 Points of Presents (these were some of the first dial in locations in the US).
An entrepreneur and investor with extensive experience in starting and building companies, he has also served as part of the original founding team as well as assisting startups, in general, as part of their core team and as a seed investor. Robles' operating roles have included Board Member, CEO, VP Operations, VP Corporate Development, General Manager, Software Engineering Manager, Software Engineer, and QA Manager. Mr. Robles has played a role in companies such as HeavyMail, OakStone Ventures, Agile Media, Kana Communications, Ascencia, YY Software, Netscape, AlphaBlox, HP, Siebel Systems, Netcom, Apple Newton, Coactive Communications, EPYX Software, MEI, BOA and Tecla Software. Mr. Robles' current project is CityNAP, an Internet hub and data center in downtown San Antonio.
Dean McCall
Technology Consultant
Dean McCall is a consultant to regional private equity organizations and nonprofits. He advises clients in key areas of expertise, including technology innovation and commericalization, product analysis, and market strategy, with the objective of assisting companies in appropriate funding decisions. He acts as an advisor to new technology sectors and potential hot spot growth areas as well.
Mr. McCall is currently President and CEO of Salsa.Net
Mr. McCall hosted the first Texas open source conference for nonprofit organizations called Penguin DaySA. Penguin Day was started in Philadelphia in March 2004 and has continued to grow. He was also recognized as one of the "40 Under 40" rising starts in San Antonio. The Mayor of San Antonio presented Mr. McCall with a commendation for his commitment to the community during the city's Katrina relief efforts.