Dan Shapiro works at Google, who acquired his most recent company Sparkbuy Inc. Dan was the founder and CEO of Sparkbuy, a comparison shopping website that offered unprecedented depth and accuracy of information through a simple and innovative user interface. Previously, Shapiro was founder and CEO of Ontela, a pioneering mobile imaging company, where he was named CEO of the Year by MobileBeat. Ontela was frequently recognized including the Dow Jones Top 10 in Wireless list, receiving the CTIA award for Best Social Networking Application, and being named Breakthrough Startup of the Year by the WTIA. Ontela merged with Photobucket in December of 2009 where Shapiro now holds a seat on the Board of Directors. Prior to founding Ontela, Shapiro managed development of the RealArcade service at RealNetworks, enabling thousands of end-users to play classic games such as Monopoly, Scrabble and Rollercoaster Tycoon on their desktops. He arrived at RealNetworks by way of Wildseed, where he managed software development for the Identity Cellular Phone. Shapiro started his career at Microsoft working on Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. Shapiro's articles have been published in the Washington Post, Wireless Week, and the Seattle PI, and he is a frequent speaker at conferences and events. He serves on the board of Bonanzle, an ecommerce company backed by Ignition, Matrix, and Voyager, and on the board of the nonprofit Washington Technology Industry Association. He is a mentor for both the Founder's Institute and Techstars. He has been awarded five US patents, and received his B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College.
