Dr. Robert Sansom – Board Member

Dr. Robert Sansom is an active angel investor and mentor to high-technology start-up businesses in the UK and US. He is a member of the board of directors for a number of startups including: Azuro, Inc., Tenison Technology, Netronome, and Ubisense, Ltd. He is chairman of Cambridge Angels, a group of seasoned technology and bio-technology entrepreneurs who invest in and mentor technology start-ups in the Cambridge area. In 1990, Dr. Sansom co-founded FORE Systems, a data communications company which became the leading developer of ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networks. Dr. Sansom was initially responsible for FORE’s finance and business strategy, including raising venture capital, then ran the software engineering group, building it up to a team of 200 engineers, and finally became responsible for technical strategy as Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Sansom was also a member of the board of directors of FORE. In 1999, when it employed over 2000 employees and had annual revenues of over $600 million, FORE was sold to Marconi (previously GEC plc) for $4.5 billion. Dr. Sansom continued as Marconi’s Chief Technology Officer until April 2000. Dr. Sansom has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA and an M.A. in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, England.

Jim Swift – Board Member

Jim is the President and CEO of Cortera, a provider of online solutions for business-to-business credit and collections professionals. Prior to joining Cortera, Jim was the Chief Operating Officer of LexisNexis Risk Management, where he was responsible for the unit’s commercial markets. He joined LexisNexis through its acquisition of Seisint. Jim held various executive leadership positions at Seisint in operations, sales, product development, and strategy. LexisNexis’ $775 million acquisition of Seisint was the largest acquisition of a venture-backed company in 2004. Prior to Seisint, Jim was Senior Vice President at Modus Operandi, a management and technology consulting firm specializing in business process reengineering and automation for Fortune 500 clients. Jim was responsible for directing the Business Solutions practice, driving innovative solutions with a host of financial services, telecommunications and other companies. Jim is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

Dr. Craig Knoblock – Co-Founder, Board Member

Dr. Craig Knoblock co-founded Fetch Technologies. He is currently a Senior Project Leader at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI), where he leads the Information Integration Research Group, as well as a Research Professor in the Computer Science Department. Craig received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1991. He has published one book and over 150 articles, book chapters, and conference papers in planning, machine learning and information integration, and has given numerous invited talks on AI and information technology. Craig has served on the Senior Program Committee of the National Artificial Intelligence Conference, has served as a member of the executive council of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and was elected a Fellow of AAAI in 2004. He is currently President of the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS) and a Trustee of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI). Craig is also Chief Scientist of Geosemble Technologies, a Fetch Technologies spin-off.

Dr. Yigal Arens – Co-Founder, Board Member

Dr. Yigal Arens currently serves on Fetch’s Board of Directors. In addition to his role at Fetch, Yigal is also Director of the Intelligent Systems Division at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI), one of the largest artificial intelligence research labs in the U.S. He is also Director of ISI’s Center for Research on Unexpected Events. Yigal received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and subsequently joined the faculty of the Computer Science Department at USC in 1983. He joined ISI in 1987. His primary research interests have been digital government, information integration, knowledge representation, and human-machine communication. Yigal led the development of the SIMS Information Mediator system at ISI, and he is widely known for his work on the integration of heterogeneous databases.

Robert Landes – Chief Executive Officer

Robert Landes is an Internet industry veteran who has led Fetch Technologies from a government-funded R&D firm to a leading provider of web extraction and aggregation services. Prior to Fetch, Robert served as the CEO at Guidance Solutions, a leading provider of web development services. Under Robert’s leadership, Guidance grew sales from $1 million to $21 million within three years. Robert previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for L.A. Gear. He is a sought-after speaker on Internet venture capital markets, web development, and search and integration technologies. Robert received his B.S. in Sociology from the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA and has also played basketball in the European professional league.

Dr. Steven Minton – Chairman, Co-Founder, Chief Technical Officer

Dr. Steven Minton is an internationally recognized leader in Artificial Intelligence. After receiving his B.A. from Yale and his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon he began his career as a Principal Investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Steve later joined the faculty at the University of Southern California, where, together with Craig Knoblock and Yigal Arens, he led the research efforts that were eventually spun off to create Fetch Technologies. In addition to his work as a project leader and faculty member at USC, Steve founded the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR), one of the leading Computer Science journals, and served as its first Executive Editor. He has received numerous awards for his work in artificial intelligence, and was elected to be a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in 1998.