Hawaii Broadband Task Force with Cisco's Ken Wirt

Friday, July 18, 2008
8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Hawaii State Capitol Rm 309

The Exabyte Era and Why Broadband is Essential, with
Ken Wirt, Cisco Vice President for Consumer Marketing

The Hawaii Broadband Task Force will be meeting with Ken Wirt, Cisco's Vice President for Consumer Marketing, to discuss the imperative for advanced broadband services.  Cisco's research indicates that the dam is about to burst for Internet-based video and high-bandwidth requirements will be embedded in many applications for business, entertainment, education, health and government.  Cisco's analysis indicates that continuous growth in Internet capacity will be essential for individuals, communities and regions that want to ensure their ability to participate full in the digital societies of the 21st century.  Legislators, policymakers and interested members of the public are invited to attend.

About Ken Wirt:
Ken is responsible for partnering with Cisco, Scientific Atlantic, and Linksys marketing teams in the creation and implementation of Cisco’s consumer marketing strategy. his includes developing an overall corporate brand architecture and keeping a pulse on the consumer to develop the most effective marketing and messaging strategies for Cisco overall.  Ken has over twenty years of marketing experience with a strong background in developing new consumer electronic categories. He led marketing for one of the first home computers at Atari, introduced the first CD-ROM-based video game system at NEC, headed marketing for the first PDA (Newton) at Apple, launched the first portable MP3 player (Rio) at Diamond Multimedia, and was CEO of the first indie music recommendation web site (Riffage). Most recently, Ken was SVP Worldwide Marketing at Palm where he developed the first consumer PDA (Zire), the first hard-drive based multimedia PDA (LifeDrive), and launched the second generation of Treo smartphones with many of the world’s leading service providers.  Ken received an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a BA in The Psychology of Kinetic Media from the University of Michigan.