Marcos Polanco

Business mentor, Industrialist, Inventor, Investor, Journalist, Philanthropist, Policy maker, Startup, Technologist

Mr. Polanco started his career in Silicon Valley performing database research at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories that resulted in the TimesTen technology later acquired by Oracle. Mr. Polanco went on to various technical & managerial roles at Silicon Valley startups before co-founding Imana, Inc. in 1995 to commercialize social search algorithms he co-invented and patented. Returning to his hometown, he led the establishment of an undergraduate software laboratory at Interamerican University in Puerto Rico which released the open source SNAP Platform for Java developers. Subsequently, he joined the Government of Puerto Rico as Founding Director of its information technology investment promotion division. In that role, Mr. Polanco negotiated the launch of Microsoft, Honeywell Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, and HCL Axon technology centers on the island. Returning to private industry, he has cultivated the startup community as co-organizer of Startup Weekends, co-director of the Founder Institute and principal at innovation consultancy Clearshore. Mr. Polanco holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University.