Advisors
SENIOR ADVISOR
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld was sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001, and served until December 18, 2006. Mr. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, and U.S. Congressman.
Mr. Rumsfeld also served as chief executive officer of two Fortune 500 companies. During his business career, Mr. Rumsfeld continued his public service in a variety of Federal posts, including:
• Member of the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control (1982-1986);
• Special Presidential Envoy on the Law of the Sea Treaty (1982-1983);
• Senior Advisor to the President's Panel on Strategic Systems (1983-1984);
• Member of the U.S. Joint Advisory Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1983-1984);
• Special Presidential Envoy to the Middle East (1983-1984);
• Member of the National Commission on Public Service (1987-1990);
• Member of the National Economic Commission (1988-1989);
• Member of the Board of Visitors of the National Defense University (1988-1992);
• Member of the Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1989-1991);
• Member of the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission (1999-2000);
• Chairman of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Threat Commission (1998-1999); and
• Chairman of the U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization (2000).
Mr. Rumsfeld's civic activities also included service as a member of the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of the boards of trustees of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the National Park Foundation, and as Chairman of the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships, Inc.
In 1977, Mr. Rumsfeld was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Mr. Rumsfeld attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC scholarships and served in the U.S. Navy as an aviator and flight instructor.
Mr. Rumsfeld currently resides in Maryland, while also spending time in Washington D.C. and New Mexico. Mr. Rumsfeld has established a non-profit foundation with his wife, Joyce, and is currently organizing five decades of personal papers.
SENIOR ADVISOR
Ike Nassi
Dr. Ike Nassi and his team explore advanced enterprise technologies and applications for use in domestic and multinational corporate environments. He is also responsible for SAP’s Global Business Incubator, an internal SAP venture capital operation, and the SAP Sponsored Academic Research Program. He is also a Research Affiliate MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Prior to joining SAP, Dr. Nassi has helped start three companies: Encore Computer, InfoGear Technology, and Firetide. Firetide Inc. is a privately held wireless mesh networking company Dr. Nassi co-founded and then served as its Executive Vice President, CTO and Chairman of the Board. He was the CTO and head of product operations at InfoGear prior to its acquisition by Cisco. He also helped start Encore Computer, a pioneer in symmetric multiprocessors, forerunners of today’s multicore processors.
He helped start the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, where he currently serves as an active member of the Board of Trustees, and before that was a member of the Board of Overseers at the Computer Museum in Boston. He currently also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.
In addition to his startup experience, Ike has held executive positions at Cisco Systems, Apple Computer, where he served in several capacities leading to his position as Senior Vice President of Software and Corporate Officer. He also worked at Visual Technology, where he was VP Software Engineering, Digital Equipment Corporation, where he worked on the DEC VAX, was a manager in the Corporate Research Group and was a Consulting Engineer, and at SofTech where he developed avionics support software.
He has been a visiting scholar Stanford University and a visiting scholar in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley and has also taught graduate courses at Boston University. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of Viewpoints Research, the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Northwestern University, the Center of Excellence for Wireless and Information Technology at Stony Brook University, and the School of Engineering at Peking University. He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society Industry Advisory Board.
Ike holds several patents, a Certificate for Distinguished Service from the Department of Defense for his work on the design of the Ada programming language and was a member of the Advanced Research Projects Agency's Information Systems and Technology group. He testified before Congress on the Emerging Telecommunications Act of 1991.
He holds memberships in the IEEE and ACM, and graduated with a B.S. in Mathematics, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stony Brook University.