America 24/7 | About Us

Samir Arora, Business Advisor
Jennifer Erwitt, Senior Advisor
Mark Greenberg, Partnership Advisor
C. Thomas Hardin, Photography Advisor
Jon Kamen, Media and Partnership Advisor
Eliane Laffont, Photography Advisor
Laird Popkin, Technology Advisor
Patti Richards, Publicity Advisor
Brian Smiga, Technology and Partnership Advisor
Megan Smith, Technology Advisor

Samir Arora, Business Advisor
Samir Arora is the Chairman & CEO of Information Capital L.L.C, a venture capital fund in Woodside, California. Formerly, Arora was the Chairman & CEO of NetObjects, Inc. since its inception in November 1995 to 2001. An industry veteran, Arora has over 18 years of management experience in computers, software, communication, entertainment and enterprise markets. Arora was recognized by CNET as Web Innovator of the Year, as someone who has "helped shape the Web" and was named IIA's Entrepreneur of the Year.

Prior to NetObjects, Arora was Chairman and CEO of Rae Technology and was a senior executive at Apple Computer, where he pioneered browser-based, information-navigation applications, precursors to what are now known as Web sites. In 1996, Arora led the creation of the publishing software that was used to produce 24 Hours in CyberSpace. Arora has been active in the entertainment industry in the past, having participated in more than 30 theatre and television productions, and is an accomplished photographer with a portfolio of editorial, fashion and portraiture work. Arora is on the Board of Directors of the not-for profit organization IZII, and actively supports the community, schools and the arts in the Bay Area and Santa Barbara.

Jennifer Erwitt, Senior Advisor
Jennifer Erwitt is the co-founder of Against All Odds Productions which specializes in the design and execution of large-scale global projects that combine compelling story-telling with state-of-the-art technology. Erwitt was co-director of critically acclaimed projects including Passage to Vietnam, 24 Hours in Cyberspace, and One Digital Day. Over the past two decades she has worked closely with the editors of Time Magazine, Fortune, Newsweek, National Geographic, the New York Times and numerous other publications during the production of Against All Odds' projects.

Previous to founding Against All Odds productions, Erwitt played a wide variety of roles in the creation of the award-winning Day in the Life book series including project director, production director and general manager. She contributed to ten titles in that series and also oversaw the production of numerous other photographic projects, including The Power to Heal, Baseball in America, Christmas in America, The Jews in America and One Earth.

Mark Greenberg, Partnership Advisor
After serving as Photo Assignment Editor for the Associated Press, Greenberg co-founded the New York-based Visions Photo agency. He has won World Press photo awards and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. His books include: Art of the Massai (Knopf), Voyager (Knopf) and Amazon Diary - The Jungle Adventures of Alex Winters (Putnam). He is a consultant to Olympus America, and lectures widely on digital photography. He is a principal with World Picture News, a start-up all digital photo agency. Greenberg was a photographer and digital consultant for A Day in the Life of Africa.

C. Thomas Hardin, Photography Advisor
Tom Hardin, former President of the National Press Photographers Association, was director of photography at The Courier-Journal, The Louisville Times and The Detroit News. Under Hardin's direction, The Courier-Journal and Louisville Times photo staff received the Pulitzer Prize in 1976. In 1994, he was presented NPPA's highest honor, the Joseph Sprague Award. That same year, he was elected to the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. In 1996, Hardin presented at the 3rd World Photojournalism Conference in Seoul, Korea on the current state of digital photojournalism, the ethical use of digital images and photo copyright protection in the US. As a photojournalist, Hardin was a regular winner of the annual Pictures of the Year competition. He has edited two books, founded a publishing company, and created AssignmentWare, a computer database that manages photo assignments for the newspaper industry.

Jon Kamen, Media and Partnership Advisor
With over twenty-five years leading the production industry, Jon Kamen is co-founder, Chairman and CEO of @radical.media, a global media and entertainment company which works alongside most of the world's advertising agencies on commercial production, as well developing and producing entertainment projects for network, cable, feature films and live theater. Since 1976, Jon Kamen has been an active member of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, and in 1991 he was elected as the organization's National Chairman. In 1994, he was presented with the Crystal Apple Award by the Mayor of New York. Jon is a regular on the business and marketing lecture circuit; serves on the boards of the AICP, the Art Directors Club, and the Rippowam Cisqua School in Westchester, New York; and was the catalyst for "We Love New York," an organization which mobilized the city's commercial production industry following September 11.

Eliane Laffont, Photography Advisor
Laffont is editorial director of Hachette Filipacchi Media, France's premier print media conglomerate and publisher of Paris Match and Elle. Raised in North Africa, she was president of the US division of Sygma, the world's largest photo news agency for more than 25 years. When Sygma was acquired by Corbis Images, she became vice-president of Corbis' global editorial strategy. She has served as a juror for major photojournalism competitions including the W. Eugene Smith Awards, the National Press Photographer's Association and the Overseas Press Club. Laffont was the Director of Photography for A Day in the Life of Africa.

Laird Popkin, Technology Advisor
Laird Popkin is currently Chief Technology Officer of TIG Ventures, consulting to Warner Music Group on eCommerce and Peer-to-Peer technologies. Popkin was also the CTO at 3Path, Inc., and, prior to that, at Sotheby's Holdings and SOTHEBYS.COM, the where he was responsible for launching the leading online commerce site for fine art, and developing worldwide corporate technology strategy and standards. Prior to Sotheby's, Popkin was the Chief Technology Officer at News America Digital Publishing/News Internet Services, the Internet division of the News Corporation, which launched and operated dozens of Web sites such as TVGuide.com, FOXNews.com, and LineOne (a UK-based online service). Popkin was with Marble Associates, a technology consulting firm specializing in the design and implementation of distributed object-oriented systems supporting corporate business process reengineering. He was the Multimedia Specialist for Thinking Machines Corporation, manufacturers of Massively Parallel Supercomputers. Popkin chairs the Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Authoring Group, which is the XML-based open standard for business-to-business content syndication.

Patti Richards, Publicity Advisor
Patti Richards has over 20 years experience in the public relations and communications field. She worked with Rick Smolan and David Elliot Cohen on A Day in the Life of Canada in 1984, and subsequently worked on ten Day in the Life projects around the world, coordinating international publicity campaigns on location in Beijing, Denver, Dublin, Los Angeles, Moscow, Rome, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Toronto. In 1989, she became Vice President, Publicity of the "Day in the Life" parent company Collins Publishers. Subsequently, Patti was Vice President, Publicity for Against All Odds Productions, a San Francisco-based company which produced groundbreaking CD-ROM and Internet publishing projects including From Alice to Ocean, Passage to Vietnam, and 24 Hours in Cyberspace. Richards directed the launch of HarperEdge, an imprint of books about technology and culture from HarperCollins Publishers. In 1997, she created a new communications department at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science in Cambridge, MA. Richards is currently the Senior Communications Officer in the MIT News Office.

Brian Smiga, Technology and Partnership Advisor
Brian Smiga is the CEO & Chair of Preclick Corporation, the Lifetime(tm) photo software company. Starting May 12th, as a free resource to all visitors and contributors to America 24-7, Preclick will also provide a free download version of Preclick Photowiki(tm), hosting software which enables anyone with a php-based website to set up a searchable group photo sharing gallery. Preclick provides the world's fastest and easiest photo software tools. Learn more at www.preclick.com.

Brian earned a B.A. in religion and theatre from Swarthmore and an M.Phil. in literature from Trinity College Dublin. While a co-founder at Actioneer, Smiga co-authored two US Patents for work on collaboration and meta-data enriched messages and won Best New Product for Palm and Lotus 1998-2000. While a co-founder of Portfolio, Brian was awarded Best Contact Manager for Dynodex and Best Mac Utility by MacWorld and MacWeek 1991-1994. From 1989-1992, Rick Smolan and Smiga gave Dynodex to all the pro photographers working on "A Day in the Life". Previous to becoming a software developer, Brian converted Booz-Allen from DOS to Macintosh in 1987-1988 and he was a multi-user database developer. Prior to that Brian was a member of SAG, Actors Equity and the Players Club in NYC, and an English teacher and coach.

Megan Smith, Technology Advisor
Megan Smith is the CEO of PlanetOut Corporation. Under her leadership, PlanetOut grew ten-fold in reach and revenue, diversified revenue streams, and pioneered many firsts in the GLBT business space. Prior to PlanetOut, Smith was at General Magic, Inc., where she led mechanical engineering; managed product development for prototype handheld information appliances, data cell-phones, and Smart Phones.

Megan holds a B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from M.I.T., where her work included two years at M.I.T.'s Media Lab. Over the years, Smith has designed an award-winning bicycle lock, worked on a space station engineering construction experiment that eventually flew on the U.S. Space Shuttle, and ran a field research study on solar cook stoves in Ecuador and Bolivia. Megan was named to the Advertising Age i20 for 1999, the Upside Magazine "Upside 100 Digital Elite," Top 25 Women on the Web 2000, Industry Standard's Top 10 people to watch in 2000, and in August 1999 received the first GLAAD Interactive Media Award for Internet Leadership.