Featured Speaker:

Walter S. Mossberg
Personal Technology Columnist
The Wall Street Journal

Walt Mossberg is the author and creator of the weekly Personal Technology column in The Wall Street Journal, which has appeared every Thursday since 1991. The Washington Post has declared Mr. Mossberg “one of the most powerful men in the high-tech world” and “a one-man media empire whose prose can launch a new product.” And the New York Times calls him a “protean critic of the new economy's tools and toys.” He is also the co-creator and co-producer of the technology industry's most prestigious annual conference, D: All Things Digital, hosted by the Journal each spring. Since its launch in 2003, the event has featured every major leader in the technology, internet and media world, including Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Scott McNealy, Barry Diller, the founders of Google and Yahoo, Terry Semel, Jeff Hawkins, Steve Case, Ivan Seidenberg, and many more.

Mr. Mossberg was awarded the 1999 Loeb award for Commentary, the only technology writer to be so honored. For many years, he has been named as the most influential journalist writing about computers by many publications. In a major 2004 profile of Mr. Mossberg, entitled “The Kingmaker,— Wired Magazine declared: “Few reviewers have held so much power to shape an industry's successes and failures.Chances are he has influenced the look, feel and performance of your laptop, mobile phone, and MP3 player.” In May of 2001, he received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Rhode Island. That same month, he was awarded a 2001 National Headliner Award. In May of 2002, he was inducted into the ranks of the Business News Luminaries, the hall of fame for business journalists. That same year, he won the World Technology Award for Media and Journalism.

In addition to Personal Technology, Mr. Mossberg also writes two other weekly columns in the Journal. In Mossberg's Mailbox, he answers readers' questions. In The Mossberg Solution, he compares and contrasts consumer electronic gadgets. He is also a contributing editor of Smart Money, the Journal's monthly magazine, where he writes a column called The Mossberg Report. On television, Mr. Mossberg is a regular technology commentator for the CNBC network.

Mr. Mossberg, 58, has been a reporter and editor at the Journal since 1970. He is based in the Journal's Washington, D.C., office, where he spent 18 years covering national and international affairs before turning his attention to technology. A native of Warwick, Rhode Island, he holds degrees from Brandeis University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.