The story behind tech’s idea capitalist – She handpicks innovative technology to showcase at Demo Show

It’s truly through a twist of fate that Chris Shipley — raised by a Methodist minister and a school teacher in western Pennsylvania’s steel-producing country — would end up being a Silicon Valley guru, an arbiter of what’s hot on the tech horizon.

For the past eight years, Shipley has been the executive producer of the Demo conferences — exclusive, invitation-only events that have showcased ground-breaking technologies and companies such as TiVo, the original PalmPilot and Salesforce.com, among others.

Call Demo a high-tech farmers market, a place where a small sampling of the tech world’s freshest ideas and ventures are gathered and displayed for an audience of connoisseurs — industry analysts, technology journalists and investors.

It’s Shipley, 43, who handpicks the tech start-ups that show their wares at Demo.

She jets around the world — logging some 125,000 miles annually — to meet with companies for a first look at their innovations. For each of her twice-a-year Demo conferences, she whittles down the list of hundreds of potential exhibitors to 60 or 70 that are worthy of a make-or-break, six-minute pitch on the Demo stage.

By Sam Diaz

Mercury News

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