About

In 1999, Shayne Gilbert, Scott Kirsner, and Alyssa Stern brought together a group of colleagues to create a new gathering on Nantucket for the Boston tech ecosystem.  The premise was simple... let's get together a group of industry influencers to talk about what's happening in our corner of the world and share strategies that might help spawn more successful companies here.  More than a decade later, the team, working with a group of industry advisors each year, still works together to produce programs that have run in the greater Boston area, San Francisco, New York, and London.  Each year, these programs continue to bring together a select group of individuals to share best practices and help one another. 

Shayne Gilbert

Shayne Gilbert has been fueling the entrepreneurial community since starting Silverweave in 1994. Through Future Forward Events, Shayne creates exclusive programs for high technology and life sciences executives and investors including the Nantucket Conference for technology executives and investors and Convergence Forum:  For Leaders in Healthcare Innovation. Future Forward Events has produced programs on both the East and West coasts as well as internationally.

Given her ability to remain close to the pulse of New England's emerging businesses, Shayne is often sought to contribute and comment on the impact of the growth of technology and life sciences industries in New England. This work has included Mass Impact: An Upcoming Report on the Growth and Health of the Life Sciences Industry in Massachusetts, on behalf of MIT, and the executive summaries for Engines of Economic Growth: The Economic Impact of Boston's Eight Research Universities on the Metropolitan Boston Area and Entrepreneurial Impact: The Role of MIT.

In 2019, Shayne expanded her work in building entrepreneurial networks internationally as the Executive Director of the non-profit Canadian Entrepreneurs in New England.

Shayne founded Campseekers, a corporate wellness benefit that solves the school break challenge for working parents, and sold the network to Bright Horizons in 2019.

The author of 90 Days to Launch (Wiley), Shayne's work has been recognized in The Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe and Wired.

Shayne founded Campseekers, a corporate wellness benefit that solves the school break challenge for working parents, and sold the network to Bright Horizons.

Shayne is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Scott Kirsner

Scott Kirsner is the co-founder and editor of Innovation Leader, a site that focuses on innovation inside large companies. He also writes the weekly "Innovation Economy" column for the Boston Globe. Scott is the author of the books Fans, Friends & Followers and Inventing the Movies, a technological history of Hollywood, and was editor of The Convergence Guide: Life Sciences in New England. Scott's writing has also appeared in the New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, BusinessWeek, the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Newsweek, among other publications. Scott is a frequent moderator and event host, having spoken or led sessions at the Sundance Film Festival, South by Southwest, several TEDx gatherings, the Consumer Electronics Show, the MIT R&D Conference, the Connected Healthcare Symposium, Authors@Google, the Churchill Club, the NAB Futures Summit, and the Toronto Film Festival. Scott is a graduate of Boston University's College of Communications and the New World School of the Arts, in Miami.

Alyssa Stern

Alyssa Stern is the Vice President of Future Forward Events, LLC where she manages the high level programs operated by the company. The Nantucket Conference, launched in 2000, delivers an exclusive program for executives and investors in the region's emerging technology industries. Future Forward: The New England Technology Summit, introduced in 2001, brings together CIOs and other corporate technology influencers with the executives of emerging technology companies. Convergence Forum:  For Leaders in Healthcare Innovation brings together executives and investors in the life sciences industry.

Alyssa is also Vice President of Silverweave Inc. As a program management consultant, she helped manage the launch of the MIT Biotech Forum and worked with the Deshpande Center on the Ideastream Symposium for a number of years.

Prior to Future Forward Events and Silverweave, Alyssa worked at Hay/McBer, a human resources consulting firm, as Manager of New Products and Services. She has managed training events and conferences since 1996. Alyssa received both her undergraduate degree and Masters in Business Administration from Boston University.