Carl Franklin has been a figurehead in the VB community since the very early days when he wrote for Visual Basic Programmers Journal. He authored the Q&A column of that magazine as well as many feature articles for VBPJ and other magazines. He has authored two books for John Wiley & Sons on sockets programming in VB, and in 1994 he helped create the very first web site for VB developers, Carl & Gary's VB Home Page.

Carl is also the Microsoft Regional Director for Connecticut, an MVP for Kinect, co-host of .NET Rocks! and The Tablet Show, a .NET Rocks! spin-off dedicated to developing for tablets, phones and other mobile devices, as well as mobile web.

Carl is the creator of GesturePak ($99), the first gesture recognition library for Microsoft Kinect for Windows. GesturePak records your motion as you create gestures, then notifies your app when your user has performed one or more of your gestures.

Carl is also an accomplished musician and audio/video producer. He started Pwop in 1999 as a record label for his first album, a collaboration with his brother Jay: Strange Communication. Franklin Brothers released Lifeboat To Nowhere in 2011, which has met with rave reviews. Carl is working on a new solo album, Been a While, which offers a tune featuring John Scofield on guitar, as well as an incredible group of musicians local to New London, CT.

Pwop Studios is now a full-service audio and video post production studio in New London, CT, where Carl records and produces the podcasts as well as music and video projects - both for himself, Franklin Brothers, and the public.

Richard Campbell has been involved with microcomputers and software since 1977. His career has spanned the industry both on the hardware and software sides, from manufacturing to sales, service, game development, line-of-business software and large scale systems. He's been deeply involved in creating new businesses around software, hardware, services and products in a huge range of roles, including technical, management and financing. During the halcyon days of the DotCom Boom he was a consultant to venture capital firms providing technical due diligence and architectural direction.

Today Richard consults with a number of clients on software architecture and future directions of technology. He is a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP. He's a partner in PWOP Productions, creating a variety of multimedia programs including ".NET Rocks!, the Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers," (www.dotnetrocks.com) a podcast produced twice a week for more than 250,000 listeners in 120 countries and The Tablet Show (www.thetabletshow.com), a weekly podcast focused on tablet and mobile development. In addition he's the host of RunAs Radio (www.runasradio.com), a podcast for the IT Professional using Microsoft technologies. You'll find Richard at numerous conferences all over the world.