Variety's Entertainment and Technology Summit

On October 17, Variety and Digital Hollywood will host the fall Entertainment and Technology Summit at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Marina Del Ray. Jon Favreau and Kevin Mayer, Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at The Walt Disney Company, will headline an impressive group of speakers at the summit.

Hollywood relies on Variety's Entertainment and Technology Summit, co-created with Digital Hollywood, to tackle new challenges and opportunities from emerging mobile platforms, new distribution strategies, social networking popularity and other growing trends. The Entertainment and Technology Summit features in-depth discussions focusing on the issues impacting technology advances in film and TV. The summit will address digital media campaigns, innovative social applications and film/TV partnerships, producing original web content, and entertainment distribution in the digital age.

Favreau is a multi-talented director, producer, writer and actor. He continues to challenge himself with a variety of eclectic projects. Most recently, Favreau directed the Dreamworks/Universal feature, Cowboys & Aliens, starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde. He directed both blockbuster hits Iron Man and Iron Man 2 starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow. He also directed the acclaimed holiday smash hit Elf, starring Will Ferrell for New Line Cinema, as well as Zathura, a children's adventure film starring Tim Robbins, for Sony Entertainment. He established himself as a writer with the acclaimed hipster comedy Swingers and made his feature film directorial debut with Artisan Entertainment's Made which he also wrote.

Mayer is responsible for leading the group at The Walt Disney Company to find profitable growth by targeting emerging business new to Disney's existing portfolio, and evaluating new technology and business models. The group is responsible for executing all merger, acquisition, and divestiture transactions as well. During his tenure, Mr. Mayer has overseen Disney's strategic acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel and Club Penguin. He also managed Disney's investment in Hungama and UTV in India, enhancing Disney's growth outside of the United States. Further, Mr. Mayer and his team handled the divestitures of Miramax and ABC Radio.

Other speakers and panelists include: Felicia Day, PGA Digital 25 honoree and creator of The Guild, Chris Bruss, Head of Branded Entertainment at FunnyorDie.com, Mike Rosenstein, Director of Digital Content at Ben Stiller's Red Hour Films, and Nick Grad, EVP of Original Series at FX.

Along with Variety and Digital Hollywood, the Entertainment and Technology Summit is sponsored by Yahoo, Thismoment, Consumer Electronics Association, Slacker, Microsoft, Medialink, AFTRA, Fizziology, and KOCCA.

For more information on the summit, visit www.variety.com/ent&techsummit.

About Digital Hollywood:

Digital Hollywood, now in its 17^th year, is produced by Victor Harwood, President and founder of Digital Hollywood, Inc. He coined the now ubiquitous expression "The Digital Revolution." Mr. Harwood is considered a leading authority on the convergence of the entertainment and technology industries, founding and organizing such conferences Media Summit New York, Building Blocks, Advertising 2.0, Digital Hollywood Europe in London, the Entertainment Globalization Initiative, Politics 2008: The Media Conference on the Election of the President, Multimedia Expo, Production East at Lincoln Center, the International Business in Space Conference and the New York Writers Conference.

About Variety

Variety is the leading publication for business entertainment news, recognized and respected throughout the world of show business. The Variety Group – Daily Variety, Daily Variety Gotham, Weekly Variety and Variety.com – are all owned by Reed Business Information (RBI), the largest business publisher in the U.S. RBI is a member of the Reed Elsevier Group plc (NYSE: RUK)(NYSE: ENL).