David Burwen divides his time between working on new high tech company formation as a Managing Director of Venture Development Group (VDG), education improvement, as a founder of the Burwen Education Foundation, and adventure travel. Since 1998 he has invested in more than 30 early stage companies and several side firms of major Venture Capital companies including Sequoia. In certain cases he has led angel round investments and provided strategic, operational, marketing and sales consulting.

Prior to VDG David was the initial sales, marketing and business development executive for start-up Aspect Development, Inc and was a key contributor to Aspect\’s growth to 1997 sales of $50M, with an IPO in 1996. Prior to Aspect he was CEO of Echelon Management Systems (consulting firm in supply chain management and business development), CEO of Adaptive Intelligence (robotic assembly work cells,) and a director of Computer Integrated Manufacturing at Integrated Automation (a Teknekron Company). He started his career as a sales rep for Olivetti, Digital Equipment and Data General. David has served on the board of directors of several private high tech companies.

Through the Burwen Education Foundation, David and his wife, Dr. Susan Jo Burwen, provide enabling scholarships to high potential high school students from economically disadvantage families to enable them to attend a quality four year college. The BEF provides substantial funding and mentoring for a few select students. The BEF is also providing \“bottom up”\ development for a village in rural Nepal where it has built a school educating 140 students and a micro-hydroelectric power plant providing the first electricity for the 250 villagers (http://vimeo.com/4785044& http://vimeo.com/13232072).

David\’s adventure travels include trekking and/or skiing in mountains around the world including Nepal, Alaska, Patagonia, and Canada. Susan and David wrote the coffee table art book Carl Roters and the Rendezvous Murals in 2004 (www.carlroters.com).

David has a BS in physics from WPI and a MA in physics from Brandeis University.