Irv Shapiro

Irv Shapiro, CEO/CTO of Ifbyphone has spent over 30 years driving technology innovation with a focus on data communications and networking. Irv began his career writing custom VAX/VMS device drivers for Digital Equipment Corporation and continued his career at Digital as the District Network Consultant and then the U.S. Area Data Communications Expertise Center Manager.

Irv left Digital to start Metamor Technologies, a system integration firm that grew to over 500 consultants and was a two-time INC 500 award recipient. After selling Metamor he founded Edventions, an elementary school infrastructure company. At Edventions Irv developed an industry-leading split ASP deployment model that leveraged the performance of in school systems with the flexibility of Internet connectivity and support.

After focusing on computing architectures and technologies at Metamor and Edventions, Irv turned his attention to Voice and Phone Mashups at Ifbyphone. He designed the company's proprietary automated VoiceXML generation technology which combines the cost savings of Asterisk Open Source solutions with the robustness of carrier grade VoiceXML/CCXML solutions.

Irv was inducted into the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame in 1997, was a Finalist in the 1997 KMPG Illinois High Tech Awards, has a BS/CS from Washington University in St. Louis and is a regular speaker and writer on the application of technology.