Stefan Weitz

Stefan Weitz is a Senior Director of Search at Microsoft and charged with working with people and organizations across the industry to promote and improve Search technologies. While focused on Microsoft's product line, he works across the industry to understand searcher behavior, academic developments, and innovations from all over and, in his role as an evangelist for Search, gathers and distills feedback to drive product improvements.

Prior to Search, Stefan led the strategy to develop the next generation MSN portal platform and developed Microsoft's muni WiFi strategy and implementation, leading the charge to blanket free WiFi access across metropolitan cities. Stefan has been writing code since he was 8 years old and is fluent in hardware and software architecture, trends, and potentials. A 15-year Microsoft veteran, he has worked in various groups including Windows Server, Windows, Informatics Security, and licensing in roles ranging from development to program management, business development to marketing.

Stefan is a huge gadget 'junkie' and can often be found in electronics shops across the world looking for the elusive perfect piece of tech. Stefan also serves on advisory boards for many startups ranging from biometrics to advertising to virtualization and is an active Angel investor. In his other spare cycles, he is working with national educational reinvention groups to reboot K-12 education in this country and is actively advising startups that are focusing on boosting student achievement through technology and big data. Finally, Stefan is working on a book with the nation’s youngest VC to promote entrepreneurism to the high-school crowd and is advising on how to make available 40 years of archived data from the 92nd Street Y in NYC.