Warren Katz is Chairman of The Alliance for Commercial Technology in Government, an industry association representing commercial technology companies that would like to sell into government without being forced to become defense contractors.  In his role, Warren lobbies congress and the Department of Defense for changes to acquisition regulations that make the defense industry more of a meritocracy, reducing the barriers to innovative commercial vendors, and keeping the US ahead of its adversaries.  Prior to that Warren was the Managing Director of Air Force Accelerator Powered by Techstars, the first outreach activity for the US Air Force's AFWERX office to the traditional startup community.  Immediately prior to that, he was President of Neurala, a leading Artificial Intelligence company that develops an edge-based AI framework with continuous learning. He co-founded MÄK Technologies in 1990, the leading vendor of interoperability solutions to the distributed simulation market, later acquired by VT Systems of Alexandria, Virginia. He is an avid startup mentor, advisor, board member and investor with expertise in how to fund technology companies using government contracts. He is a noted industry advocate of open interoperability standards and commercial business models in defense procurement. He was six-term chairman of the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization, the international not-for-profit consortium that develops standards for synthetic environments. From 1987 to 1990, he worked for Bolt, Beranek, and Newman on DARPA's SIMNET program as a drive train simulation expert, responsible for mathematical modeling of physical systems. He holds dual bachelor’s degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from MIT. Some of Katz’s investments include Harmonix, GrabCAD, Neurala, Bevi, LovePop, Vita Inclinata, Mesodyne, Cleo Robotics and Notch Technologies.  He has received numerous awards and honors for his acquisition reform work, including being named the 2022 IITSEC Fellow, and being appointed to the Defense Innovation Board Task Force on Strategic Investment Capital.