Kevin Bermeister (born 1960 in South Africa) is an entrepreneur that has developed several businesses in the computer, multimedia and Internet industries. He is a technology innovator, real estate investor, philanthropist, and the founder, chairman and CEO of Brilliant Digital Entertainment Inc. (BDE). Bermeister is a founding investor in a number of successful technology and real estate ventures including

Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...

Career

In 1983, Bermeister established

Ozisoft is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game video game publisher, publisher, and the video game branch of the wider Bandai Namco Holdings group. Founded in 2006 as it is the successor to Namco's home and arcade video game ...

, one of the first interactive multimedia companies. By 1990, Ozisoft was Australia's largest

video games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

distributor. In 1992, Bermeister and Mark Dyne successfully led a management buyout, together with

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

Enterprises, to form Sega Ozisoft Pty Limited representing exclusively the world's largest video game publisher. In 1994, Bermeister and his property consortium Jacfun negotiated rights to property at Sydney's

Darling Harbour Darling Harbour is a harbour and neighborhood adjacent to the city centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that is made up of a large recreational and pedestrian precinct that is situated on western outskirts of the Sydney central busines ...

and established the interactive

Sega World Sydney Sega World Sydney was an indoor high-tech amusement park that operated for almost four years, in Sydney. The theme park was built as the flagship tenant of the Darling Walk complex in Darling Harbour, and was designed and themed by gaming compan ...

amusement park, operated through a joint venture including shareholders Sega Enterprises Japan,

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group traces its origins to the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company that existed from 1870 to 194 ...

Corp. and

Mitsui is a Japanese corporate group and '' keiretsu'' that traces its roots to the ''zaibatsu'' groups that were dissolved after World War II. Unlike the ''zaibatsu'' of the pre-war period, there is no controlling company with regulatory power. Ins ...

Corp. Bermeister founded Brilliant Digital Entertainment Inc. in 1996, focusing on 3D graphics streaming and compression for which it was granted 8 patents. BDE was the founding member of the Distributed Industry Computing Association. The company developed a number of Internet interests including Altnet, a joint venture with Joltid Ltd., to develop and market secure distributed storage for content using P2P technology to reduce distribution costs and reach new audiences. In 2003 Altnet, using its distributed storage technology, became the largest provider of secure DRM content, having distributed 75 million licensed files to users of various P2P file sharing software applications. Another initiative undertaken by Altnet under Bermeister's stewardship is Global File Registry, which enables governments and copyright owners to police the distribution of illegal or infringing material over distributed systems and the Internet. In 2006 BDE, Altnet and Kazaa settled major litigation with leading music and motion picture industry plaintiffs. Since then, Bermeister has focused on building and acquiring content, technology and distribution assets for BDE. During 2006, BDE was acquired by Kinetech Inc., a company with interests in patents and intellectual property licensing relating primarily to certain key distributed technologies that had been licensed by Altnet since 2002 and important to P2P storage and Global File Registry businesses of Altnet. Kinetech's patent and technology portfolio is often referred to as the True Name Patent Portfolio. In 2008, BDE acquired the Kazaa Trademark and relaunched Kazaa with music licenses from major music labels Universal, Sony, Warner Music Group and EMI, major independent record labels, and leading music publishers. In 2011, BDE subsidiary Kinetech acquired a majority interest in PersonalWeb LL
PersonalWeb
a Tyler, Texas-based technology company. PersonalWeb develops its software based in part on the 13 pending and issued patents in the Truenames Patent Portfolio.

Activity in Israel

Bermeister is an active investor in Israeli real estate. In his latest real estate endeavours, he teamed with an Israeli retail magnate to bid for Nof Zion, a major residential project in

East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the portion of Jerusalem that was Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, held by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Captured and occupied in 1967, th ...

and he acquired a stake in The Leonardo Inn at the entrance to the city. He is a founder o
Jerusalem 5800
a long-term planning and research project for greater Jerusalem.

Charity and sponsorship

Bermeister is a major benefactor and supporter of numerous charitable organisations including

The Hunger Project The Hunger Project (THP), founded in 1977 with the stated goal of ending world hunger in 25 years, is an organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. It has ongoing programs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where it implemen ...

United Israel Appeal United Israel Appeal (UIA), a subsidiary of The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), is a link between the American Jewish community and the people of Israel. An independent legal entity with 501(c)(3) charity status, and a Board of Direc ...

Jewish Care Jewish Care is a British charity, working mainly in London and South East England, providing health and social care support services for the Jewish community. The charity runs over 70 centres and services which include care homes, community centr ...

UniOne Foundation According to the theory of the art historian Marcia B. Hall, which has gained considerable acceptance, ''unione'' () is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance; that is, one of four modes of painting colours available to Italian ...

and Jake's Ladder, a foundation for research into

cystic fibrosis Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disorder inherited in an autosomal recessive manner that impairs the normal clearance of Sputum, mucus from the lungs, which facilitates the colonization and infection of the lungs by bacteria, notably ''Staphy ...

, The

City of David The City of David (Hebrew: עיר דוד, ''Ir David'') is the historic heart of Jerusalem and widely regarded as the original location of the ancient city established by King David over 3,000 years ago. Situated just south of the Temple Mount, the ...

and

Binyan Adei Ad In Hebrew, verbs, which take the form of derived stems, are conjugated to reflect their tense and mood, as well as to agree with their subjects in gender, number, and person. Each verb has an inherent voice, though a verb in one voice typical ...

. He was recently awarded the Yeshiva Center Leadership in Philanthropy Award.

References

External links

Brilliant Digital Entertainment

PersonalWeb

Jerusalem 5800
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bermeister, Kevin Australian businesspeople Australian Jews Living people 1960 births