Dan Harple

About Dan Harple

Entrepreneur/Inventor/Founder/CEOFor 30+ years I\'ve founded and grown companies that built internet technologies used by billions — real-time collaboration, VoIP and streaming media at Netscape; big-data and collaboration platforms at Oracle; and the original underlying technology behind China\'s Weibo (650M+ daily users). Today, as Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Context Labs BV, I\'m focused on the next systemic problem on the internet: trust in data. Our AI-driven data fabric — Immutably™ — turns the world\'s environmental and climate information into Asset Grade Data™ (AGD), so global markets can act on it with confidence in an AI-enabled digital age. Awards include Inc. Magazine\'s Entrepreneur of the Year and the NEA President\'s Award. My MIT research on Pentalytics™ became the foundation for Context Labs and seeded two ecosystem initiatives I co-founded: the Open Music Initiative (open-music.org) and the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI). In May 2026, the University of Rhode Island conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Science (D.Sc.), honoris causa. Profiled in The New Pioneers (Thomas Petzinger, Simon & Schuster) and The Truth Machine (Michael Casey, WSJ); co-author with Vint Cerf, Steve Jurvetson, Geoffrey Moore, and Esther Wojcicki on Disrupting Unemployment. Non-profit and educational board service since the mid-1990s — most recently Berklee College of Music. Always open to conversations with investors, strategic partners, and people working at the intersection of AI, climate, and the energy transition. → → Areas of Interest Technology innovation and invention; structuring and scaling new companies to success. 30+ years as CEO and Chairman of publicly listed and venture-backed technology firms across real-time media, VoIP, streaming, collaboration, big data, social/local/mobile, distributed ledger/blockchain, machine learning, AI-driven network-graph analytics, and trusted identity. Board director, investor, and advisor. Frequent invited speaker and keynote on innovation, entrepreneurship, M&A, venture funding, IP, and the technologies above. Non-profit, climate/impact, and educational trustee with experience in governance, technology, finance, infrastructure and deferred maintenance, acquisitions, capital campaigns, and policy.

Experience

1. Founder & CEO

   Context Labs BV

   Dec 2016 — Present · Cambridge, NL

   Context Labs is an enterprise platform that transforms complex data into continuously proven information. Its AI-enabled software helps industrial organizations turn fragmented operational and emissions data into trusted, auditable, and decision-ready intelligence for carbon management, compliance, and commercial use. The company was formed out of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) research and is led by a team that has been instrumental in the at-scale growth of the Internet through prior companies. Context Labs is located in Amsterdam, Cambridge, Mass, and Houston. Learn more at CEO of Context Labs, Dan Harple was a co-founder of MOBI (Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative, from its inception, as well as a founding Board Advisor, bringing together a global automotive ecosystem to apply blockchain-related technologies to big industry CEO of Context Labs, Dan was founder of a new company aimed at building the world\'s trusted platform for environmental data, in partnership and funding with the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, and Shamrock CEO of Context Labs, and a Berklee Trustee, Dan Harple was Co-Founder of Open Music Initiative, bringing together a global music and media ecosystem to bring digital interoperability to all stakeholders, enabling the seamless payment and attribution of

Education

• University of Rhode Island

  B.A., Psychology

• University of Rhode Island

  B.S.M.E, Mechanical Engineering

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Master of Science (MSc), Sloan Fellow

• University of Rhode Island

  Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa (D.Sc)

• Marlboro College

  Liberal Arts

  1977 — 1981