Nicholas R. Givotovsky is founder and president of Datasphere Interactive, Inc. a consulting company specializing in interactive media technology, strategy and standards. As a producer and consultant he has played the role of inventor and catalyst in numerous innovative interactive ventures at the leading edge of interactive media and technology implementation. His primary focus has been the conception, design and delivery of personalized, scalable and portable user-centric new media applications. Always a user advocate, he has worked to advance privacy, transparency and equitable security policy over the course of his career.

Through Datasphere, Nicholas has consulted to companies in both the technology and media segments on topics including digital rights management, interactive media design and development, advanced cross-platform advertising models, privacy policy, and international standards development. He has advised clients including Apple, Columbia House, Dentsu, Hewlett Packard, Home Box Office, Tribune, and United Digital Artists. He has also consulted to the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) as advisor to the MPA New Media Committee, and its Task Force on Privacy, also producing their first web presence. A distributed, mentored online educational system he conceived and developed in conjunction with The Library of Congress and America Online has been endorsed by the Librarian of Congress.

Nicholas has also actively contributed to the development of clients' products, strategy and intellectual property. On behalf of client MMG, Ltd, a permissions administration services company based in Tokyo, he has participated in a range of international standards activities, including SDMI (the Secure Digital Music Initiative), MPEG21, TV-Anytime, and the Innovation in Digital Advertising Initiative. As Secretary of Contecs:DD, a consortium that includes representatives from the Motion Pictures Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America, Nicholas has helped advance the creation and adoption of an interoperable rights data dictionary now formally standardized through MPEG21. Currently, he co-chairs the Rights Management and Protection working group of the TV Anytime forum where agreement has been forged across multiple industry participants to enable the adoption the rights management standards endorsed by hardware manufactures, broadcasters, content owners, and other value chain participants.

A graduate of St. Andrews University in philosophy, theology & literature, he spent his early career working in music, interactive media and documentary film in Edinburgh and London. He lives with his wife, writer and actress Laura Kirk and their two children in northwestern Connecticut.