Home

I am co-founder of Farmerline, a company that provides improved information access and communication pathways for smallholder farmers and agricultural stakeholders. As a software developer, I have thought through several problems and made choices on workable solutions by leveraging my past experiences in building location-based/GIS and GPS applications, SMS and voice applications, for the agricultural ecosystem in Ghana and beyond.

In 2012 Abiodun Afolabi's company started a revolution in Nigeria. A revolution that is spreading from Nigeria to the the rest of Africa as a whole. SB Telecoms and Devices Limited has taken on a very herculean task of challenging and fighting the menace of “AFRICAN TIME” which in Afolabi's opinion is largely responsible for the under development that Africa is plagued with. 

Vikrum D. Aiyer is Chief of Staff of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Arriving from the White House, Aiyer previously served as President Obama’s senior policy advisor for the innovation and manufacturing agenda at the National Economic Council. 

Shola is the co-founder and CEO of Paystack, an online payments company facilitating commerce in Africa by enabling frictionless payments and the first Nigerian company to be accepted into Silicon Valley Based Accelerator, Y Combinator. Since its launch in early 2016, Paystack has partnered with over 1,300 merchants in Nigeria alone, including industry e-commerce pioneers Hotels.NG and Jobberman. 

Tayo is an entrepreneurship enthusiast who began her career at an NGO dedicated to advancing women in corporate business. Since then she has focused on understanding how businesses are built and sustained. She is currently a consultant for infoDev, a program of the World Bank, supporting the development of a pan-African accelerator.

Rami is a proud geek, investor. He is executive chairman of F03 Venture Partners an investment and economic development firm aiming to accelerate the startup, and investment ecosystems across emerging markets through community activation

Idriss Al Rifai is an entrepreneur passionate about disrupting the Middle East retail market with technologies and customer-centric services that enable the growth of e-commerce in the region. Idriss has developed and optimized a last mile delivery solution specifically for the e-commerce needs and requirements in the Middle East. 

Amina al-Hawaj, known as the "youngest and first women inventor in Bahrain", has won many of global awards for her inventions in medical physiotherapy. Appointed as first Arabian to be “Ambassador of invention”, from the British inventors Society. Despite being only 19 years old, the physiotherapy student has treated more than 100 patients who suffer from osteoporosis, rheumatism, cruciate ligament injuries and muscular dystrophy with her invention.

Runa Alam is a co-founding partner and CEO of DPI, a leading Pan-African private equity firm with over US$1.1 billion of assets under management.   She has more than 30 years of private equity, emerging market management, and investment banking experience. She serves on the board of several African companies which are investee companies of the DPI funds. 

Robin is a serial brand innovator, creative director/copywriter and storyteller who has an insatiable curiosity about people and culture. Some of the original brands she helped create and steer to success for entrepreneurs and major corporations include: Origins Natural Resources and The Beauty Bank for Estée Lauder as well as Léman Manhattan Preparatory School, DrinkLavit, Stetson Bourbon, Voli Vodka, Jane Cosmetics, GeoGirl Cosmetics.

Joy Ajlouny is an e-commerce industry professional whose influence in business and entrepreneurship has spanned the globe. Joy is the co-founder of Fetchr, a Silicon-Valley backed technology company based in Dubai aimed at solving the "no-address" problem hindering growth in emerging markets. 

Wafa is the Chief Executive Officer of Obai and Hill. Obai and Hill provides its clients with creative and innovative designs and strategic solutions that give them the needed competitive edge in the current marketplace. In 2015, Obai and Hill received the Start Up of the Year award, hosted by the Bahrain Entrepreneurship Awards.

Ala' Alsallal is the Founder and CEO of Jamalon, the largest online bookstore for Arabic and English books, offering more than 10 million titles with worldwide delivery. He holds a Masters of Science in Information Technologies and Telecommunications from Athens Information Technology.

Nicole Amarteifio is among several other highly acclaimed entrepreneurs cited in The Financial Times "Top 25 Africans to Watch" list, after a successful launch of the hit web series 'An African City.' The show hit 1 million views within the first several weeks of its release and, therefore, is considered one of Ghana's most successful YouTube channels. Nicole is currently pursuing TV projects full time, after a successful career in international development where she worked on policies such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) at The Whitaker Group. 

Jehan Ara is the President of the Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA) and The Big Bird at The Nest i/o. Jehan has over 30 years experience in Marketing, Communications and interactive New media in Hong Kong, the Far East, the UAE and Pakistan. 

Ime Archibong is the Director of Global Product Partnerships at Facebook. His team is focused on accelerating Facebook's product strategy and unlocking new business opportunities through partnerships and product integrations. 

I was born in Winneba, Ghana, and I had my basic education in the same town.
I continued to Ghana Secondary Technical School, for my secondary education, and then graduated in 1996 from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology with a BSC in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

Anup Akkihal co-founded Logistimo – a technology company enabling “inclusive supply chains” across frontier markets, pioneering novel value networks to assure rural access to essential products and strengthen market linkages for village producers – especially in public healthcare, agriculture, energy, industrial goods, and consumer products.

Debbie Aung Din Taylor is Co-founder of Proximity Designs, a non-profit social enterprise operating in Myanmar since 2004. Proximity designs, makes and sells products and services that provide a path out of poverty for rural families. These include farm irrigation devices, financial services and farm advisory services. 

Andres Bautista is 44 years old and he was born in Bogota / Colombia. His first degree is in law and combines extensive legal and corporate management experience giving his clients the advantage of an attorney capable of understanding more than just the legal implications of a transaction or matter in litigation. Clients are represented by a lawyer who understands the real world challenges and pragmatic decisions facing today’s business and entrepreneurship. Admitted to practice law in Republic of Colombia since 1995 and currently limits his practice to corporate, employment, entrepreneurship and business matters.

Paul Brest is Former Dean and Professor Emeritus (active), at Stanford Law School, a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a faculty co-director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and co-director of the Stanford Law and Policy Lab. He was president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation from 2000-2012.

Juan Manuel Barrientos, known in the gastronomic world as Juanma, was born on June 16th in 1983 in Medellin, Colombia. He is entrepreneur, and peace lider. Juanma is creator and founder of the restaurants elcielo(Medellin,Bogota,Miami) ,elcielo catering ,Pizzeria la Serenissima de Venezia. He has won the recognition as one of the best chefs in Latin America, and the youngest ( LA 50 BEST SAN PELLEGRINO in 2013, 2014 and 2015). 

Ross Baird has been at the forefront of the changing world of entrepreneurship, as a member of the founding team of ten enterprises since he started college. Ross developed Village Capital, the firm he runs, in 2009, and leads the development of an organization that has supported over 600 enterprises on six continents, as well as the world's first peer-selected venture fund. 

Radha Ramaswami Basu has over 30 years’ experience in executive management and is widely recognized as a leading woman technology entrepreneur and mentor, and as a pioneer in the Indian software business. Currently, she is CEO of iMerit, a company delivering on-demand data services to global companies like eBay and Microsoft, while creating social and economic change.

Elmira Bayrasli is the author of From the Other Side of the World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places, a book that looks at the rise of entrepreneurship globally. She is also the co-founder of Foreign Policy Interrupted and a lecturer at New York University. 

Andrew is a #worldpositive investor and managing director of Obvious Ventures, a VC firm that empowers entrepreneurs to achieve both profit and purpose with their businesses. Andrew is a veteran in the solar industry with over a decade of experience focusing on clean energy solutions.

Archel Bernard is owner of The Bombchel Factory and Mango Rags boutique in Monrovia, Liberia. She moved to the West African country after graduating from Georgia Tech in Atlanta. She now specializes in dreaming up contemporary African womenswear, empowering disadvantaged women to sew her designs, and helping all the women she meets to become self-sufficient.

Jason is a San Francisco-based technology entrepreneur who thought there should be a better way for startups and SMEs to raise money.  He co-authored the crowdfund-investing framework used in the JOBS Act to legalize securities-based crowdfunding in the US.  He and his business partner led the 460-day grass roots campaign to change 80-year-old securities laws in the US.  

Fadi has in-depth knowledge and experience related to building successful startups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the world. For over 20 years, he has been successfully matching human capital and venture capital needs across the globe, guiding talented technology entrepreneurs in their path. Prior to founding Blackbox, Fadi was the founder and CEO of techVenture.

Brian Cayce is the Vice President of Gray Ghost Ventures.  He is a leading impact venture capitalist seeking technology-led startups in emerging markets bridging the access gap to essential services and goods for the mass market.

Sumir Chadha is the Co-­‐Founder and Managing Director of WestBridge Capital. Prior to this, he co-­‐founded and was a Managing Director of Sequoia Capital India. Sumir currently serves on the boards of Vistaar Financial Services Private Limited and India Shelter Finance Corporation (ISFC).

Shaun’s first career was in the financial markets. He worked for Goldman Sachs in London and later managed his own hedge fund in San Francisco. Shaun was then drawn to the non-profit sector. He worked with street children in India and for fistula patients in Africa. And, at mothers2mothers, he led the launch and scale-up across Southern and East Africa of a program preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV. 

Ann Mei Chang is the Chief Innovation Officer and the Executive Director of the U.S. Global Development Lab at USAID.  The Lab is the newest bureau at USAID and aims to transform global development through science, technology, innovation, and partnerships.  Prior to USAID, Ann Mei was the Chief Innovation Officer at Mercy Corps, an international NGO.  She also served as the Senior Advisor for Women and Technology in the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of State.

Kevin is an emerging markets specialist in the technology industry with over a decade's experience launching products and initiatives across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. Kevin currently serves in Microsoft's Affordable Access Initiative, an organization that partners with local start-ups, entrepreneurs, and businesses worldwide to connect the 4 billion people worldwide currently lacking access to the Internet. 

I’m the Founder and CEO of JDPLabs. As a technology passionate  and considering what a pleasant experience writing code is to me, I’ve always been interested in innovation through software, by focusing not only on what is needed, but also on improving how things are currently done around the globe, perhaps even shortening the gap between the present and the future. In an attempt to achieve this, I started a master’s degree program, during which I specialized in areas related to pervasive computing and autonomous multi-agent systems. 

Emily Chang is the anchor of "Bloomberg West," a daily live show about tech, innovation and the future of business. She also hosts "Studio 1.0," an in-depth interview show, where she speaks to influencers in technology and media. Guests have included Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Virgin's Richard Branson, author Malcolm Gladwell, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and more. Emily also serves on BUILD’s National Board.

Angie is a Vice President at Hackbright Academy, where she leads partnerships and the mentorship program. Hackbright Academy runs 12-week accelerated engineering fellowships exclusively for women quarterly in San Francisco, with the goal of changing the ratio in engineering and technology by training more female software engineers. In 2008, she started Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners to network women in technology. 

With over 35 years as a corporate lawyer & business advisor in international trade and investment, Tony is keenly focused on sub-Saharan Africa. Currently working to transfer new technology and methodology to the region, his passion for Africa, its business and overall development date back to his Peace Corps service in Botswana in the late 1970s.

Jean Case is an actively engaged philanthropist, investor and a pioneer in the world of interactive technologies. Her career in the private sector spanned nearly two decades before she and her husband, Steve Case, created the Case Foundation in 1997. The Case Foundation is recognized for its innovative efforts to address significant social challenges, harnessing the best impulses of entrepreneurship, innovation, technology and collaboration to drive exponential impact.

Steve Case is one of America’s best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and a pioneer in making the Internet part of everyday life. As chairman and CEO of Revolution, a Washington, D.C.-based investment firm he co-founded in 2005, Steve partners with visionary entrepreneurs to build significant, ‘built to last’ businesses. 

Sasha Chanoff is the founder and executive director of RefugePoint, a humanitarian organization that finds lasting solutions for the world’s most at risk refugees. Sasha has appeared on 60 Minutes and in other national media outlets, and has received social entrepreneur fellowships from Ashoka, Echoing Green, and the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation.

Youssef studied industrial engineering at top Moroccan engineering university Ecole Mohammadia d’Ingénieurs. Upon graduating in 1998, he joined Unilever and held several positions there, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya. After Unilever, Youssef worked at Savola, a large Saudi Arabian edible oil company. During his time at both companies, Youssef deepened his knowledge of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) distribution channels and honed his logistics and sales skills.

Brian is the co-founder and CEO at Airbnb. He drives the company's vision, strategy and growth as it provides interesting and unique ways for people to travel and changes the lives of its community. Under Brian's leadership, Airbnb stands at the forefront of the sharing economy, and has expanded to over 1,000,000 listings in 190 countries. Brian met co-founder Joe Gebbia at the Rhode Island School of Design where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in industrial design.

Steve Ciesinski is president of Silicon Valley-based SRI International (www.sri.com), one of the world’s leading independent R&D organizations, with annual revenues of approximately $500M. SRI’s innovations have led to new products, businesses and industries that impact people’s lives every day...

Maria Contreras-Sweet was sworn in as the 24th Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and as a member of President Obama’s cabinet on April 7, 2014.  The SBA is charged with supporting America’s 28 million small businesses, which create a majority of US jobs and employ half of our nation’s private-sector workforce. 

When I started Bookmemate I had a vision: to help small or medium sized businesses better manage their bookings and finances. Most of them were running a business with an appointment book, a spreadsheet and email, which had several disadvantages such as finding past bookings, calculating revenue or produce financial documents for the business.

John Doerr is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who knows well you’re only as good as the entrepreneurs you serve. John and his partners at Kleiner Perkins strive every day to find, fund, and accelerate the success of truly disruptive entrepreneurs.  John has backed the best – including Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt of Google; Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com; and Scott Cook and Bill Campbell of Intuit.

Dara is a pioneer in 3D printing in austere environments, who combines her design strategy experience and rapid ethnographic assessment to empower others through technology. Two years after the earthquake in Haiti, Dara realized the extreme supply chain challenges and was motivated to tackle these, starting with 3D printing as a way of addressing immediate needs. Subsequently, she co-founded Field Ready, an NGO that focuses on manufacturing humanitarian supplies.

Sunny co-founded Signia Venture Partners in 2012 after launching his own location-based mobile startup named Barstool and investing in early stage digital media start-ups for Pritzker Group Venture Capital in LA and Chicago. He was previously an M&A analyst in technology investment banking at Rothschild in London, the first business development hire at a venture backed spin-off of New Line Cinema, and a corporate strategist for Warner Bros.

Elsie Dogbegah is the founder and CEO of Elssy Kess company limited, a position she has held from the inception of the company. She has compassion for underprivileged women and gives them opportunities for employment and education.

Mr. Feng Deng founded Northern Light Venture Capital (NLVC) in 2005. He currently manages approximately US$ 1.7 billion in committed capital with 4 US$ funds and 4 RMB funds. He has led and backed over 200 companies, focusing on 4 main sectors: TMT (technology, media and telecom), clean technology, healthcare and consumer. 

Dr. Carol Dahl is the Executive Director of the Lemelson Foundation whose mission is to use the power of invention to improve lives. The Foundation inspires and enables the next generation of inventors and invention-based enterprises to promote economic growth in the U.S., and social and economic progress for the poorest populations in developing countries.

Matthew is co-founder & CEO of inploi, a UK based on-demand staffing platform revolutionising the jobs/recruitment market. He is also financial director of the Harambe Entrepreneur alliance and is a strategic advisor to TUSE, a South African mesh networked mobile communications app.

Born in Ghana, Sangu’s childhood home was a refuge for victims of torture and violence from neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. Sangu graduated from Harvard with highest honors in African Studies and Economics. At Harvard, he co-founded cleanacwa in 2007, which today is working to bring clean water to over 100,000 people in 120 villages in Ghana.

Hanzade Doğan Boyner is a leading businesswoman, serial entrepreneur and philanthropist. She’s the Chairwoman of Doğan Online, a leading internet company with a strong and diverse portfolio of e-commerce businesses. As a pioneer of digital and online in Turkey, she founded and has led hepsiburada.com to become the biggest online retailer in the EEMEA region. 

Krista Donaldson, PhD, has driven innovation in product design, engineering, and international development for more than 15 years. As D-Rev’s CEO, Krista’s has led the release of Brilliance, a revolutionary technology treating neonatal jaundice, and the ReMotion prosthetic knee. Her leadership has won Krista acclaim as one of Fast Company’s Co.Design 50 Designers Shaping the Future, a TED speaker and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer.

Kamran Elahian is Chairman of the BIT-AMENA Center for Building Innovation Economies at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. As an entrepreneur, Mr. Elahian co-founded ten companies, three of them failed (e.g. Momenta), six of them produced a total market cap of over $8B (e.g. Cirrus Logic).

Sharif currently serves as partner lead to VCs and startups at Google. In his role, he works with top tier VCs and their most promising startups on strategies that bring all of Google to their fingertips. Joining from AdMob almost 6 years ago, he led performance advertising strategy for Google's largest customers in North America covering Mobile, Search and Display. 

Herb serves as the Americas Leader of Strategic Growth Markets, (SGM) for EY--the world leader in advising, guiding and recognizing entrepreneurs. SGM is a global network of professionals advising the full spectrum of dynamic, fast-moving and ground-breaking companies around the world.

Linda Etim was sworn in as USAID’s Assistant Administrator for Africa in December 2015. In this capacity, she is responsible for more than $7 billion of assistance funding to 46 countries, in 29 regional and bilateral missions across sub-Saharan Africa.

Abderrahim Foukara is Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel's Washington DC Bureau Chief and host of Min Washington (From Washington), one of the Arab world's most successful and influential shows. Min Washington offers Arab viewers in-depth and well-informed analysis of US affairs and their impact on North Africa and the Middle East. As a veteran journalist with unique insight into US as well as Middle East politics, Abderrahim Foukara has been an essential voice in the US media's coverage of the Arab Spring, bringing more clarity and context to it, appearing as a commentator on Face the Nation, CNN, and NPR, among others. 

Tariq Fancy is founder of Rumie, which today brings affordable digital education to remote, underserved communities worldwide ranging from Indian villages to Syrian refugee camps. Prior to founding Rumie in 2013, Tariq spent a long career in finance, starting as an investment banker in the Silicon Valley based group that led the IPOs of Amazon, Google, and Cisco, and later as the youngest partner at a New York Private Equity firm.

Willy Foote is founder and CEO of Root Capital, a nonprofit agricultural impact investor that provides capital, delivers financial training, and strengthens market connections for businesses in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Since 1999, Root Capital has disbursed more than $950 million in credit to over 600 rural enterprises that are building sustainable livelihoods for 1.2 million smallholder farmers.

Jim Fruchterman is the founder and CEO of Benetech, a Silicon Valley nonprofit technology company that develops software applications to address unmet needs of users in the social sector.  He is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing his work as a pioneering social entrepreneur, including the MacArthur Fellowship, Caltech’s Distinguished Alumni Award, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the Migel Meda

Serendipitously dd met Radha Basu, CEO of iMerit.net – that provides human-empowered services for AI enabled business processes. dd’s now serves as President and Board Member of iMerit.net

Prashant K. Gulati (PK), is a technology innovator, angel investor, mentor, idea accelerator, and commentator with interests in innovation, startups, entrepreneurship, technology, mobility, wireless, intelligent buildings, online media and more, and is a respected voice and trendspotter for leading edge technological innovation.

As Director of Liquid Assets, Michael Grossman is responsible for lending and fixed income investing at New Island Capital.  Previously, Michael managed Calvert Foundation’s international impact investing portfolio and was a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company’s Social Sector Office focused on financial inclusion and inclusive agriculture development. Michael was Senior Director at Millennium Challenge Corporation responsible for francophone Africa.  Michael was Managing Director and Citigroup Country Officer in Tunisia where he was responsible for day-to-day management of Citibank’s commercial and retail operations

Mary Grove is the Director of Google for Entrepreneurs, leading Google's efforts to support startups and entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries around the world. Mary is passionate about building community and has worked with groups of entrepreneurs in Pakistan, Iraq, Gaza, and Afghanistan, and previously led numerous international partnerships for Google. Mary earned her BA and MA from Stanford University. She is the co-founder of Silicon North Stars, a nonprofit that connects youth from the Midwest to Silicon Valley. She has served on the Board of the Techstars Foundation, UP Global, and the Stanford Alumni Association.

Daniel Grossman, MD is Senior Director, Global Health at Medtronic plc. He leads Medtronic’s effort to launch businesses that transform healthcare for underserved patients in emerging markets by bringing locally-appropriate services, solutions, and products to market. Daniel also advises on the development of healthcare ecosystems in emerging markets and on business development, strategy, and the changing environment of healthcare delivery in the U.S. and internationally. 

Monica Garry, Monica is a senior Advisor to the Aspen Institute Alliance for Artisan Enterprise.  
The mission of the Alliance is to support the power and potential of the artisan sector to create jobs, increase incomes, enhance cultural heritage and promote development that respects the uniqueness of people and place.  The Alliance is a collaborative effort of artisan businesses, artisan support organizations, corporations, foundations, government and multilateral agencies, and individuals working to support the full potential of artisan enterprise around the world.

Dr. Kamau Gachigi is the Executive Director of Gearbox, a hardware incubator or maker space seeking to provide innovators with access to world-class prototyping and low-volume production. The current focus is PCB fabrication and there are currently over 15 companies actively engaged.  He previously taught engineering at the University of Nairobi where he established and headed a Fab Lab, and has recently established a second one in a deprived part of Nairobi, Kenya.

Chris Garcia is an American entrepreneur and political advisor based in Los Angeles, California. He is Co-Founder of TapEx, a startup crowdshipping app, and Managing Principal of Chris Garcia & Associates LLC, a U.S.-based consultancy. He also represents a private mid-market net worth family. Mr. Garcia lends his expertise as an entrepreneur, investment banker, and volunteer foreign diplomat. 

Adriana is the Founder and CEO of Girls in Tech, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization devoted to empowering, educating and mentoring women in the tech industry across over 52 chapters internationally. She is also a partner at Founders Den in the heart of San Francisco's SOMA district where Girls in Tech's offices are located.

Rikin Gandhi is chief executive officer of Digital Green. His interests include sustainable agriculture and technology for socioeconomic development. He received a master's in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from MIT and a bachelor's in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. Rikin is a licensed private pilot and received patents for linguistic search algorithms that he helped develop at Oracle.

David Gluckman finished his Bachelor of Business Science with Honours in Economics from the University of Cape Town, thereafter he worked in a South African bank and global management consultancy. Taking a break from the corporate world to pursue other interests, among them, entrepreneurship, he joined a group of his colleagues who were working on the foundations of Lumkani, a tech company that builds fire detection for informal settlements. 

Arun comes to social venture capital after executive leadership roles in finance and operations in the telecommunications industry. Arun brings his general management experience to lead the management of the organization, investment team and Fund investment activities. Over the last 10 years, he has been involved in developing the Impact Ventures portfolios under management and promoting financial and social value creation.

Elizabeth Gore is the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Dell, where Gore drives initiatives that support Dell’s goals around helping small and medium businesses scale and prosper, fueling the expansion of global entrepreneurship, thereby creating jobs that will drive the world economy. Gore is extending Dell’s global advocacy efforts to raise entrepreneurship to the public policy agenda, encouraging policies and practices that support and enable entrepreneurial growth globally. 

Sam co-founded d.light, a social enterprise providing solar energy to the 2 billion people living without reliable power. d.light has improved the lives of over 65 million people in 60 countries and saved its customers over $2 billion in kerosene expenses. With d.light, Sam helped raise over $50 million, started the Indian and African sales offices, and oversaw multiple award-winning product launches.

Antonio partners with and invests in transformational companies.  An early investor in businesses as diverse as Uber and PayPal, Antonio currently is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Valor Equity Partners, the private equity firm he founded in 2001.  Valor is headquartered in Chicago, has offices in San Francisco and New York City, and manages over $1 billion through several investment funds.

Heather Grady is a Vice President at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA). She leads the organization's strategy and program development in global philanthropy, including collaboratives, research, and publications, as well as expanding efforts on impact investing and social enterprise. She helped create, and leads on, the SDG Philanthropy Platform (SDGFunders.org), facilitating philanthropy’s engagement in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Helen Greiner is CEO of CyPhy Works, Inc, a  company that designs and delivers innovative robots.  In 1990, she co-founded iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT), which has become the global leader of mobile robots with the success of the Roomba™ Vacuuming Robot and the PackBot™ and SUGV Military Robots. Ms Greiner served as President of iRobot until 2004 and Chairman until October 2008.  

Mary Grove is the Director of Google for Entrepreneurs, leading Google's efforts to support startups and entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries around the world. Mary is passionate about building community and has worked with groups of entrepreneurs in Pakistan, Iraq, Gaza, and Afghanistan, and previously led numerous international partnerships for Google. 

Ken Gustavsen is Executive Director, Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co., Inc. and Senior Vice President of the Merck Foundation (Merck operates as MSD outside of the US and Canada).  He is responsible for a range of developing world health programs that involve innovative mechanisms to expand access to medicines through a spectrum of philanthropic and commercial approaches.

Wendy Guillies is the president and chief executive officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.  Established in Kansas City, Missouri, by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist, Ewing Marion Kauffman, the Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States with an asset base of more than $2 billion.

Hind Hobeika is a self-tracking engineer who believes biological parameters are the most fascinating input for technological systems. She is the founder of Instabeat, an award winning startup that creates high-tech tools that track and improve athletes' performance and well-being. Hind is also the founder of the Quantified Self, Beirut chapter.

Bedriye Hülya is the founder of b-fit; Turkey's first chain of women-only gyms.  Only franchising to women, today b-fit has reached more than 350.000 women with 200 branches in 51 cities of Turkey. 

John L. Hennessy is the President of Stanford University. A pioneer in computer architecture, in 1981 Dr. Hennessy drew together researchers to focus on a computer architecture known as RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer), a technology that has revolutionized the computer industry by increasing performance while reducing costs. In addition to his role in the basic research, Dr. Hennessy helped transfer this technology to industry. In 1984, he cofounded MIPS Computer Systems, now MIPS Technologies, which designs microprocessors. In recent years, his research has focused on the architecture of high-performance computers.

Prior to co-founding Rivet Ventures, Rebeca Hwang co-founded YouNoodle, Cleantech Open, and Startup Nations Summit. Rebeca was educated at MIT and Stanford and has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and as one of the top 35 under 35 Global Innovators by MIT Tech Review. Rebeca also serves on the Global Board of Kauffman's GEW and lectures Technology Entrepreneurship at Stanford University.

Xavier Helgesen is serial social entrepreneur. Prior to Off Grid Electric, Xavier founded two million­dollar businesses in his 20’s, including Better World Books, a profitable social venture with $60M in revenue selling books online to fund literacy. In 2009 he was recognized as the Best Social Entrepreneur by Businessweek and given the Fast Company Social Capitalist award. Xavier holds an MBA from Oxford Saïd Business School, which he attended on a Skoll Scholarship, and a BA (honors) from the University of Notre Dame.

Stephanie Hanson is Senior Vice President of Policy and Partnerships at One Acre Fund, a social enterprise that provides financing and training to over 400,000 smallholder farmers in six countries in Africa. She joined the organization in 2009, and is currently focused on how One Acre Fund can leverage its operating model to pursue alternative pathways to scale, such as growing the overall sector of agriculture microfinance for smallholder farmers (“farm finance”), or applying One Acre Fund’s field learnings to influence the global policy community. 

Donna Harris is cofounder and co-CEO of 1776, a global innovation platform bringing together startups, investors, major institutions and policymakers to uncover and scale the world’s most promising ideas.  With campuses in Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, San Francisco and Dubai, a digital innovation curriculum accessed daily by thousands of startups and institutions around the globe, and a venture capital fund making investments worldwide, 1776 has become the premier partner for innovators seeking to drive major global change

Nate Hurst is currently the Chief Sustainability & Social Impact Officer for HP. He helps drive programs with a focus on the environment, society, and integrity that are aligned with HP’s business strategy. Nate directs the strategy of a global team of experts focused on driving solutions in collaboration with non-profit organizations, governments, customers, and partners. His team reinvents sustainable solutions that address societal challenges in the areas of education, entrepreneurship, and the environment while utilizing HP’s technology. 

Brett is the CEO and Co-Founder of New Story - an innovative nonprofit that
transforms slums into sustainable communities around the world. Brett is a Y
Combinator graduate, former founder of a venture-backed e-commerce company, an
author, cancer survivor, and was recently named to the 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

Mansoor Hamayun is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of BBOXX, a dynamic young company that designs, manufactures, distributes and finances innovative solar systems to improve access to energy across Africa and the developing world.

Julie is an entrepreneur, investor and advisor to numerous pioneering Silicon Valley companies. She is Executive Chair of the Board at Kiva, the world’s first and largest crowdlending marketplace for global entrepreneurs. Julie is also an active advisor and investor to sharing economy pioneer Lyft, Bonobos, MightyText, Idealab, creator of over 125 companies with 40 IPO’s and acquisitions, and Lending Club (NASDAQ: LC).

An accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor, Reid Hoffman has played an integral role in building many of today’s leading consumer technology businesses.  In 2003 Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service. LinkedIn is thriving with more than 400 million members around the world.

Victor W. Hwang is Vice President of Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation, the world’s leading foundation for entrepreneurs. Hwang leads the Foundation’s initiatives that educate entrepreneurs, support entrepreneurial programs that can scale and create impact, and invest in metropolitan areas to create vibrant ecosystems that help companies start and grow.

As vice president of Public Affairs and Communications at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Larry serves on the Kauffman Foundation’s senior leadership team. Jacob leads all internal and external communications with emphasis on marketing activities, institutional branding, media relations, employee communications, and executive support. He also serves as a critical thought partner to the strategy and partnership development for Kansas City grant making under the Foundation’s KC Civic engagement program.

Lily is a financial journalist for Reuters TV, a newscast for the mobile-first generation (Reuters.TV). Based in Reuters’ San Francisco bureau, Lily covers technology and the West Coast. She’s also covered the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Aspen Ideas Festival since joining Reuters in 2014. Prior to Reuters, Lily spent several years freelancing for the BBC and other outlets, covering climate change in the Maldives, ethnic conflict in Kyrgyzstan, and public safety initiatives ahead of the World Cup in Brazil. 

Leila Janah is the Founder and CEO of Sama and Laxmi, two companies recently highlighted on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list that share a common social mission to end global poverty by giving work to people in need. She is also the co-author of America's Moment: Creating Opportunity in the Connected Age, a book by Rework America: A Markle Initiative.

Since 1992, Todd’s work has focused on the design of social processes, technologies and experiences to tap collaborative intelligence and sense-making in order to embrace complexity, accelerate learning and foster innovation across organizations and communities.

Having over 20 years of investment experience, Nikunj heads the World Bank/ IFC’s Venture Capital (VC) global investment group.  At IFC, Nikunj has led over 100 direct equity investments, several of which have had successful exits, and oversees an active portfolio of 35 companies and a dozen VC funds, totaling over US$1 billion, all emerging markets focused. Prior to joining IFC in Washington DC, Nikunj spent nine years living and working in Asia.  He was a Managing Director for one of Asia's leading venture funds. 

Daniel Jung is Cofounder of Branch.co, a for-profit socially conscious company recently backed by a16z, Formation8, and Khosla Impact. Branch uses technology to dramatically reduce the cost of delivering financial services in emerging markets through machine learning.

Sheila C. Johnson, Entrepreneur; Founder and CEO of Salamander Hotels & Resorts. As a leading executive in the hospitality sector, one of the nation’s top professional sports team owners, a pioneer in the entertainment industry, a prominent patron of the arts, and a champion of women’s empowerment around the world, Sheila C. Johnson has a distinguished record of accomplishment that reflects her wide-ranging passions.

Badr Jafar is CEO of the Crescent Group, which is headquartered in the UAE since 1972. The Group comprises of two companies: Crescent Petroleum and Crescent Enterprises.  Badr is active in a variety of other industries including ports and logistics, serving as Chair of the Executive Board of Gulftainer (the world’s largest private container port operator), and private equity, serving as a member of the boards of The Abraaj Group (UAE) and GrowthGate Capital (Bahrain).

An entrepreneur in every sense of the word, Daymond John has come a long way from taking out a $100,000 mortgage on his mother’s house and moving his operation into the basement. John is CEO and Founder of FUBU, a much-celebrated global lifestyle brand, and a pioneer in the fashion industry with over $6 billion in product sales. 

John Kunze brings in-depth knowledge of global payments technology to PayPal. As head of Xoom, John is responsible for expanding PayPal’s range of international money transfer services. Xoom makes it easy, fast and secure for people to send their hard-earned money to loved ones, which is important to PayPal’s strategic vision to make the movement and management of money work better for people.

Natasha Kapil is a Senior Private Sector Development Specialist in the World Bank Group's Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice. She focuses on innovation, entrepreneurship and competitiveness policy broadly speaking and has coauthored several strategic national and regional studies in ECA including on reforming public research and development institutes and building more efficient innovation systems.

Emily Kirsch is Co-Founder and CEO of Powerhouse, the world's first and only solar focused incubator and accelerator with over 20 solar startups and cleantech organizations. Prior to founding Powerhouse, Emily worked with former advisor to President Obama, Van Jones, at the Ella Baker Center where she launched and led the Green Jobs Corps - Oakland's first solar training program. 

Hal Kruth has been a founder, mentor, seed investor, executive manager and active board member in over 50 early stage technology ventures. He currently is Chairman of Factor(E) Ventures, a pioneering venture development firm that propels access-to-energy solutions into the developing world. Factor(E) provides a unique blend of risk capital and world-class technical resources to support early stage ideas and entrepreneurs. From 2001 through 2008 Hal was one of the top executives responsible for a spin-out ($2+billion dollar IPO) of the UK’s defense science and engineering labs

Whether it’s founding the world’s first P2P search engine, or developing the premier enterprise content delivery system, Travis believes that every problem has a solution. You just have to be creative enough to find it. That spirit is at the very core of Uber’s success and ever expanding global presence, currently in more than 400 cities in 68 countries on six continents.

Emiliano Kargieman, known to his friends as “EK”, has spent the last 25 years building technology and technology companies. As a founder of Core Security Technologies, EK developed the first automated penetration testing software, earning the loyalty of clients such as Apple, Cisco, Homeland Security, NSA, NASA, Lockheed Martin, and DARPA.

Esther Karwera is a 24 year old Female Ugandan software developer, energetic entrepreneur and co-founder of AKORION Company limited an ICT company whose goal is improve the livelihood of over 400,000 smallholder farmer, reduce costs of transaction and increase efficiency along the agricultural value chain in Uganda.

Nagraj is Corporate VP and Global Head, Microsoft Ventures. Nagraj has over 20 years’ experience in mobile and software with an emphasis on venture capital. Prior to joining Microsoft in January, 2016, he was senior vice president for Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Randall Kempner is Executive Director of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE). As executive director of ANDE, Randall oversees the implementation of ANDE’s extensive program, research and advocacy agenda, including its seven international chapters and multiple grant and challenge competitions that support the entrepreneurship sector. 

Daphne Koller is the President and Co-Founder of Coursera, leading the growth and nurturing of Coursera's partnerships with universities. Previously, she was the Rajeev Motwani Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she served on the faculty for 18 years.

Keith Krach is Chairman and CEO of DocuSign, The Global Standard for Digital Transaction Management. The DocuSign Global Trust Network empowers more than 225,000 companies and 85 million users in 188 countries to transact anything, anytime, anywhere, on any device – securely.

Alex Krause is a program officer in Research and Policy for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Krause’s expertise is in organizational behavior and human capital in entrepreneurship, especially through demographic and industry studies. In terms of demographic research, Krause runs the women’s research agenda, working to find intersections for both research and programs in closing the gender gap.

Marie Leznicki is Chief Experience Officer at Bridge International Academies, a network of nearly 500 nursery and primary schools across Africa and Asia.  Since 2010, Marie has led radical innovation across how academies operate increasing speed of expansion into new markets.  She is responsible for recruiting and training academy staff, managing academy operations, admitting and retaining pupils, driving community programmes, and developing new offerings like uniforms and school lunches.  

Aileen is the founder of Cowboy Ventures, a seed­stage focused fund that backs tech entrepreneurs re­imagining life and work, what they call “life 2.0”. Cowboy Ventures works with a diversity of consumer and enterprise­ oriented companies including Area1 Security, August, Dollar Shave Club, Lending Home, StyleSeat and Textio.

Robin Li is founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu. Born in 1968, Robin received a Bachelor of Science degree in information management from Peking University in 1991, and a Master of Science degree in computer science from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Robin was one the pioneers of search engine technology, and his patent for RankDex, a method of hyperlink analysis, is regarded as one of the inventions that shaped today’s search technology. Robin returned to Beijing from the Silicon Valley and founded Baidu in 2000. In the 16 years since, the company has become the world’s largest Chinese website and largest Chinese search engine.

Jean LIU is the President of Didi Chuxing, the world’s largest mobile transportation platform based in China. Jean joined DiDi in July 2014 from her previous position as Managing Director at Goldman Sachs (Asia). Jean was ranked one of Fast Company’s top five “The World’s Most Creative People in Business in 2016.” She was also listed as one of Fortune’s top five 2015 global “40 Under 40” business leaders, and tops Fortune’s 2015 China “40 Under 40” business leaders list, together with Cheng Wei, DiDi’s CEO. I

Based in Palo Alto, CA, Risto Lahdesmaki leads the worlds fastest growing design company, Idean. He started the company in 1999 in Finland, and has since transformed the company from digital services to a global UX design and strategy focused agency now headquartered in Silicon Valley.

Annie is a Managing Partner of Oak HC/FT where she focuses on growth equity and early-stage venture opportunities in healthcare information services and financial services technology. She also serves as a Managing Partner of Oak Investment Partners.

Kevin Laws is Chief Investments Officer at AngelList, which he joined in 2010. AngelList is a web site for early stage startups to meet investors where over 3,000 startups have met investors that ended up financing them. Notable companies that raised early rounds on AngelList include Uber, PostMates, Shyp, Thumbtack, and many others. 

Vinny Lingham is a well recognized Internet entrepreneur who is currently the co­founder & CEO of Civic Technologies, Inc ­ a startup company that has a goal to eliminate new account fraud and prevent identity theft by creating an "Identity Network” where consumers can confirm their identity in real­time with participating merchants and vendors.

Sonita Lontoh is Vice President of Marketing at Siemens Digital Grid. She is a technology executive focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT), 'Smart' Connected Energy/Devices and Green Technology. Her work addresses the intersection of technology, business models and policy. In particular, she focuses on societal benefits and global cross-collaborations on innovation, human capital and leadership development. 

Daniel Lubetzky, founder and CEO of KIND, is on a mission to make the world a little kinder one snack and one act at a time. Launched in 2004, KIND is now the fastest growing U.S. snack company, and through the KIND Movement, has inspired more than one million kind acts with the help of its community.

David Mandelbrot became the CEO of Indiegogo in early 2016 after spending over two years as COO and SVP of Operations at the company. David has been an executive at high-growth online businesses for over 20 years, at both small start-ups and larger companies. Prior to Indiegogo he was VP and General Manager of Media and Entertainment at Yahoo where Dave led the teams that built Yahoo! News, Finance, Sports, Movies and Games into the #1 online destinations in their categories.  

Brian Milne is a former AP award-winning senior writer and editor for McClatchy Newspapers who has since gone the tech route. He has provided web/content/biz development services for sustainable techs such as Hortau, REC Solar and Mainstream Energy, as well as a handful of Top 1,000 websites (HP.com, About.com, Examiner.com, eBay.com, Experts-Exchange.com, Shopatron.com). 

An Arab Venturesome Investor and Innovator. Roula started at a very young age right after her graduation from the engineering school as an entrepreneur and turned challenges of being a Woman in Tech into opportunities. She founded Netways the pioneer of internet technologies and innovation in the MENA region and successfully grew the company by acquisitions and joint ventures to achieve global reach.

Gemma joined Change.org in January 2016, assuming responsibility for the company's General Management globally. She was previously Executive Director of Crisis Action, having joined as the second member of staff in 2006, and led the organization to receive the 2012 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions and the 2013 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. 

Yves Moury is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fundación Capital. He has spent his life working for the elimination of poverty in Africa and Latin America, utilizing a wealth of expertise in finance, banking, development economics, anthropology and sociology, as well as his on-the-ground experience working with low-income families.

Komal Mohindra is a Senior Private Sector Development Specialist with the World Bank Group's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit of the Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice, based in Washington DC. During her seven years in the WBG, she has been advising client governments and operational teams on business environment reforms, working across all regions. She has recently taken leadership of the womenX program that is working to build entrepreneurial ecosystems and improve business outcomes for high-growth potential female entrepreneurs in Nigeria and Pakistan. 

Komal Mohindra is a Senior Private Sector Development Specialist with the World Bank Group's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit of the Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice, based in Washington DC. During her seven years in the WBG, she has been advising client governments and operational teams on business environment reforms, working across all regions. She has recently taken leadership of the womenX program that is working to build entrepreneurial ecosystems and improve business outcomes for high-growth potential female entrepreneurs in Nigeria and Pakistan.

Ann Mei Chang is the Chief Innovation Officer and the Executive Director of the U.S. Global Development Lab at USAID.  The Lab is the newest bureau at USAID and aims to transform global development through science, technology, innovation, and partnerships.  Prior to USAID, Ann Mei was the Chief Innovation Officer at Mercy Corps, an international NGO.  She also served as the Senior Advisor for Women and Technology in the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of State. 

Lesley Marincola is the Founder and CEO of Angaza. Angaza creates Pay-As-You-Go solar technology to enable manufacturers and distributors to make solar energy affordable to the world’s 1.2 billion off-grid individuals. A product designer (B.S.) and mechanical engineer (M.S.) from Stanford University, Lesley has also worked as a design engineer on the Amazon Kindle team, and at Bay Area design consultancy D2M Inc., with clients including DirecTV, Genentech, Qualcomm, and Volkswagen. 

Randa Masri is the founder and CEO of ConnectME. Established as a social enterprise, ConnectME supports the development of sustainable economic opportunities in Palestine and the broader MENA region, as a means of promoting fair and equal societies.  Her work focuses on increasing economic initiatives by leveraging public-private partnerships to support communities in MENA, empower youth and women to develop local entrepreneurship ecosystem.  

Dr. Arun Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Professor at Stanford University and co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, which integrates and coordinates research and education activities across Stanford.  In October 2009, Dr. Majumdar was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to become the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), where he served till June 2012. 

Gavin McIntyre is the CTO and Co-Founder of Ecovative, a world-leading biomaterials company that grows high performance and sustainable products. Ecovative uses biology to upgrade existing products and processes solving important problems in major industries.

Loretta McCarthy is Managing Partner of Golden Seeds, an investor consortium that invests in early-stage, women-led companies in the US.   Since 2005, Golden Seeds has invested $85 million in over 100 companies. Ms. McCarthy manages its nationwide network of nearly 300 investors.  She is co-manager of Golden Seeds International, which assists in the development of angel networks throughout the world.

Having worked, lived, and travelled in 50+ countries, Sebastian has a strong belief in the transformational power of social enterprises. A serial entrepreneur, he is the Director of Business Development at Simprints, a nonprofit tech startup building mobile biometric tools for the frontlines of global health. 

Khawar Mann joined The Abraaj Group as a Managing Director in the healthcare team.

Mr. Mann was previously co-head of the healthcare team at Apax Partners and led investments across Europe and Asia. He was also Chairman and President of Medsi Group, Russia’s largest private healthcare sector institution. Mr. Mann holds an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in Medical Sciences and Law from Cambridge University.

Stephanie Marrus has built an entrepreneurship program to start companies from UCSF technologies.  Since joining in 2012, she has brought business expertise and startup energy to the University, resulting in a vibrant startup scene symbolic of Silicon Valley.  Her entrepreneurship courses and programs mirror those of Berkeley and Stanford with a life science focus.  

Strive Masiyiwa is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Econet, a diversified global telecommunications group with operations and investments in over 15 countries. His business interests also include renewable energy, financial services, media, and hospitality.  

Rob Mee is CEO of Pivotal. He frequently advises the world's most admired brands, government agencies and fast-rising start-ups about the value of agile software development using an open cloud platform.  A software engineer by trade, Rob started his career working at an artificial intelligence laboratory in Tokyo, writing natural language translation systems in Lisp.

Cynthia Ndubuisi Mene from Nigeria is the CEO/Founder of Kadosh Production Company (KPC). KPC uses an integrated mechanized plant that processes and packages cassava into finished products 200% faster and 20-30% more cheaply than existing processes. The plant also packages cassava peel, which would otherwise be burned, to be sold as livestock feed. 

Kathryn Minshew is the CEO & Founder of The Muse, a career platform used by 50+ million millennials to find a job, learn professional skills or advance in their careers. A WSJ and Harvard Business Review contributor, Kathryn has spoken at MIT and Harvard and appeared on TODAY and CNN. 

Kate Mitchell is a co-founder & partner at Scale Venture Partners which has invested in market leaders ExactTarget, Hubspot, Box and Docusign.  A co-author of the 2012 JOBS Act, Kate now works on improving diversity in tech & venture. She is also a board member of Silicon Valley Bank and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Marion is a 32 year old Kenyan woman passionately dedicated to the social, economic and political development of Africa. Born and raised in Kenya, she studied Business Administration graduated in 2006. She then worked in marketing, media and customer service roles for large corporate companies in Kenya and Uganda, where she gained a reputation for customer-oriented, results-focused performance and built her knowledge and skills in business process design and management. 

Antonio Ermírio de Moraes Neto is co-Founder and managing partner at Vox Capital, Brazil’s first Impact Investing company, which channels investments and technical assistance to innovative companies with solutions that generate disproportionate social impact to low-income communities throughout Brazil.

Rob is the CEO and Associate founder of Singularity University. He brings a unique entrepreneurial and globally-focused approach to growing a non-traditional university as a platform to create a future of abundance where exponential technologies empower us to solve the global grand challenges. Prior to Singularity, he co-founded Velocity11 in 1999, building automation equipment and robotics for cancer research and drug discovery. 

Nix Nolledo is the Chairman and CEO of the largest listed consumer technology company in a Southeast Asian Stock Exchange, Xurpas Inc. He is also an active angel investor, and is the Philippine venture partner of Wavemaker Partners, a member of the Draper Network which gives him a pulse on the latest innovations in global technology.

Laura is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the Entrepreneurs’ Law Clinic at Santa Clara University School of Law, where under her supervision, law students provide free legal services to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and startups.  

Under Jacqueline’s leadership, Acumen has invested $97M in 91 companies delivering agricultural inputs, education, energy, health care, housing and water to the poor in Africa, Latin America and South Asia. Acumen’s investments have created and supported 60,000 jobs, leveraged an additional $500 million, and brought basic services to more than 125 million people. 

For the last 13 years, Neera has played a leading role in bringing managerial skills, knowledge and critical analysis to Dasra. She initiated and led the launch of the Dasra Social Impact Leadership Program in partnership with Harvard Business School, a first-of-its-kind executive education program for 150 social enterprise leaders in India.

Ellen Olafsen is the Global Product Specialist on Growth Entrepreneurship of the Trade & Competitiveness Practice of the World Bank Group. She has been working in the field of entrepreneurship for over a decade, and has had wide geographic exposure ranging from Sub-Saharan Africa to Middle East and North Africa, Central and South Asia and Central America. She overseas programs on digital and agribusiness entrepreneurship, both programs started under her leadership.

Eric Ortner is an Appointee of President Obama to the President’s Committee on the Arts and
the Humanities and the Principal Partner of The Ortner Group, where he is a Producer and talent Manager. He was a key advisor and strategist for the Obama re-­‐election campaign in 2012, and is currently the chair of the Entertainment Advisory Council to the White House Office of Public Engagement & The Executive Office of The President

Mr Abimbola Okubena obtained a B.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, Nigeria in 1991. He has over 20 years work experience. His began with Speakeezee Cellular Systems Ikoyi, Lagos where he functioned as the Systems Engineer. He is currently the Director, Business Development of Health Forever Products Limited (HFPL). He also has specialized training in Product Marketing and Strategic Marketing Plans from Cambridge, UK and Cranfield School of Management, Milton Keynes respectively. 

Femi Oye - Renewable Energy Senator, recipient of several awards, Conference Speaker, IT Visionary, Investor, Conference and Business Speaker on SDG, Climate Change and Clean Energy, is the CEO of Green Energy & Biofuels (GEB), a leader and Africa’s foremost company bringing Cellulosic Bio Ethanol from Waste Biomass into the domestic CookStoves and transport fuel market. He Champions a disruptive Pay-As-You-Go Solar Mini Grid Solution for productive use by the active Poor.

Sanvar Oberoi is the Co-Founder and Director of Finance and Digital Technology at Bombay Hemp Company (BOHECO), a hybrid social enterprise transforming agriculture in developing economies. BOHECO is South Asia’s pioneering hemp company and is working with governments, scientists, farmers, industry and consumers globally to build an end-to-end ecosystem and self-sustaining model...

Jehiel Oliver, based in Abuja, Nigeria, is Founder & CEO of Hello Tractor, an agricultural technology company providing farm mechanization solutions through the sharing economy. Hello Tractor has developed a GPS enabled Smart Tractor designed specifically for African smallholder farmers. Jehiel manages the Hello Tractor team, strategy, and partnerships. 

Tim has a history of convening conversations that reshape the industry.  In 1998, he organized the meeting where the term "open source software" was agreed on, and helped the business world understand its importance.  In 2004, with the Web 2.0 Summit, he defined how "Web 2.0" represented not only the resurgence of the web after the dot com bust, but a new model for the computer industry, based on big data, collective intelligence, and the internet as a platform. 

Toro Orero is the Managing Partner of DraperDarkFlow, a silicon valley based VC fund (backed by Tim Draper; Founder, DFJ) for awesome African startups that can change the world. He’s also the Founder of SpeedUPAfrica, a 4 day growth & investment focused startup bootcamp. 

Sally Osberg has been an entrepreneurial leader and catalyst for social change throughout her career. She propels those around her with her life philosophy and mantra, captured in one word: "Onward!" As President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, she partners with Founder and Chairman Jeff Skoll and guides the organization in its search and support of innovators pioneering scalable solutions to pressing global problems. 

Stephen Ozoigbo is a serial entrepreneur, investor and adviser to multiple technology startups. He is currently the CEO of the African Technology Foundation, a Silicon Valley corporation that seeks to globalize African technologies by providing access to resources that effectively address and manage the most pressing technological challenges on the continent.

For the past 15 years, Blair Palmer has leveraged her knowledge of technological innovations, project implementation, corporate responsibility, stakeholder engagement, and social enterprise programs to empower global health programs.  She currently serves to help coordinate partnerships for UNICEF’s Innovation Unit, tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling technologies and practices that strengthen UNICEF’s work. 

Jacques joined Shinola in 2010 to lead the company’s product development and strategic brand direction. Leveraging his dynamic portfolio—from serving as a founding member of Webosaurs, where he oversaw the interactive division for Dallas-based animation studio, Reel FX, to his 10-plus years of industry knowledge spanning product marketing, branding and sales—Panis became President of Shinola in 2013.

Ms. Purnomo holds an Industrial Engineering degree and an MBA in Finance and Marketing. She is a business woman, philanthropist, and mother of 3 daughters.  In 2015 she was listed in “Power Women in Asia” by Forbes. Noni is currently the President Director of Blue Bird Group Holding, and manages the group’s business portfolio, including passenger land transportation, logistics, heavy equipment trading, property, and IT support services.

Rhett Power co-founded Wild Creations in 2007 and quickly built the startup toy company into the 2010 Fastest Growing Business in South Carolina and named one of Inc. Magazine’s 500 Fastest Growing U.S. Companies. He was a finalist for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2011 and was nominated again in 2012. In 2015 he was named one of the world’s top 100 business bloggers. Rhett has been featured and quoted in CNBC, CNN Money, Fortune.com, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post and Business Insider. 

Amee Patel is a Senior Investment Officer with Accion Venture Lab, a global seed-stage investment fund focused on innovative financial inclusion and fintech startups. Amee leads deal activity and portfolio in Africa. Prior to Venture Lab, she worked at McKinsey & Company, serving public, private, and social sector clients focused on financial services and international development. 

Graduating from Oxford University in 1983, Sam Parker started his career in business, working for 6 years in the agrochemical industry, with a focus on Latin America. After a two-year break, working as a volunteer with street children in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sam returned to business with 11 years at a UK-based commodity trading company.

Krating Poonpol is currently a Partner of 500 Startups managing its 12 M USD micro fund for Thailand. He is also a founder of Disrupt - no.1 startup education program in Thailand which graduated over 500 startup students in 3 years with 20 M USD fundraised and 60 M USD valuation combined. 

Helen Qiao is a Managing Director who joined the Firm in 2015 as Chief Economist for Greater China and Head of Asia Ex-Japan Economic Research, based in Hong Kong. Prior to that, Qiao spent more than 6 years at Goldman Sachs as Senior China Economist and 4 years at Morgan Stanley as Chief China Economist. 

Karen Quintos is senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Dell. She is responsible for the company’s global brand, communications and corporate responsibility strategies, sales enablement, and next-gen marketing insights and talent development. Since assuming the role in 2010, Karen has led a successful evolution of Dell’s brand from PCs to global enterprise solutions leader. 

On September 26, 2013, Evan Ryan assumed her position as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). In this capacity, she oversees a wide range of academic, cultural, private sector, professional, youth, and sports exchange programs to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries and promote peaceful relations. 

Adeo Ressi is the Founder & CEO of the Founder Institute, the world's premier idea-stage accelerator and startup launch program. Since 2009, the Founder Institute has graduated some over 2000 of the world’s fastest growing companies across 115+ cities and six continents.

Karla Ruiz Cofiño, Digital Strategist, Social Media Specialist & Tech Entrepreneur. 
Founder of the program DIGITAL AWARENESS, Co-Founder & Technology Evangelist of the digital agency MILKnCOOKIES, Head of the digital interactive design program at UNIVERSIDAD FRANCISCO MARROQUÍN, Founding Curator at GLOBAL SHAPERS GUATEMALA an initiative of the WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, Latam Regional Leader for WED, Women's Entrepreneurship Day and Fellow of the Central America Leadership Initiative of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. 

Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao is the Atholl McBean Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also serves as Director of the Managing Talent for Strategic Advantage Executive Program. Professor Rao has published widely in the fields of management and sociology and studies the social and cultural causes of organizational change. In his research, he studies three sub-processes of organizational change: creation of new social structures; the transformation of existing social structures; and the dissolution of existing social structures. 

Bill came to PayPal with the acquisition of Braintree in 2013, where, as CEO, he and his team fueled the mobile commerce revolution by building one of the most innovative and influential startups in the payments industry. With its emphasis on mobile-first experiences, elegant tools for developers, and incredible customer support, Braintree developed industry-leading payment solutions that power many of the world’s most disruptive businesses, including Uber, Airbnb, Houzz and HotelTonight. Prior to Braintree, Bill was executive in residence at Accel Partners, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital and growth equity firm.

Charles H. Rivkin began serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs on February 13, 2014, and was sworn in publicly by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on April 15, 2014. Rivkin leads the U.S. State Department bureau responsible for managing trade negotiations, investment treaties, business and commercial affairs, economic sanctions, transportation affairs, telecommunications policy, international finance and development related issues, as well as intellectual property rights protection. 

Vineet Rai is the Founder of Aavishkaar –Intellecap Group and chairs the group and its executive council. Aavishkaar is a pioneer impact investment fund with more than US$ 200 million under management and invests in India, South Asia and South East Asia. 

Ganesh Rasagam is Practice Manager at the World Bank Group Global Practice on Trade and Competitiveness. He has 30 years experience in the public and private sector of infrastructure and development. His core areas of expertise are in Special Economic Zones, sub-regional economic development and regional integration, industrial competitiveness and infrastructure. 

Ramesh Raskar is an Associate Professor at MIT Media Lab. Ramesh Raskar joined the Media Lab from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in 2008 as head of the Lab’s Camera Culture research group. His research interests span the fields of computational photography, inverse problems in imaging and human-computer interaction. 

Sati Rasuanto is the founding Managing Director of Endeavor in Indonesia, a global network committed to building entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world by selecting and supporting high-impact entrepreneurs. 

Anushka is the Founder and CEO of myAgro. myAgro is a nonprofit social enterprise that enables smallholder farmers to use their mobile phones to pay on layaway for high quality inputs (seeds, fertilizer) and agricultural training. 

Carolyn Rodz is founder and CEO of Circular Board, a collaborative and virtual accelerator for female entrepreneurs. Featured in Fortune, Forbes, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, MSNBC and more, Carolyn has raised billions of dollars of capital for innovative organizations, created a luxury retail line that sold in over 400 stores worldwide.

Tim Ring, together with his wife, Kathryn Gleason (former head of Morgan Lewis life sciences practice for 28 years), is the co-founder of a nonprofit and related for-profit impact fund called TEAMFund, whose mission is to expand access to medical technologies for the world's poorest and most resource-constrained populations. 

Deena joined Google in 2012. As a Global Partnerships Manager, Deena leads strategic partnerships for new products and special projects in Research. Ahe previously spearheaded business development for autonomous units and Google[x], and led strategic partnerships for Google.org, where she was responsible for managing a multi-million dollar deal portfolio in civic innovation and computer science diversity.

Brad is a senior writer for Bloomberg Businessweek. Brad Stone is the author of The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller and winner of the 2013 Goldman Sachs/Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award.Brad joined Businessweek from the New York Times, where he had been a reporter since 2006. He covered Internet trends, as well as Silicon Valley’s biggest companies from the newspaper’s San Francisco bureau. In addition to writing for the paper, he wrote a weekly column, Ping, and was a founding writer of the paper’s technology blog, Bits. 

Javier Soltero is Corporate Vice President of Outlook at Microsoft. He leads the team responsible for the vision and strategy of the Outlook client and cloud service on all platforms. A serial entrepreneur, Javier joined Microsoft in 2014 through the acquisition of mobile email startup Acompli, which he co-founded and led as CEO

Sebastian Serrano is a young entrepreneur from Argentina. Starting as a skillful developer at a very early age and then leading a succesful web & mobile development startup, Sebastian founded BitPagos in 2013.  With BitPagos, Sebastian aims to democratize digital payments in developing countries. His company offers a full suite of financial services to consumers and merchants.

Amy Stursberg is the Executive Director of the Blackstone Charitable Foundation and CEO of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Education Foundation.  In her work with the Blackstone Charitable Foundation, Ms. Stursberg has created and overseen the Blackstone’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, bringing four innovative programs to twenty states and four countries.   

Curtis Sasaki is the vice president of ecosystems and IoT general manager for Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC). He leads new business creation and is responsible for driving growth and innovation through product, technology and ecosystem development. He works with entrepreneurs and startups in Silicon Valley and other global technology hotspots, focusing on Smart Health, Big Data and the Internet of Things.

Before co-founding GrowthPoint Technology Partners, he was a principal at SVB Alliant conducting software mergers and acquisitions transactions. Prior to joining Alliant, Mike was Managing Director of the Nextera Interactive division of Nextera through to its IPO. At Nextera, he worked with News Corporation on bringing the company’s assets to the Internet and with Hilton Hotels, Starwood and Marriott on Internet strategy.

Shiza Shahid is the cofounder of the Malala Fund with Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai and Founding CEO. She is the host of the USA Network show ASPIREist and a columnist at Time Magazine. She is an International speaker on entrepreneurship, innovation, and social impact.

Shadiah Sigala is the Cofounder and Head of People at HoneyBook, a people-first technology company that lets creatives get back to the work they love. Her obsession to build a fiercely customer-centric culture has made HoneyBook the most trusted company for top event creatives to run their business and connect with their community. HoneyBook has successfully raised $32 million in venture funding with the goal of liberating creative professionals to achieve their highest calling. 

Henrik is a Danish serial entrepreneur currently living in San Francisco where he focuses on projects in entrepreneurship education, impact investing, and tech startups in the digital signage space. While still an engineering student, Henrik founded two companies in IT recycling and Design Thinking. He then worked with the Global Research team at Vestas Wind Systems and became specialized in strategy development and Innovation Management. In 2010 he moved to Silicon Valley where he founded Startup Experience, Inc. 

Richard Stengel is the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. In that role he provides strategic leadership of all Department of State public diplomacy and public affairs engagement and oversees the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs, International Information Programs, and Public Affairs, and the Global Engagement Center.

Nermin Sa'd is a fiercely independent woman, who recognizes the needs and struggles of the modern Arab woman.  She is listed in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 "100 Most Powerful Arab Women" lists for my achievements and influence in my region. She is also a Senior Mechanical Engineer with mini master degree in embedded devices and I am a serial entrepreneur. 

Paco Sandejas is Managing Founder at Narra Ventures, a boutique venture investment and advising group that has invested in over 30 high-technology companies, with some notable companies being Inphi (NYSE: IPHI), SiRF (now CSR), Quintic (NASDAQ: NXPI), Calypto (NASDAQ: MENT) and Sandbridge.

American entrepreneur, advisor and investor in interactive technologies and social communications.  He is author of the recent best seller, and first book on startups in the Arab World, Startup Rising -- The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East. 

Premal Shah co-founded Kiva in 2005, and has worked to promote Kiva’s mission and reach more communities around the world for more than a decade. Premal’s inspiration for Kiva came during a 2-month volunteer trip he took to India in 2004. During his trip he worked with low-income women to help them sell handcrafts online.

Radhika is Co-President of the Stanford Technology Innovation Club Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs enabling angel investing within the community and helping advance Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She is an entrepreneur, tech executive, angel investor passionate about civic engagement and building movements/communities towards transformational social change often leveraging technology. She is an Advisor to the Sustainable Development Goals Philanthropy Platform. 

Neil Shen is Steward of Sequoia Capital and Founding and Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital China. He is also Co-Founder of Ctrip.com (NASDAQ: CTRP) and Homeinns (NASDAQ: HMIN). He is in the Forbes Midas List from 2012 to 2016 as the highest ranking investor from China. He has built a reputation as one of China's most successful entrepreneurs and investors. 

Chuck lead the turnaround of a system of franchised clinics serving the poor in Kenya. This experience inspired him to create Living Goods, which operates networks of ‘Avon-like’ health entrepreneurs who go door-to-door teaching families how to improve their health and wealth and selling life-changing products...

Gayle E. Smith was sworn into office as the seventeenth Administrator of USAID on December 2, 2015. As a long-time leader in President Obama’s Administration, she has helped shape and guide America’s international development policy for the past seven years, including by elevating development as a vital component of the national security agenda.

A world-renowned entrepreneur, business leader and societal innovator, James Lee Sorenson (Jim) serves as chairman of the Sorenson Impact Foundation, which funds sustainable, scalable endeavors that maximize positive impact on the lives and societies they touch. Sorenson contributed $13 million to the University of Utah for the Sorenson Impact Center.

Adia Sowho, is the Director of Digital Business at Etisalat Nigeria. She started her career as an engineer with a mobile telecom operator in the US. After obtaining an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a stint at Deloitte Consulting, she returned home to Nigeria. In her current role, Adia works on developing mobile content, technology and financial services products through partnerships...

Daniel Spitzer is Chairman & CEO of Mountain Hazelnuts Group, an agri-forestry venture that is planting 10 million hazelnut trees on deforested mountain slopes in Bhutan.  The Company’s mission is to generate strong financial returns and create sustainable income for 15% of Bhutan’s population, while addressing the country’s key social and environmental issues. 

Dr. Laura Stachel is the co-founder and executive director of We Care Solar, an award-winning nonprofit that designs and delivers solar-powered solutions to maternal health centers in energy-poor countries. Stachel is an obstetrician; she holds an MD from the University of California, San Francisco and an MPH from UC Berkeley. 

Debbie Sterling is the CEO and Founder of GoldieBlox, an award‐winning toy company on a mission to “disrupt the pink aisle.” An engineer and entrepreneur, Sterling has made it her mission in life to tackle the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. 

Mark is Director at Khosla Impact — a venture fund investing in early stage tech-enabled companies that open up markets, increase human productivity and improve standards in emerging economies. Prior to Khosla Impact, Mark’s career spanned two continents and three industries. After graduating from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, he began his career in technology investment banking in San Francisco. 

Mamadou is Chairman and CEO of Ubuntu Capital, a leading Investment and Advisory firm
focused on designing and implementing integrated innovative investment solutions uplifting
projects ecosystems.

Milind Tavshikar is a Founder/CEO of SmartKargo engineered by QuantumID Technologies, a company conceived at the prestigious MIT 100K Business Plan competition. Milind’s experience in architecting enterprise solutions like SAP for global companies was instrumental in the design of SmartKargo as an end-to-end business solution for global airlines with ambition to grow cargo revenues.

As Senior Vice President of Global Category Development at Walmart Global eCommerce, Kelly Thompson’s initial focus will be on increasing customer centricity within Merchandising by making stronger connections between data and merchant actions on assortment, price, and availability. She took this position in October 2014.

As the VP of Global Network for Endeavor, Allen leads the organizations efforts to connect its portfolio of 800+ high-growth companies with U.S.-based mentors and investors. He oversees the Endeavor Investor Network – a program he launched in 2011 to connect US-based venture capital and growth equity investors with high-impact entrepreneurs and local investment partners across Latin America, Turkey, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia. 

Shuyin is one of the pioneers of impact investing in Southeast Asia and passionate about developing the entrepreneurship sector in the region.  She currently leads Unitus Impact's investing activities for Vietnam and the Philippines, identifying and supporting scalable business which improve the livelihoods of the working poor.

Peter Thum is founder of Liberty United, which transforms guns to help thousands of at-risk children across the USA and founder of Fonderie 47, which has destroyed 50,000+ assault rifles in African war zones. He founded and was President of Ethos Water (acquired by Starbucks), which has provided safe water and sanitation to more than 500,000 people, and founded Giving Water, and worked at McKinsey & Company.

Marcin Treder is a designer, psychologist and CEO of UXPin — the Product Design Workflow Platform, used by companies in 160 countries. Companies such as HBO, PayPal and Sapient use UXPin to build their digital products and reach millions of their customers

Sheel is a Principal & Co-Head of the Seed Practice at NEA, the world’s largest venture capital firm with portfolio companies including Uber, Buzzfeed, Clovis Oncology, and Bridge International Academies.  He focuses on consumer technology & emerging markets.  As an angel investor, Sheel has personally invested in the seed and/or Series A of Andela, Casper, Fiscalnote, HelloGiggles (acquired by Time), Mark43, and Robinhood.  

Anis Uzzaman, Ph.D., is the General Partner, CEO and founding member of Fenox Venture Capital. Anis focuses his investments in IT, Health IT, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Cloud, Big Data, VR/AR, FinTech and Next Generation Technologies.

Parminder was appointed the CEO of the Tony Elumelu Foundation in June 2015. She joined the Foundation as the Director of Entrepreneurship in April 2014, and is responsible for the design of the $100 million, multi-year, pan-African Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme. TEEP is an annual accelerator programme of training, funding, and mentoring, designed to empower the next generation of African entrepreneurs.

Emmett T. Vaughn is Director of the Office of Diverse Business Empowerment. He provides strategic direction and oversight for over $1.4 Billion of contracts done with diversity certified businesses annually. Additionally he serves as an advisor on $1.9 billion in monies currently managed by minority investment banks and fund managers.  Exelon has experienced significant growth over the past 10 years in national diversity focused economic development initiatives under his leadership. 

Ankur Vora leads the Strategy, Innovation, and Impact group at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is responsible for supporting creation and evaluation of the foundation’s strategies, as well as exploring new paths to impact.

Nina Vaca is the Chairman and CEO of Pinnacle Group, one of the largest IT services firms in the country. Throughout her entrepreneurial career, Ms. Vaca has been recognized by some of the nation’s most respected companies and organizations. 

Richard lives in Abidjan where he works for SPARK (http://www.spark-online.org/), a Dutch NGO that empowers young people in conflict affected countries through entrepreneurship and higher education. In the 5 years Richard has lived in West Africa he has set up a business incubator (http://bscmonrovia.com/) in Monrovia, worked on establishing Africa's first Special Economic Zone Project for social enterprises (http://sesezliberia.org/) and helped launch Liberia's first art-house cinema. 

Terra Weikel has a background in education, media production and community outreach: she taught at a rural high school in South Africa, worked as an editor and producer for video productions and live television, and ran a 2-year educational campaign for the award-winning film Lost Boys of Sudan, that raised awareness about the Darfur crisis and refugees in the US, as well as $1 million for refugee agencies.  

Rahama Wright is a social entrepreneur working to innovate the shea butter supply chain in West Africa. Her social enterprise Shea Yeleen markets and distributes high quality skincare products, while providing living wages to cooperative members in Northern Ghana. The line of shea butter products is being distributed through 100+ Whole Foods Markets, Amazon.com, and SheaYeleen.com. 

Rahama Wright is a social entrepreneur working to innovate the shea butter supply chain in West Africa. Her social enterprise Shea Yeleen markets and distributes high quality skincare products, while providing living wages to cooperative members in Northern Ghana. The line of shea butter products is being distributed through 100+ Whole Foods Markets, Amazon.com, and SheaYeleen.com. Shea Yeleen has been featured in various publications and media outlets including O, The Oprah Magazine, Forbes Woman Africa, Voice of America, and CNBC Africa. 

Mark Walsh is the Office of Investment and Innovation’s new Associate Administrator. Mark has over 30+ years of experience as a technology entrepreneur, manager and investor. Prior to SBA, Mark was executive chairman of Homesnap.com, a “prosumer” platform/app for residential real-estate backed by Revolution Ventures and CEO and Co-founder of GeniusRocket, a leading provider of crowd-sourced marketing for major brands and global non-profits.

Monique Woodard is a Venture Partner at 500 Startups where she invests in early stage startups. She believes that the current $2.5 trillion in combined black and Latino purchasing power is creating the next big emerging market – right here in the United States. She is the co-founder and Executive Director of Black Founders whose mission is to increase the number of successful black entrepreneurs in tech. Previously, Monique served as an Innovation Fellow for the City of San Francisco where she worked on government innovation, including open data and municipal broadband access.

Kira joined Lyft as CMO in December 2014, and brings more than 20 years of marketing and product leadership, building great consumer experiences and accelerating business growth across a wide variety of industries. Prior to Lyft, Kira was CMO at real-estate marketplace Trulia, where she launched the company’s first-ever national marketing campaign...

Anne co-founded 23andMe in 2006 after a decade spent in healthcare investing, focused primarily on biotechnology companies. Her hope was to empower consumers with access to their own genetic information and to create a way to generate more personalized information so that researchers could better understand and develop new drugs and diagnostics.

Susan Wojcicki is CEO of YouTube, the world’s most popular digital video platform used by over a billion people across the globe to access information, share video, and shape culture. An early champion of online video who was instrumental in Google's 2006 acquisition of YouTube, Susan now oversees YouTube's content and business operations, engineering, and product development. 

Jeff Wong began his career with the Boston Consulting Group and worked at JAFCO America Ventures, in addition to J.P. Morgan Partners. From 2005-2015, Jeff was with eBay and held a number of roles including serving as the founder and senior director of eBay's Business Incubation Group, which was responsible for building new startups for eBay Marketplaces. From 2015 Jeff has been EY’s Global Chief Innovation Officer. 

Oren Yakobovich is a social entrepreneur working at the intersection of human rights and film-making. He is a leading voice on how to use visual information to create sustainable, lasting positive change in areas of conflict. He co-founded Videre in 2008, an NGO equipping oppressed communities with customized technology to uncover information from places where media can't or won't go. Before founding Videre, Oren led the video department at the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. 

Zafer Younis is a partner at 500 Startups, the world's most active early stage tech investor. Previously, Zafer co­founded of The Online Project where his team developed and executed social media strategies for Fortune 500 companies and high profile organizations operating in the Middle East and North Africa.

Andrew Yang is the Founder and CEO of Venture for America, a fellowship program that places top college graduates in start-ups for 2 years in emerging U.S. cities to generate job growth and train the next generation of entrepreneurs. Andrew has worked in start-ups and early stage growth companies as a founder or executive for more than twelve years.

Youseph Yazdi is Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation & Design (CBID).  He is also faculty in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business.  Each year, CBID manages 20-25 Design Teams involving over 100 students and 40 physicians, covering a wide range of clinical needs and technologies.

Cheryl is the founding CEO of the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC), which is established to develop the social entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem in Malaysia, and also within ASEAN. MaGIC focuses on three core activities for entrepreneurs: educate, expose and accelerate. Its core program, the MaGIC Accelerator Program (MAP), the largest and most robust accelerator in Asia.

Laurie Yoler is an experienced board director and strategist skilled in advising companies and founders in imagining, building, and scaling disruptive technologies. Yoler has served on the boards of public, private and non-profit organizations.  Most notably, she served as a Founding Board Member of Tesla Motors, serving on the board of directors from the earliest days, and on the board of advisors through taking the company public.

Qasar is a Partner and Chief Operating Officer at Y Combinator. Prior to joining Y Combinator,  Qasar was the founder and CEO of TalkBin, which was funded by Y Combinator and acquired by Google. At Google, Qasar went on to be the product lead for business facing products. 

I am a 40 years old change maker woman in business devoted to better rural people’s life and create wealth using “QuickCash” that offers mobile financial services since 2011. I have 40 employees and around 500,000 customers from Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina, Niger, and Togo.  My entrepreneurial journey started when I was 14 helping my mother to run her small shop both in town and in the village

Tania Zapata was born in Bogota and she migrated to the United States after completing her secondary education. In 2003, with her husband Alex Torrenegra, she invested her life savings to create Voice123, the first voice over marketplace in the world. Voice123 quickly became the industry leader and has provided professional voice overs for companies such as Pixar, Spotify, MTV, Pandora, Zynga, History Channel and Warner Brothers. Thanks to the success enjoyed with Voice123, Tania and Alex decided to launch other services in different industries and invest in other Latin American entrepreneurs.

Prof. Shoucheng Zhang joined the faculty at Stanford in 1993, and is now the JG Jackson and CJ Wood professor of physics. He is a member of the US National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He discovered a new state of matter called topological insulator in which electrons can conduct along the edge without dissipation, enabling a new generation of electronic devices with much lower power consumption. 

Andy Zain is a serial entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in building Internet and technology businesses in South East Asia.  Currently Managing Director for Kejora Ventures, a venture builder based in Jakarta, Indonesia that builds and make investments in online startups across Southeast Asia. Andy also sit in the Board of migme, a digital media company which provides social entertainment platform for mobile & Internet users in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Middle East & Africa.

Breanna Zwart is a member of the Access Strategy team, which is responsible for a range of product, policy, and strategic investment activities promoting Internet access throughout the world. Breanna’s portfolio includes policy analysis and partnership development in emerging markets.