Speakers
Our Bootcamp Faculty
An entrepreneur at heart, AJ Forsythe’s business endeavors have ranged from beekeeping, running a winery, and, most notably, creating iCracked while still a student at Cal Poly-SLO.
“iCracked was an on-demand smartphone repair company my cofounder and I started in our living room in 2011.” AJ Forsythe kept dropping his iPhone and cracking the screen. Rather than wait for a costly repair from Apple, Forsythe bought parts on Alibaba for a cheaper and quicker fix.
“We built an amazing network of thousands of technicians across the country and Japan that are the lifeblood of our company where anywhere you can request service and we’ll come to your home, office, or coffee shop for easy and affordable repair service of your smartphone.”
iCracked was founded in 2010 in AJ’s dorm room and has grown to be the world’s largest on-demand repair and trade-in network with over 4,000 certified iTechs nationwide and in 11 countries. The company was selected #83 on Inc. Magazine’s Inc 5000, and AJ was listed as one of Forbes 30 Under 30. iCracked has now expanded to the UK and Europe, with offices in London and Berlin.
Bill is a proven innovator and thought-leader, focused on strategies for unlocking creative leadership to help innovation thrive.
Bill has been in the business of innovation for 20+ years with 54 commercialized patents. He has a Degree in Industrial Design and has experience ranging from Automotive & Product Design to Connected Devices and Augmented Reality Solutions. He has led product innovation programs for Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups, from concept to commercialization.
Currently, Bill is a Managing Partner of Nottingham Unlimited Ventures, a family office portfolio company with managing interests in 30 companies, including Nottingham Spirk, the longest running, privately held innovation firm in the US. Three medical device ventures in the portfolio have been designated as Breakthrough Medical Devices by either the FDA or EPA, including Tectraum (Sports Concussion Therapy Device), Sterifre (Hospital Disinfection Device), and XaTek Clotchip (Blood Diagnostic Device).
Bill is also Founder & CEO of the consulting practice, InnovateNOW, LLC, and CuriosityActiv, a new multi-media innovation network.
Currently Bill is an active member of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) best known for putting on the Consumer Technology Show (CES). He is a recent member of the Fast Company Executive Board, and you will be able to find his articles on FastCompany.com. He is a member of YPO, the Board of Directors for the Cleveland Institute of Art and a Delegate for NEXUS Global. Bill is quarterly columnist on innovation for Smart Business. He is also a mainstage speaker at in-person and virtual summits. He’s been interviewed on Bloomberg Radio, SiriusXM and NPR.
Bill is the host, Keeping Innovation Alive – The Podcast, where each episode is a 10 minute short format. Bill interviews Founders, CEO’s and Innovative Leaders where they discuss overcoming challenges in business and how they are currently keeping innovation alive. You can subscribe and listen to his podcast on all the major podcast platforms, including, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, and iHeart Radio.
https://keepinginnovationalive-the-podcast.buzzsprout.com
Shubh is an intern at GSV. He is a University of Georgia student studying Computer Science and Finance. He has been a venture scout at AWS and GenZScouts and has built a suite of websites at commercetools. He is also a big basketball fan having started an NBA Fantasy newsletter.
Jack is an intern at GSV. He is a former founder and Boston College student studying Computer Science and Finance with experience at a dozen venture-backed and unicorn startups including CrowdStrike and Eightfold as well as nine VC firms including Accel and Battery Ventures. He is a proud Eagle Scout ’15 and is from the Bay Area, and a big supporter of our local teams as well as Formula 1, Nascar, rugby, and UFC. He is a huge fan of all things outdoors (camping, skiing, scuba) and music (concerts, DJ’ing, producing).
Thea Knobel is the Vice President of Platform and Marketing at GSV Ventures. She is focused on the investor and startup community, brand strategy, strategic portfolio support for founders, and GSV backed initiatives like the ASU+GSV Summit.
Thea has venture capital investment experience at 2 VC funds and the Techstars LA Accelerator. At Techstars Thea worked on the venture team for the LA Accelerator sourcing and evaluating startups. She also was a Marketing Associate in the program working with founders on designing their communications strategies.
Thea is passionate about education. Starting in high school she cross-age tutored lower school students. During her masters she worked with underserved high school students on their college applications. Now she guest lectures at the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business.
Thea graduated with honors awarded to 1% of graduate students from USC Marshall School of Business with a M.S. in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She also sits on the advisory board of ThinkNow, a technology-driven market research firm that provides multicultural insights. Thea is multilingual, a public speaker, and an avid world traveler.
Anita is Chief of Staff to the CEO at GSV Asset Management. Anita’s experience encompasses roles as an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor to global companies in the Technology sector. Prior to GSV, she was an investment professional at Vantage Point Capital Partners and an investment consultant at The Three Cairns family office where she invested in early to growth stage technology companies across the Consumer, Enterprise and Energy sectors. Anita is also the founder of a vertically integrated plus size womenswear retail startup, an invaluable experience that contributes richly to the perspective she brings as an investor and advisor.
Anita is a distinguished graduate of Manipal Institute of Technology, where she earned an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering. Following Manipal, Ms. Rehman graduated from the MSEE program at Stanford and later earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.
Michael Moe is the founder and CEO of GSV, a growth focused investment platform based in Silicon Valley. GSV has invested in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Snap, Lyft, and Spotify. GSV has several funds focused on the emerging education technology sector and has invested in Coursera, Chegg, Pluralsight, 2U, and Course Hero. GSV stands for “Global Silicon Valley,” the Megatrend of innovation and entrepreneurship that has made Silicon Valley such a remarkable place, which continues to spread throughout the World.
Before GSV, Michael was the founder and CEO of ThinkEquity, Head of Global Growth Research at Merrill Lynch, and was voted to be on the Institutional All-American Research Team, and named “Best on the Street” by the Wall Street Journal. Michael is a Board Member at Course Hero, SharesPost, Whittle Schools, a Board Observer at Coursera, and an advisor to TAL and Arizona State University. Michael is the founder of GSV University and GSV MBA, an accredited graduate program for entrepreneurs. He is the author of three books, Finding the Next Starbucks, The Global Silicon Valley Handbook, and The Mission Corporation (publishing later in Q1 2021), which he co-authored with longtime friend and business partner Michael Carter. In addition, he is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
Jamie Van Doren is an entrepreneur and gamer, with an unusual background; a mixed-race Latino who grew himself from teen homelessness to the C-Suite. He’s been successful in a variety of industries including consumer products, professional services, even clinical research and non-profit management. His latest challenge has him launching a Cleveland based gaming and entertainment start up that aims to change how stories are told and by whom.
Ramses is the founder of Cybermillions, a platform that offers fun and engaging experiences while supporting different causes through donations.
Shane is a founder, CEO coach, and business development leader with 12+ years of experience in consulting F100 global companies, catalyzing growth across multiple markets, and mentoring founders with a mission to help startups succeed.
Pedro Sostre is a serial entrepreneur, consultant, speaker, and author and is described as data-driven, tech-savvy, and passionate. He is the author of "Web Analytics for Dummies," and over the course of his career has worked with a multitude of organizations including the NFL, Cadillac, University of Alabama, Sonoma County, The Everglades Foundation, Black Helmet and others.
Kurt is the Founder and CEO of PyxAI (YC W19). He is the former founder and CTO of SmartAlto and the former President of Yousual LLC. He is a serial entrepreneur, a certified IT Project Manager, certified Business Systems Analyst, and an experienced Software engineer who knows more than 40+ programming languages.
Angela is a co-founder of Pyxai. She describes herself as an avid student of life and always being in beta. She has spent the last three years working on proving the values of soft skills and culture values for the workplace at Pyxai to create the first unicorn focused on soft skills and culture.
She is super excited about data, human behavior, and I/O psychology and enjoys reading, running, sci-fi movies, cooking, and baking.
Brian H. Hough is a certified blockchain and cloud developer, AWS Community Builder, and passionate advocate for innovation. Currently, he balances work as both a web3 developer, building decentralized apps and NFT/crypto-based solutions, and as a web2 developer building full stack applications with AWS serverless technologies. He is also the host of the top-rated Tech Stack Playbook YouTube channel and podcast. Brian got his start in the blockchain and tech space as the Chief Communications Officer for 8 Decimal Capital, a $60M global blockchain VC fund, while he worked as the Google Arts & Culture Project Coordinator at the Harvard Kennedy School's Center on American Indian Economic Development. Most recently, Brian created HelpMeDev, a decentralized founder-entrepreneur marketplace, which won the 1st Place Denali Prize at ETHOnline ’21 - the largest global Ethereum hackathon in history. Additionally, Brian serves on ATARC’s Blockchain Governmental Working Group and has been featured by global publications and companies including Decrypt, HackerNoon, MongoDB, ETHGlobal, and more.
Renee Delos Santos is a people ops executive and entrepreneur, passionate about bridging US-APAC groups and leadership to keep the world spinning.
LA-based for the past 16 years, Renee’s private sector and project management portfolio includes cross-sector initiatives bringing television and film’s most memorable media properties and Fortune 500 brands together. In social impact, her proudest achievements were in development, narrative, and campaign amplification towards: eradicating global poverty (ONE/RED); fighting climate change (Climate Reality Project/24 Hours of Reality); preventing AIDS within a generation (CTAOP, EGPAF); developing empathy and respect through testimony (Shoah Foundation); promoting mental wellbeing (Bring Change To Mind); and, most critically uplifting women and youth empowerment (Love Our Girls, CTAOP, USOW).
Currently, Renee serves as California Ambassador for the United State of Women, with her platform focus on advancing economic leadership of women and AAPI communities on Main Street to reflecting true C-suite/ Board Room diversity.
Over the past 8 years, Anna has been bootstrapping English For IT. English For IT aims to help tech teams communicate better across cultures, build and fortify the bridge between the development teams and the clients, and offer worldwide coverage. 50,000+ tech professionals have taken English For IT free and paid courses in the past 5 months. Their clientele includes a lot of established tech giants such as Snap Inc, Luxoft, Provectus, as well as startups such as People AI, Looksery that have distributed teams around the globe. Anna is also the author of 3 specialized online courses: English For Tech (Level 1 and 2), English For IT Communication.
Will Stringer is co-founder and CEO of Chisos, an early stage alternative investment company utilizing a Convertible Income Share Agreement to invest at the earliest stages of business ideation and formation. Will is responsible for creation of the Convertible Income Share Agreement, development of the underwriting and diligence criteria, fundraising, financial planning and general operations of the company. Will is an angel investor and advisor to multiple early stage companies. From October 2018 to January 2020, Will was an advisor to a global payments company working to digitize gold and bring transparency to the gold supply chain. From 2015-2019, Will worked on the investment team at Cockrell Interests, a single family office based in Texas where he managed all phases of illiquid investment execution including sourcing, diligence and ongoing portfolio management. Prior to Cockrell, Will was an Analyst in the Energy Investment Banking Group of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Will graduated with high honors from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.B.A. in Finance and Business Honors
Jonathan works as an XIR at Brex and in the past worked with startups at GSV. A 2020 graduate of UCLA majoring in statistics with a minor in film, TV and digital media, Jonathan is interested in data science and using machine learning for sports. He is also a passionate filmmaker and photographer.
Steve is a proud double Bruin and graduated with his Bachelor of Arts from UCLA in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration from UCLA Anderson School of Management in 2003. He currently serves as the CFO and Assistant Dean at UCLA School of Law where he has worked for the past 21 years. Steve was past president of the UCLA Alumni Los Angeles Westside Network and received the UCLA Alumni Volunteer of the Year Award in 2017.
Nelly Yusupova is a CTO, with over 18 years experience, leading companies to technical excellence. She is a start-up tech advisor, outsourced CTO, and the creator of TechSpeak for Entrepreneurs.
Nelly is on a mission to help entrepreneurs minimize technology mistakes and through her online masterclass TechSpeak for Entrepreneurs, she provides the roadmap to successfully manage technology teams and projects, without being technical or knowing how to code.
Just recently included in Fast Company’s, “League of Extraordinary Women”, Nelly has been at the forefront of the women’ s movement online since 1999 and is a Wall Street Journal’s “Woman on the IT Fast Track”.
Nelly is a speaker and presenter for many organizations and major industries events including: Women’s Enterprise Center, NY Entrepreneurs Business Network, Small Business Summit, BlogHer, Social Media Jungle, Mom 2.0, BlogWorld, and has been featured in INC Magazine, NBC Today Show, Fast Company Magazine, NewsDay.com, O’Reilly, SmartMoney, SmallBiz, TechRepublic, Women’s Radio.
A member of the CWRU community for over nine years, Bob assists students and alumni explore starting a business and provides guidance to expand their knowledge and skills to be successful. Previously, he was a member of Information Technology Services, managing key strategic technology partnerships.
Bob was part of the management of a Bain Capital backed company growing 80 plus annual High Tech recruiting events and 600 employment sites to a successful sale to the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. Since the inception, Bob has been involved with the international top level domain .jobs – www.goto.jobs.
Bob began his career with Revco Drug/CVS Pharmacy and continued for over 18 years. He was part of the team which took the company from bankruptcy to a successful IPO. He directed various marketing areas with a strong emphasis on the creative use of technology.