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.

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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.

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Nishant is the co-founder of Monaire since 2020. Previously, he was at Trane from 2019-2020 and was in product/sales management at RenewAire from 2015-2019.

Miraya is the director of Finance at Curieus, a non-profit dedicated to improve access to STEM for underserved youth and a tutor for Beyond the Book.

Heather is the venture growth and partnerships lead at Republic since Sept 2020 and also a 2021 Notely Fellow. Previously, she was a program associate at The Boston Foundation.

Jeanne Allen, Founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, is considered one of the nation’s most accomplished and relentless advocates for education reform, and a recognized expert, speaker and author in the field. She founded the Center for Education Reform (CER) in 1993 and leads the nationwide fight to ensure that the innovation, freedom, flexibility and parent power become the foundation for all schooling in the US.

Jeanne counsels a number of entrepreneurial education and technology companies, including HotChalk, Inc., CommonLit, and the Modern States Education Alliance. Major ed tech investors and accelerators, including 1776 and GSV Labs, count Jeanne as one of their key mentors. She serves on several boards, including the Washington Leadership Academy in Washington, DC and the Challenge Charter School in Chandler, AZ.

The Education Industry Association honored Jeanne with its “Friend of Education Award” in 2012. Additional honors include Working Mother’s “Most Powerful Moms in Education” and the Black Alliance for Educational Options Champion Award in 2013.

A frequent commentator in television and media, Jeanne has also published hundreds of articles and commentaries in newspapers and journals and as well as her own blog, Reality Check-In. Her honesty and linear thinking on issues such as reform, choice for parents, and teacher accountability has made her articles in outlets such as The Huffington Post essential reading. Her book, The School Reform Handbook: How to Improve Your Schools (1995) ignited parent-led efforts for education reform and her latest publication Education Reform: Before it Was Cool (2014) documents critical milestones during her work over the past 20-plus years.

Jeanne has been a trusted advisor to presidential administrations, governors, and lawmakers, and continues to provide valuable counsel to policymakers, philanthropists and her colleagues in education. She began her career on Capitol Hill and was a senior official in the US Department of Education from 1983-1988. She earned a bachelors degree in political science from Dickinson College and a masters of science in education entrepreneurship from the University of Pennsylvania.

Among her charitable and civic work, Jeanne is on the Leadership Council of the National Italian American Foundation, is a Dame of Malta, and an active member of the John Carroll Society. When time permits, she enjoys visiting the village of her family’s origin in Campania, Italy and time on the water, especially with her husband Dr. Kevin Strother, an educator, musician and charter boat captain. Her four young adult children are in various stages of school and work, some not surprisingly in the education reform arena.

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Bjorn is Founder and CEO of Good Idea Drinks. He is the Founder of Oatly and has 25 years of experience from entrepreneurial-driven companies.

David is Principal at SX Capital, investing into growth and pre-IPO opportunities. David was previously an Associate at Darling Ventures, covering ML and AI companies at the pre-seed stage. He also leads the Data Science team at the Stanford Graduate School of Business Venture Capital Initiative. He graduated with a Bachelor of International Economics from the University of British Columbia.

David is the co-founder of FuzeMee, a social media app built for high school and college student. He is currently a student at The Ohio State University and a D1 Lacrosse player.

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).

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Paulo is the Anti-CEO of EmprendHEC, a bridge for undiscovered early-stage tech entrepreneurs in Latin America since 2018.

Ruchi is currently the President, COO of Duluth Medical Technologies Inc, a Silicon Valley based Robotic Medical device startup. Duluth is focused to develop intelligent, agile and affordable surgical robots, to improve patient care. Ruchi has been working on medical devices right through her undergraduate college days and has presented various papers, publications on low-cost medical devices at international conferences. While at Stanford, Ruchi was part of the Stanford BioDesign Team and her team won the NIH grant for needs finding under the C-IDEA consortium at Stanford. Ruchi has also worked with Golden Seeds, a women focused Angel Network in New York and New Silk Route Growth Capital, a PE firm in Dubai, she has mainly focused on healthcare related investments at both these firms.

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.

Founder and CEO of POPmedia Brands, and PopStar Club, Inc., Sherry Gunther Shugerman is an award-winning producer, media executive, and entrepreneur. She’s produced animated hits such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, Rugrats, Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, The Powerpuff Girls, Looney Tunes; and headed production at Hanna Barbera, Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox Television, Nickelodeon, and more. At PopStar Club, Inc., Sherry created and launched The Beatrix Girls, a multi-platform media brand of fashion dolls. POPmedia Brands focuses on creating, developing and launching multi-platform media brands. Sherry is the recipient of two Emmys, a Cable Ace award, and a Humanitas Award.

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.

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Jonathan works 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.

Jason is the Vice President of Curriculum and Research at The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) since 2009 where he oversees the strategy and design of NFTE’s project-based, interdisciplinary core entrepreneurship education programs aimed at activating the entrepreneurial mindset of at-risk youth.

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.

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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.

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Ronald AngSiy brings a strong intersection of technical operations, product management, and leadership experience through his career journey. From leading client projects in six sigma operations improvement to managing global developer teams, Ronald possesses traditional management consulting experience. While at Wharton for his MBA, he started, grew, and sold a $10 million healthcare company, which he covered as an author for the Financial Times. He currently works as a Senior Product Manager in Digital Health for Humana, where he is building product strategy initiatives for the company. Previously, Ronald served as the Head of Internal Innovation for the Corporate Innovation group at TCL (under the $100 billion Tata Group), where he facilitates global partnership opportunities and develops innovation strategy.

Fernando Sepúlveda is the founding partner and CEO of the Impulsa Group, a business development ecosystem formed several organizations:

— Impulsa Business Incubator (IBI). Founded in 2004, IBI is a private for-profit business incubator focused on high-impact projects.

— Impulsa Business Accelerator (IBA). Founded in 2007, IBA is the leading business accelerator focusing on 2nd stage ventures that have proven their business model and require support to scale-up in a sustained and profitable way.

— Impulsa Capital (IC). Founded in 2013, IC is a Venture Capital fund focused on early-stage companies and growth capital.

— TrepCamp (TC). Founded in 2013, TC is the leading training program for high impact entrepreneurs.

— Filantrofilia. Founded in 2009, Filantrofilia is a nonprofit focusing on social entrepreneurship and social enterprises.

Prior to leading the Impulsa Group, Fernando was an Associate Principal for McKinsey & Company Inc. (1998-2004), serving clients in North America, Latin America, and Africa, mainly in the Industrial, Consumer Goods, Telecomm, and Financial Services sectors. He previously served as an advisor to the Ministry of Health (1998) and the Ministry of Education (1997) in Mexico.

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Eric Glustrom is the founder and CEO of Watson Institute and founder of Educate! — two organizations transforming education worldwide. Watson Institute is a new model of higher education dedicated to supporting next generation entrepreneurs and leaders to forge impactful, successful careers and solve the toughest challenges of our time.  Watson Institute’s scholars and alumni from 60 countries have raised over $100 million, created over 800 part or full-time jobs, and impacted over 150,000 people around the world through initiatives they help lead.  Educate!, which Eric founded and serves as the board chair, is the largest youth serving organization in East Africa reaching over 50,000 students across Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya through a mentorship based, leadership and entrepreneurship program that has significantly influenced the national curriculum and exam of Uganda and Rwanda.  Graduate of Amherst College in Biochemistry and recognized as an Ashoka fellow, Echoing Green fellow, and twice recognized as one of Forbes 30 Social Entrepreneurs Under 30, Eric’s work is driven by a simple belief: For humanity to reach its fullest potential, the place to start is within the hearts and minds of the next generation.

Feng Hou is the Chief Digital Transformation Evangelist at Maryville University of Saint Louis from June 2019. He is also the education vertical chair at the Blockchain Chamber of Commerce. Previously, he was the Chair of EASIP at the Linux Foundation and worked towards using blockchain to transform education.

Janine Sickmeyer is currently the founder partner at Overlooked Ventures. As a Tech Entrepreneur, Janine Sickmeyer founded and built legal startup NextChapter, serving as CEO and Founder for six years until it was acquired in September 2019 by Fastcase. In that time, she grew her team to 20 employees, 14% month-over-month revenue, and 6,000 attorney users in all 94 US Districts.

As a first-time founder, she learned and managed software development, product management, sales and marketing, finance and accounting, fundraising, user experience design, branding, customer success, client partnerships and most importantly, how to take a sketch and turn it into a living, breathing product that people love to use.

Janine joined Fastcase as Director of Practice Workflow as part of the acquisition. As a business leader and entrepreneur, Janine provides strategic vision for NextChapter and is particularly fascinated in the intersection between law and technology and more specifically, forms automation. Ms. Sickmeyer is a member of the American Bar Association (ABA), the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI), and a proud partner of the Lean In movement where she encourages and supports young women who are ready to make the leap as an entrepreneur or become a leader in their industry.

Janine was recognized as a Fastcase 50 Honoree in 2019, Women of Legal Tech 2017 presented by American Bar Association’s Legal Technology Resource Center (LTRC) and celebrated in the 2017 Women Who Lead campaign by Pledge 1% for her philanthropic efforts with NextChapter.

Janine is passionate about sharing her startup story with female entrepreneurs and business leaders to help them overcome challenges when starting a new venture. Janine is writing her first book to inspire other women to take a leap into entrepreneurship in the tech space. Outside the office, spends her time reading books of all genres, practicing yoga, traveling with her husband, and playing make believe with her four young children.

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Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic and visionary. Named one of India's 50 most influential people, Sadhguru's work has touched the lives of millions worldwide through his transformational programs. Sadhguru has a unique ability to make the ancient yogic sciences relevant to contemporary minds. His approach does not ascribe to any belief system but offers methods for self-transformation that are both proven and powerful. An internationally renowned speaker and author​ of the New York Times Bestseller Inner Engineering, A Yogi's Guide to Joy, Sadhguru has been an influential voice at major global forums including the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, addressing issues as diverse as socioeconomic development, leadership and spirituality. He has also been invited to speak at leading educational institutions, including Oxford, London Business School, IMD, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Wharton and MIT. In February 2017, Sadhguru was the recipient of the Padma Vibhushan Award by the Government of India, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service.

Dail St. Claire has significant history building investment management firms for institutional investors from the ground up, bringing them to market and controlling them for implementation in asset management activity in the public and private markets. With over 20 years of experience as President & Chief Operating Officer for financial institutions, Ms. St. Claire launched and managed several SEC-registered investment advisors, private equity, private credit and liquidity funds. She seeded each strategy with institutional assets growing total AUM to over $4 billion. Experienced in arranging debt and equity financing for company acquisitions, Ms. St. Claire arranged the 2017 debt financing for PKS, a $200 billion AUA RIA/Broker Dealer. She also served as Senior Equity Analyst for New York City’s Comptroller’s Office overseeing the pension fund’s $25 billion global equity and liquidity portfolios. Ms. St. Claire has served on several non-profits and professional associations. Currently, she serves as Chairman, Finance Committee, Episcopal Church Foundation, is member, Economic Club of New York and 100 Women in Finance. A certified running coach, she is also a competitive marathoner. Ms. St. Claire holds a BA from University of California, San Diego and a MA in Public Policy with a concentration in Business from University of Chicago, Harris School.

Mike Hoque founded his first company over twenty years ago determined to bring simplicity and quality service to the corporate logistics sector. Starting with a single Town Car, he would drive business executives and VIPs from airports to arenas and client events, eventually building one of the most successful corporate travel and events firms in its class. Along the way, Hoque has empowered and inspired a generation of young leaders and put into business numerous young entrepreneurs looking for someone to give their dream a chance.

Now, having added an acclaimed hospitality business and a growing real estate portfolio to his holdings, Hoque’s focus is on creating opportunities to create jobs and improve communities. Always finding opportunities among what others might perceive as business obstacles, Hoque’s companies have fostered his vision of creating vibrant urban environments.

Mike Hoque serves on the board of Downtown Dallas Inc., has received honors from the National Restaurant Association for his leadership and innovation in the Dallas business community, and has been honored by the Dallas Business Journal as a Top 40 Under 40 business innovators. He has also been honored as one of the 2015 Dallas 500 Business Leaders by D Magazine & DCEO. Hoque’s corporate outreach initiatives have also supported charitable organizations including Lena Pope Home (with DFW Restaurant Week), The Kimbell Museum and Hope Farm.

Mike Hoque has been featured in the Dallas CEO Magazine in 2015, 2019, and 2020.

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Roger Love is one of the world’s most sought-after vocal coaches in both the speaking and singing fields. He has produced the vocals on CDs totally more than 100 million in sales worldwide, written three top-selling books, and created best-selling audio courses, online programs, and DVDs like Love to Sing. Roger is also the voice coach for the stars of the mega-hit TV show Glee, and has appeared as a regular in the TV shows Popstars, Rockstar: INXS, and The One: Making a Music Star.

Roger coached Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix for the film Walk the Line, and Jeff Bridges and Colin Farrell for the hit movie Crazy Heart. Both films won Academy Awards. Roger’s singing clients include The Beach Boys, The Killers, Eminem, John Mayer, Def Leppard, Gwen Stefani, Demi Lovato, Maroon 5, Daniel Powter, and many others. He’s also coached celebrities like Tyra Banks, Zoe Saldana, Steve Carell, Jennifer Lawrence, and Will Ferrell, as well as professional speakers such as Anthony Robbins, John Gray, and Suze Orman. Roger’s work in corporate America has seen him coach executives at many of the top Fortune 500 companies.

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Chris is one of the nation's leading experts on launching startups and has been dubbed the "Startup Whisperer." He co-founded MapQuest, directed over $75M in investment capital, and is one of two managing directors of The Startup Factory. He's now EIR with Techstars. Chris published his first book about startups called Build The Fort.

Heidi is the president/founder of Tour de Heart, a non profit that provides digital healthcare education to patients and healthcare organizations. Heidi Dohse is passionate about improving patient outcomes and uses her athletic events as a way to inspire people living with heart issues. She partners with physicians and researchers around the world to provide insights regarding the patient experience and ideas for engagement. She travels globally educating audiences on digital health, data, and healthcare. Heidi recently retired from her position as Sr. Program Manager for Google Cloud Healthcare & Life Sciences organization to focus on her non-profit organization Tour de Heart.

Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva and the creator of Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast. He is an executive fellow of the Haas School of Business (UC Berkeley), and adjunct professor of the University of New South Wales. He was the chief evangelist of Apple and a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation. He has written Wise Guy, The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and eleven other books. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from UCLA, and an honorary doctorate from Babson College.