For the last 1st Mondays of the year, we’re doing something a little different. Introducing, lightning talks! The theme of the night will be Naughty Problems, Nice Ideas: Innovating for Social Change, with lightning talks 5-8 social innovator leaders will get 5 minutes to showcase their startup, the problems they solve, and their journey. The talks will wrap up with a Q&A session where attendees will get to interact and connect with the speakers and network with the startup community.
Give a warm welcome to our featured social innovator speakers:
1) Oralia Alvarez, Director of Business Development at Mission Driven Finance
Prior to joining Mission Driven Finance, Oralia Alvarez was the national director of business development who played a key role in the growth and expansion of one of the largest platforms for diverse-led, service-based businesses, providing accelerator programs, funding, and advisory support. Oralia is an ecosystem builder, mentor, advisor, and angel investor to small businesses and startups.
2) Jorge Muniz, Co-founder and CEO of Ascender Systems
With over 25 years of experience in military DoD programs and projects, Jorge Muniz is the Co-founder and CEO of Ascender Systems. Ascender Systems recently won the Global Social Innovation Challenge at USD The team at Ascender Systems has patented a climbing robot that can scale utility/light/flag poles, pipes, and columns of varying shapes from 3 inches to 22 inches. With their technology, they can provide Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR) operations that require reliable area communications, security, and lighting.
3) Sydney Thomas, Founder & General Partner at Symphonic Capital
Sydney Thomas is the Founder and General Partner of Symphonic Capital – a venture capital firm that invests in companies making life better for the 99%. The launch of her fund was recently covered by TechCrunch. She has focused on this thesis for the past decade and has created a distributed network invested in this space by founding a podcast where she profiles these companies, launching a newsletter where she writes about these companies, and hosting events where she organizes people who care deeply about the impact these companies can have on our society.
4) Cindy J. Lin, CEO & Co-Founder at Hey Social Good
Dr. Cindy J. Lin is the co-founder and CEO of Hey Social Good, a social impact tech company working to capture multi-disciplinary data and use deep learning analytics to provide affordable and easy-to-understand social impact metrics.
5) Douglas Harrison, CEO at The Rise Club & Keep Rising Program
Douglas Harrison helped hundreds of brands and businesses of all shapes and sizes, including their own, to build their go-to-market strategies. In the process, he has been Vendor of the Year at Coca-Cola and Finalist at Microsoft. His new book The Rise Framework shares the best practices of what I have learned that readers can directly apply to their own efforts.
6) Sheba Najmi, Founder and Executive Director at Tech for Change
Sheba Najmi is a civic tech entrepreneur, founder, and executive director of Tech for Change, a non-profit organization whose flagship initiative, Code for Pakistan, harnesses the power of people and technology to address civic and social needs in communities around the world. As a frequent speaker and coach on user experience design and civic technology, Sheba has shared her insights and expertise with diverse audiences, from the Information Architecture Summit to the Ukrainian Parliament. She is driven by the mission of enabling people to create better and more people-centered experiences for those with the least.
Join us on December 2nd for 1st Mondays!
You won’t want to miss this end-of-the-year event with 100+ startup innovators. Grab your tickets and learn how you can build business for good, and connect with the best founders and entrepreneurs in San Diego.