2022 Speakers

Keynote Speaker: Midday Keynote Panel - David S. Rose

David Rose is a long time leader of the tech industry, and has been described as "New York's Archangel" by Forbes, "patriarch of Silicon Alley" by Red Herring, and a "world conquering entrepreneur" by BusinessWeek.

He is a serial entrepreneur, active angel investor, Inc 500 CEO, Founding General Partner of True Global Ventures, Founder & CEO of the US Real Estate Market, and Founder & Executive Chairman of Gust, the SaaS platform powering over 1,000,000 startups and 85,000 early-stage investors. He is the NYT best selling author of "Angel Investing" and "The Startup Checklist."

David founded, and is Chairman Emeritus of, New York Angels, one of the world’s largest and most active angel investment groups. He is Chairman of NFT pioneer Pinktada, runs the AREA proptech accelerator, and serves on the boards of KoolSpan and Moven.

He was the original investor in, and Chairman of, JUMP Bikes (exited to Uber), Comixology (exited to Amazon) and Panjiva (exited to S&P Global) and has funded over 120 early stage companies with exits to Facebook, Google, Intel, and other industry leaders.

He founded the Finance, Entrepreneurship & Economics track at Singularity University, and is a keynote speaker on the future of business and technology. Dubbed by BusinessWeek "The Pitch Coach," he is a guest lecturer at business schools including Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and NYU. He founded wireless Internet pioneer AirMedia in 1988, and in 1997 was honored as a finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Earlier in his career David was co-founder of the Computer Classroom, one of the world’s first computer training firms, and spent a decade developing technology-enhanced real estate at Rose Associates, Inc. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Director of the New York office of US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Keynote Panel Speaker: Disruptive Innovation

Ankur Daga is Founder/CEO of Angara.com, a high growth, vertically integrated fine jewelry eTailer. Angara.com was named the Best Online Jeweler in the US by Newsweek in 2020 and has a growth rate of over 10x of the industry average. Angara’s vertically integrated operations span from rough gemstone cutting/polishing to designing jewelry to manufacturing jewelry to retailing over the web. Angara sells jewelry in over 30 countries and has a team of over 450 across offices in the US, Thailand, India and Ireland.

Ankur is also an active angel investor with investments in multiple unicorns worldwide. Notable investments include Eruditus (he serves on the Board of Eruditus) and Notion. Ankur was previously a Consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Keynote Panel Speaker: Disruptive Innovation

Cherie Kloss is the founder and chief executive officer of SnapMedTech, the parent company for SnapNurse, the largest healthcare staffing platform in the US, and its technology brands InstaStaff and Paymint.

With more than 225,000 registered nurses serving over 1,000 partnered facilities, SnapNurse’s staffing technology fills short-term nursing vacancies in less than 48 hours, a departure from the 14-day average of traditional staffing agencies.

The company has grown exponentially since its founding in 2017. As the only business of its kind, the company logged meteoric growth during the pandemic, expanding sales by more than 77,000% in 12 months. SnapNurse’s Q1 2020 to Q1 2021 growth rate of 40,000% is one of the fastest growth rates of any company in any industry in recorded history.

Cherie, who served as an anesthetist for 18 years, founded SnapNurse to offer a more efficient ecosystem for healthcare systems and nurses to work together. She realized how broken the industry’s credentialing and hiring process was, so she created the company to ultimately help solve the world’s critical nursing shortage.

With more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry, Cherie guides the SnapMedTech family, building technologies and service businesses around the automation of booking, credentialing, and payment processes crucial to healthcare staffing.

Cherie holds a BS in biology and premed from Westmont College and a master’s degree from Emory University School of Medicine. In 2021, Cherie was named an EY Entrepreneur Of The Year National Award Winner.

Keynote Panel Speaker: Disruptive Innovation

Gautam Mukunda is an internationally recognized expert in leadership and innovation. He often jokes that his life’s ambition is to have the world’s most confusing resume and that he’s most of the way there. He is the Head of Research at Rose Park Advisors, a firm co-founded by his mentor Clayton Christensen that provides companies that are supported by the theory of disruptive innovation the capital investment and strategy that allows them to grow to make the world a better place. Gautam is also a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, the author of Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012) and Picking Presidents: How To Make The Most Consequential Decision in the World (University of California Press, forthcoming October 2022), and the host of Nasdaq’s podcast World Reimagined with Gautam Mukunda.

Gautam has been a professor at Harvard Business School and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University. He has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Security Studies, Slate, Fast Company, Parameters, Politics and the Life Sciences, and Systems and Synthetic Biology on topics including leadership, reforming the financial sector, military innovation, network-centric warfare, the security and economic implications of synthetic biology, and the TV show Mad Men. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, Atlantic, New Yorker, Economist, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and on All Things Considered.

Gautam was a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program and Program on Emerging Technologies. He was a Paul & Daisy Soros New American Fellow, an NSF IGERT Fellow, a Next Generation Fellow of The American Assembly, and a Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation’s Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center. He served on The Chief of Naval Operation’s Executive Advisory Panel and as a member of the New England Regional Selection Committee for the White House Fellowship and was a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on New Models of Leadership. He was a Jeopardy Champion.

At MIT, Gautam was the National Science Foundation Synthetic Biology ERC Postdoctoral Fellow resident at MIT’s Center for International Studies. He received his PhD from MIT in political science focusing in International Relations and Security Studies, where he was a Paul & Daisy Soros New American Fellow and an NSF IGERT Fellow. He received his AB in Government from Harvard, magna cum laude. Before his academic career he was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, where he focused on the pharmaceutical sector.

Gautam is a member of the board of directors and chair of the Mentorship Committee of The Upakar Foundation, a national non-profit devoted to providing college scholarships to underprivileged students of South Asian descent. He is on the Advisory Boards of Bionic Solutions and Fount Bio. He is an Overseer of the Boston Ballet and a member of the Museum Council of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Keynote Panelist: Cybersecurity: Increasing Threats, Growing Needs & Session Moderator: Artificial Intelligence is Becoming Ubiquitous: Impacts & Issues

Dr. Mumm has spent a combined twenty-eight years in government and contractor service building teams to address hard problems in the areas of national security, homeland security, and advanced technologies. He was the Division Chief for Cyber Security at the Office of The Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) programming and executing a budget of over $140M. Subsequently, he accepted a Branch Chief position with the CIA and built a unique set of continuous monitoring capabilities in support of the ICD503 Risk Management Framework. His achievements include establishing a rogue wireless framework, as well as the funding, technology, and teams to support the ICD 503 initiatives.

Dr. Mumm is a proven leader in a diverse set of fields, including autonomous systems, AI/machine learning, energy research, advanced fuel systems, nuclear energy use and technologies, cognitive scientific research, and all aspects of the military intelligence communities. He is a published researcher in both the scientific and social science arenas and has won grants and contracts to further test and evaluate his original research. He has notable experience in research and systems engineering, which includes winning awards and contracts for UAV research and the creation of an advanced multiple fuel system (AI-based) where he operated the world’s first and only helicopter that flies on five separate fuels without engine modifications. His research extends into emerging and disruptive technology for offensive and defensive missions supporting US and coalition operations. His UAV and robotics expertise has focused on determining the specific uses, exceptions, and allowances for robotics operations, including studying the unintended consequences, future use, and misuse of such technologies.

Dr. Mumm holds a Doctorate of Management with a concentration in Homeland Security from Colorado Technical University (CTU), an MS in Strategic Intelligence from American Military University (AMU), and a BS in Management from Chadwick University..

In 2016, Dr. Mumm was awarded the People of Distinction Humanitarian Award as well as being granted a US Patent and Trademark for How to Harmonize the Speed of Innovation and Change with the Human Spirit’s Need for Leadership. In 2005, he was recognized as one of the “Ten Outstanding Young Americans”, and in 2003, he was awarded the National Defense PAC “American Patriot Ingenuity Award” for his service during “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

Dr. Mumm is an adjunct professor at the California University of Pennsylvania (CALU), instructing Homeland Security courses in the Criminal Justice Department.

He recently co-authored "Drone Delivery of CBNRECy – DEW WEAPONS -Emerging Threats of Mini-Weapons of Mass Destruction and Disruption (WMDD) the sixth in a series of textbooks, which includes two editions titled “Unmanned Aircraft in the Cyber Domain; Protecting USA’s Advanced Air Assets”, “Unmanned Vehicle Systems & Operations on Air, Sea, Land,” and an early 2020 book titled “Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems Technologies and Operation.” These textbooks are a follow-up to his international best-selling book in 2017 titled “Lightning Growth” and his best-selling book in 2015 titled “Applying Complexity Leadership Theory to Drone Airspace Integration.”

Keynote Moderator: Disruptive Innovation & Keynote Moderator & Panelist: Cybersecurity: Increasing Threats, Growing Needs

Brian is a startup evangelist, advisor, and angel investor. He is also the Managing Partner at the SparkLabs Cyber+Blockchain (Formerly AOL Fishbowl Labs), which is the premiere startup accelerator in the Washington DC area and he has helped raised more than $150M in funding for their portfolio companies (MHelpDesk, ThreatQuotient, Xmode, Urgent.ly, Curator, Airside Mobile).
He is the DC Chapter Director of Startup Grind, which is one of the largest hi-tech startup communities in the world with over 2,000,000 startup entrepreneurs in 600 cities.
Prior to Startup Grind, he has over 20 years professional experience in web/online/mobile product development from AOL, Merrill Lynch and has started three previous startups. He is on the board of Monte Jade DC and is the chapter director for Startup Grind DC.
He has been featured in Forbes as “17 Top Business Gurus to Follow” and other publications such as Washington Post, Huffington Post, Politico, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Washington Business Journal, and DCInno “50 on Fire” 2017 and 2018.
He has a BS in Information Systems/Policy & Management from Carnegie Mellon University.

Keynote Panelist: Cybersecurity: Increasing Threats, Growing Needs & Session Panelist: Workforce, Workplace, and Innovation Districts

Chris has 20+ years of experience as a Verizon Sales and Operations Leader in consumer and business products, enterprise solutions, iOT deployments, project management and customer service. He brings strong financial acumen, cross-unit collaboration and culture development to his leadership roles.

Chris is Director – Small Business Innovation for the Verizon Business Group, leading Verizon Wireless business innovation initiatives for the Small Business & Channel organization, overseeing strategic projects, driving sales evolution and supporting sales operations in collaboration with key internal partners.

Prior to this role, Chris served as National Sales Director – Indirect Channel Partners and Solutions Architects, leading two national small business sales organizations, as well as business transformation initiatives, marketing campaigns and product launches. Previously, Chris served as Executive Director for Wireless Small Business and Strategic Data sales for the Western U.S., Business Director for Southern California and Pacific Northwest, and Retail Director for the Southern California and Mountain territories. He began his career as a Retail Sales Representative in 1997 for Bell Atlantic.

In his Verizon career, Chris has been honored with 2 President’s Cabinet Awards, 1 Gold Club and 7 Winner’s Circle Awards.

Chris earned a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and Mathematics from Towson University. He received an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland. He also completed the Cybersecurity program at Rutgers University.

Keynote Panelist: Cybersecurity: Increasing Threats, Growing Needs

Dr. Merrick S. Watchorn, DMIST, QIS is the Program Chair for the Quantum Security Alliance (QSA) and his current research areas include Quantum Information Systems (QIS), High Performance Computer (HPC), Cloud Computing (CC), Cybersecurity concepts, supply chain and open source intelligence technologies. With over 35-years of pragmatic Information Technology experience, he blends his efforts within government, commercial and academic endeavors. Dr. Watchorn spends his time on injection innovation, creativity, critical problem solving into a myriad of efforts and activities to support the QSA. In 2009, Dr. Watchorn invented the Cyber Exome Ancestry Tool (CEAT), which began to explore the impacts of Cyber Awareness and Resiliency (CAR) concepts within the cyber domain. Several white papers, technical analysis reports have been produced by this pioneering research capability. This type of research acumen was the primary reason he was selected to be the Program Chair for the QSA, and his selection of subject matter expertise was instrumental in the success of the QSA’s research focused approach to emerging Quantum topics.
Dr. Watchorn has a Doctor of Management with a specialization in Organizational Leadership, Information Systems and Technology from the University of Phoenix, School of Advance Studies (UOP-SAS). With more than a dozen board certifications, including as a Social Media Intelligence Analyst, Cyber Threat Forensic Investigator, Cyber Warfare Planner, and Professional Criminal Investigator, he provides Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) thought leadership with his relationships with numerous organizations. He is an adjunct professor at both the University of Maryland and Pace University. As a result of his work, he was recently added to the Purdue Global, Technical Advisory Board, McAfee Online Learning Institute, Board of Directors.

Session Panelist: Innovation in The Game of Life and How We Play It & Session Panelist: The Future is Now: Exploring the Intersection of Human Touch & Tech in Aging

For 40 years, David Allen has been committed to standing in the gap for those who could not stand for themselves. He has been a Firefighter Paramedic in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia. Today, David is completing the final leg of his career as an International Board Certified Community Paramedic in Alpharetta, Georgia. Stephen Covey's seventh habit of highly effective people admonishes readers to "sharpen the saw." At age 62, David recently completed his Bachelor's degree from Waldorf University in Fire Science Administration - Summa Cum Laude. He has already enrolled in Harvard University's Extension School Master's program. He continues to apply academic excellence to attend to the medically vulnerable and leadership development for the next generation.

David took leadership development a step further when he achieved certification as an Executive Coach from the University of Georgia, focusing on supporting today's "C" suite leaders.

David is excited to apply emerging innovative technology to the community's underserved, overwhelmed, and at-risk populations. His contemporaries presume that he used chisel and stone in his elementary years. David is intent on proving that he can evolve with the times.

Session Panelist: The Future is Now: Exploring the Intersection of Human Touch & Tech in Aging

Majd Alwan, Ph.D., a noted researcher and authority on aging-services technologies, is LeadingAge’s senior vice president of technology & business strategy, and executive director of the LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST).
Dr. Alwan is responsible for creating and leading a network of technology companies, providers and research institutions focused on technology solutions for an aging society.
The network advances the interests of older consumers, caregivers and providers and fosters opportunities for collaboration between provider organizations, technology companies, and research institutions in exploring product development, testing prototypes, evaluating technology and deploying technology-enabled care models.
Prior to joining CAST, Majd served as an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Robotics and Eldercare Technologies Program at the University of Virginia's Medical Automation Research Center. His research interests there included passive functional and health assessment, biomedical instrumentation, medical automation, as well as eldercare and assistive technologies.
As a volunteer, Dr. Alwan chaired the Funding Aging Services Technologies committee and the Pilots committee for CAST. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE’s Engineering in Medicine and Biology, and Robotics and Automation Societies, and a member of IEEE-USA’s Medical Technology Policy Committee and the Geriatric Care Workgroup. Alwan also serves on the Alzheimer’s Association’s Work Group on Technology.
Dr. Alwan received his Ph.D. in intelligent robotics from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London, a Master's of Science degree in control engineering with distinction from Bradford University, and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Damascus University.

Session Panelist: New Trends in Space Innovation and Funding

Mr. Anderson has been a pioneer in the commercial (non- military) development of outer
space both commercially and through his charitable and educational activities including his cofounding of the International Space University in 1988.

He founded MirCorp in year 2000 to privatize the MIR Space Station for research and commercial activities. MirCorp operated the MIR station for around one year and conducted the first private mission to a private station.

Walt Anderson has also played a major part in the development of the telecommunications industry in the United States and Europe.

He was named by New Scientist Magazine in 2007 as one of the “Top 10 influential space.

Session Panelist: Artificial Intelligence is Becoming Ubiquitous: Impacts & Issues

David Auld is a Principal Architect in Microsoft’s Data & AI Service Line where he helps Microsoft’s enterprise customers adopt the latest AI technologies like Open AI’s GPT-3 language model. Prior to this role, he worked in the Office of the CTO on machine learning frameworks. He was on the founding incubation team for the suite of AI offerings that would eventually become Azure Cognitive Services and subsequently ran the engineering teams building Microsoft’s Computer Vision API and Custom Vision services. Over 8 years at the company, he has held numerous roles in strategy, data science, and product development. Beyond Microsoft, David has also worked at Amazon and multiple startups in the areas of big data, mobile payments, and financial services. He lives in the Seattle area with his wife and two children.

Session Moderator: Coping with Climate Change: Climate Change Technology

Sandy Baer is a champion of creative collaborations between the public and private sectors. She leads Personal Cities, http://personalcities.org/, a smart city company focused on city identity and placemaking, social inclusion and equity, climate actions and the acceleration of digital technology investments to support innovators and entrepreneurs.

She has advised cities in the US, Europe, India and the Middle East and has consulted to Nektria, Cityzenith, Citibeats, Urban Leap. She has served on the board of professional and civic organizations and has held strategic leadership roles with ATT, Speechworks, Discovery Channel, Nextel/Sprint, Ridge Global, Smart Cities Council, CIVIQ Smartscapes and Bloomberg Government.

In 2019 Ms. Baer and Dr. Lawrence Jones, authored “Rethinking, Reimagining, Redesigning Global Urbanization: The Hard Questions for Urban Stakeholders,” https://tinyurl.com/y7vfmrag, They developed the concept of “Question Storming” to get to the heart of the some of the world’s most intransigent problems advocating that “to change the world we must ask questions that disrupt the world.”

Ms. Baer is currently the Brand Ambassador for SmartCitiesWorld, (https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/) and a Special Advisor to “Saving the City: Remaking the American Metropolis,” (https://savingthecity.org/ She is on the Global Advisory Board of Leading Cities and serves as a judge and mentor of the AcceliCITY competition, (https://leadingcities.org/accelicity).

Miss Baer is a respected speaker and moderator, and has spoken at smart city conferences, worldwide. She holds BA and MBA degrees and a Global Advanced Management Certification from Georgetown University. She has lived and worked across Europe and currently resides in Washington DC.

Session Panelist: Public Governance of Sustainability: Smart Cities

Jonathan Beam works at US Ignite, a high-tech research nonprofit that helps to accelerate and advance the Smart City Movement. At US Ignite, he serves as the Manager of Community Innovation where he works with a diverse array of partner communities and researchers to foster innovation and encourage experimentation in the design and delivery of smart city services. Jonathan also serves as a member of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Build Back Better Infrastructure Task Force on the Technology and Innovation Subcommittee

Prior to joining US Ignite, Jonathan managed programs and outreach for the Massive Data Institute at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy as a Program Manager. Before Georgetown, he worked on a number of political campaigns and spent several years in the nonprofit sector as a development officer.

Originally from South Carolina, Jonathan has a BA from Emory University and a Master of Public Policy from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Session Panelist: Red Flags that Keep investors Away

Brad Bertoch has over 35 years experience in establishing Salt Lake City as an industry leader in tech commercialization. He has assisted over 1000 companies in understanding the capital raising process. They have To date they have generated over $30 Billion in financial transactions, and have created or retained over 45,000 jobs, directly and indirectly. He has pioneered the us of technology commercialization, mentoring, and education as an effective economic development tool.

Session Panelist: Public Governance of Sustainability: Smart Cities

Ron Blatman is Executive Producer/Producer for the Saving the City: Remaking the American Metropolis documentary series about making cities better places now in production. To get a sense of the series, visit www.savingthecity.org for preview videos and more.

He also created and produced the acclaimed Saving the Bay national PBS series narrated by Robert Redford about the history of San Francisco Bay. Four episodes cover San Francisco Bay from its origins to the present and highlight three pioneering women who saved the Bay from becoming little more than a river in the 1960s.

Visit www.savingthebay.org for video clips and an extensive education section. The series won four regional Emmy awards including for Best Documentary. Screenings were held for members of Congress at the US Capitol and in conjunction with the state legislature in Sacramento.

Ron previously worked in real estate development and finance in his native San Francisco and on Wall Street in New York, as well as serving as Director of Business Development in the San Francisco mayor's office. He was the mayor’s point man for keeping the San Francisco Giants baseball team in the city as well as catalyst for a major new Federal office complex.
He earned an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School and a concurrent Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley.

Session Panelist: Healthcare & Wellness Technology: Evolution to Revolution & Session Panelist: The Future of Wellness Real Estate & Session Panelist: The Future is Now: Exploring the Intersection of Human Touch & Tech in Aging

As VP of Business Development for Delos, John brings his 25+ years of experience in real estate and construction to bring the company’s health and wellness platforms to designers, developers, financial institutions, and technology partners. Since joining Delos, John has launched programs in multi-family residential, student housing, office, education, and other building sectors, as well as establishing strategic partnerships with industry leaders like Johnson Controls International (JCI) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Previously, John served in business development roles as Vice President for ARCADIS and for Turner Construction & TishmanSpeyer Properties. Before coming to NY in 1999, John worked at the US Department of State for the US Agency for International Development, supporting foreign assistance education and real estate programs across Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.

John holds an MBA in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business, a Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and a BS in Architecture from the University of Virginia.

Session Panelist: New Trends in Space Innovation and Funding

John Bucknell is the CEO and Founder of Virtus Solis Technologies, a startup focused on deploying the first commercial space solar power platform.

John graduated from Cleveland State University in 1995 with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and from the University of Michigan in 1999 with a master’s in systems engineering and is a licensed professional engineer. He has led advanced engineering teams at Chrysler and General Motors for three award-winning engine families across eight production programs, was Senior Propulsion Engineer for the Raptor full-flow staged combustion methalox rocket at Space Exploration Technologies and the Director of Propulsion Engineering for Divergent Technologies developing mass-manufacturing additively manufactured technologies. Published technical work includes high efficiency/low operational cost internal combustion engines, economic carbon-neutral synthetic fuel processes and high performance air-breathing nuclear rockets as well as 49 US patents.

Session Panelist: The Future is Now: Exploring the Intersection of Human Touch & Tech in Aging

Dana Burr Bradley, Ph.D., Dean of the Erickson School of Aging Studies and Professor of Social Gerontology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a global leader in aging innovation. The Erickson School of Aging Studies, unique in the US, identifies and connects visionaries in the longevity economy in fields as diverse as data science, management, dementia, and global studies.
Dr. Bradley focuses on recognizing how communities develop and sustain connections among older persons and ensuring that stakeholders understand the diverse ways to engage and support older persons. She works with leaders in the Age-Friendly movement across the globe and is proud that UMBC is a member of the Age-Friendly University initiative. A graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University as a Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellow, her initiatives have been funded by multiple state agencies, foundations, USIAD, NSF, and Fortune 500 companies. A fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the Academy of Gerontology in Higher Education, she believes that leadership is thinking outside of the circle and serves with gratitude across many organizations.

Session Panelist: Sustainability and the New Geopolitics of Energy

Ben Cahill is a senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He covers oil markets, geopolitics, and macro trends affecting the oil and gas industry. He also leads a research initiative on methane emissions and global gas and analyzes how national oil companies are responding to the energy transition. Ben was previously a director in Energy Intelligence's Research & Advisory group and led its country risk practice, advising oil and gas companies on politics, economics, and policy risks. He also wrote on corporate strategy and covered Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and the Southeast Asian national oil companies. Ben formerly worked at PFC Energy (now part of IHS Markit) in Washington, D.C., and Kuala Lumpur, focusing on country risk and macro trends in the oil and gas industry. He has an MA in international affairs and economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a BA in international relations and English from Boston University.

Session Panelist: Workforce, Workplace, and Innovation Districts

Vardahn is a Vice President in the Investments group at JBG Smith and leads all execution of the National Landing Smart City Initiative. He and the team are focused on deploying a world class digital infrastructure platform across National Landing with the vision of creating a canvas of innovation like no other. For the past 8 plus years, Vardahn has focused on bringing technology and innovation to life in urban environments. Prior to joining JBGS, Vardahn was the lead consultant in Accenture’s Smart Cities and Connected Campus practice. He worked across industries (public sector, real estate, telecom, resources) to craft strategies, conduct investment analyses, implement smart city infrastructure, and define operations. Vardahn is based in Washington DC and holds a BS in Environmental Engineering from Cornell University an MS in Smart Cities & Urban Analytics from the University College London, and a Certificate in Commercial Real Estate Analysis and Investment from MIT.

Session Panelist: Workforce, Workplace, and Innovation Districts

Patrick is Chief Operating Officer at ZEBOX. He helps to define and execute strategy for engaging with the ZEBOX ecosystem including both corporate partners, startups, and other various stakeholders in the community.

Prior to joining ZEBOX, Patrick led the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA). One of the largest business consortia focused on leveraging next generation technology to transform supply chain and transportation business processes by leveraging blockchain technology and open-source data standards to streamline data handoffs and supply chain orchestration.

Patrick has experience across strategy & growth consulting, venture capital, and banking. He is a graduate of The University of Florida and has completed coursework through Harvard Business School’s CoRE program.

Session Panelist: Healthcare & Wellness Technology: Evolution to Revolution & Session Panelist: The Future is Now: Exploring the Intersection of Human Touch & Tech in Aging
Joe Ebberwein is the Co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of Corstrata, a Telehealth solution for wound and ostomy patients. He has spent the majority of his career in the post-acute Home Health and Hospice industry with extensive executive management experience, running multiple lines of business.
He has developed strategies for emerging value-based reimbursement models of healthcare including the successful integration of Telehealth into clinical workflows, improving clinical quality outcomes at a lower cost per patient, including the emerging hospital at home models of care. He has served on the board of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association and Credentialing Center.
He received a BBA in accounting from the University of Notre Dame.

Session Panelist: How the Circular Economy Improves Sustainability

Carolyn Elefant is a veteran energy and eminent domain attorney with more than two decades experience. Following graduation from Cornell Law School, Carolyn launched her legal career as an attorney-advisor at FERC. After leaving FERC, Carolyn worked for several premier national energy practices in Washington D.C. A fan of entrepreneurship, Carolyn realized her dream of starting her own firm in 1993, which continues to thrive. Carolyn’s legal experience runs broad and deep — ranging from litigation and appeals in state and federal court and administrative hearings, negotiating energy industry contracts and easements, serving as an expert issue on gas pipeline matters and testifying before Congressional committees. Carolyn also has non-profit and organizational experience as co-founder and counsel of the Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition from 2005-2014 when the organization merged with the National Hydropower Association. Carolyn speaks and writes on energy topics, and has published peer-reviewed white papers and articles in the Energy Law Journal on various energy issues. Outside of her energy practice, Carolyn has handled several pro bono foreclosure and credit matters, blogs on law firm entrepreneurship, and serves as advisor to several legal technology companies.

Carolyn is highly regarded by industry peers. Carolyn was named an Energy & Natural Resources SuperLawyer in DC from 2012 onward – an accolade awarded to the top five percent of practitioners in a field. Carolyn is also quoted frequently in industry publications such as Platts as well as national media such as The New York Times , Boston Globe and others. In 2014, Carolyn appeared on the Daily Show (link here ) to discuss new law firm business models, and NPR’s Diane Rehm radio program to speak about pipeline impacts on landowners. For additional information and access to Carolyn’s work product, please visit www.carolynelefant.com .

Session Panelist: Innovation in The Game of Life and How We Play It & Session Panelist: The Future of Wellness Real Estate

Susie Ellis is the chair and CEO of the nonprofit Global Wellness Institute, considered the industry’s leading global research and educational resource. She is also co-founder, chair and CEO of the Global Wellness Summit, an organization at the heart of the multitrillion-dollar global wellness economy focused on facilitating collaboration amongst industry thought leaders. Recognized as a leading authority on wellness trends, Ellis is a popular speaker at industry events. She sits on numerous academic and industry boards, including the EHL – Swiss Hospitality Management School in Lausanne, the Aspen Brain Institute, the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, and was also a member of the World Economic Forum’s “Accelerating Health and Well-being Initiative.” She holds an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Session Panelist: Sustainability and the New Geopolitics of Energy

Emily Sanford Fisher is General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Senior Vice President, Clean Energy for the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) in Washington, D.C. Emily is responsible for managing EEI’s litigation and legal affairs covering a wide range of energy and environmental regulatory and policy issues at the state and federal level. She also oversees and coordinates strategic clean energy engagement across EEI and across the federal government.

Session Panelist: The Future of Wellness Real Estate

Helen Foster is the owner and principal of Foster Strategy, LLC, a real estate development and marketing consultancy specializing in the creation and expansion of master planned and age-qualified (55+) communities. Based in New Orleans, Helen helps developers and operators across the U.S. envision and deliver wholly new approaches to community development and resident life. She is best known for 18+ years of collaboration with two renowned, large-scale developments: Willow Valley Communities (Lancaster, PA) and Rancho Mission Viejo (San Juan Capistrano, CA). Helen is Chair of the Urban Land Institute’s Lifestyle Residential Development Council, Co-chair of the Global Wellness Institute's Wellness Communities and Real Estate Initiative, and she actively participates as an advisor, speaker, and awards judge for other major industry organizations including Leading Age and the Pacific Coast Builders Conference.

Session Panelist: Sustainability and the New Geopolitics of Energy

Greg Gershuny is the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Program (EEP). Greg started at the Institute as the James E. Rogers Energy Fellow and Managing Director for his first two years at Aspen and has been in this role since 2018. The Energy and Environment Program, one of the longest running at the Aspen Institute, strives to design and cultivate leadership and develop solutions based on the ideal that both humankind and the natural world have intrinsic value. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Greg served as the Associate Director and Chief of Staff for the US Department of Energy Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis where he worked on clean energy and energy security policy as well as managing the policy office and the Quadrennial Energy Review. Greg served in the White House for five years under President Barack Obama, where he was the Director of Energy and Environment for the Office of Presidential Personnel and oversaw the Presidential appointment process for the energy and environment mission agencies. He also served as a policy aide to the Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, working on research and development as well as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education policy, and as a Research Associate for the White House National Economic Council for technology and innovation policy. Greg is a graduate of George Mason University and originally hails from New Jersey.

Session Panelist: Ten Ways a VC Fund Will Fail

Ed Harrell founded Harrell Capitol Partners, a family-owned business that was founded in 2001 to invest in early-stage companies in the security, online video, CRM, e-commerce, mobile, and big data/cloud platform markets, primarily in the Mid-Atlantic, New England, and Silicon Valley regions. HCP has invested in 16 portfolio companies with 6 successful exits to date. He served as the Chair of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Board of Advisors for the University of Baltimore, and is a Trustee for the University of Harrisburg.

Workshop Moderator: Paradigm Shift: How to Achieve Your Career Goals

Stephanie Hessler is a Performance and Mindset Coach. She helps high-achieving leaders who want to rapidly advance their careers and create a vision others want to follow, but are tired of playing small. Therefore, Stephanie guides her clients through a transformational coaching journey called the BLISS Accelerator to turn their goals and dreams into reality. Previously, she worked in the investment business, including on Wall Street, for sixteen years. She earned her MBA at The Wharton School and her BA at Wellesley College.

Session Panelist: Ten Ways a VC Fund Will Fail

Pleurat Hundozi is the Director of Business Development for Crimson Capitol Corporate, which invests in leading innovation development and implementation of projects with impact. He is also a highly successful investor in companies developing mobile apps, IoT platforms, and natural gas distribution.

Session Panelist: Coping with Climate Change: Climate Change Technology

Joe is an entrepreneur and consultant focused on clean energy finance. His goal is to make financing for energy efficiency and renewable energy radically accessible, thereby driving tens of billions of dollars into these projects and decarbonizing our energy system.

Joe leads RE Tech's clean energy finance advisory practice, leveraging our expertise in commercial real estate, policy, and financial mechanisms to help organizations navigate the complicatedenergy finance landscape. For over 3 years, Joe ran Rock Creek Consulting, an advisory firm that helps companies and non-profits roll out new clean energy products, services, and strategies to transform the market.

In 2013, he co-founded Sparkfund, a startup that provides "as-a-service" financing for energy technologies. He was previously a consultant in the Climate Change and Sustainability practice at ICF International, where he worked with clients including Fortune 500s, federal agencies, universities, cities, non-profits, and the UN. While at Dartmouth, he helped set up a $1M green revolving fund. He now does free-of-charge work with students to help them on sustainability efforts at their own universities.

Session Panelist: Coping with Climate Change: Climate Change Technology

Ingrid Irigoyen serves as the Associate Director, Ocean and Climate, for the Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Program (EEP). She leads EEP’s work on ocean and coastal sustainability and decarbonization of the ocean economy, and provides strategic advice and facilitation for partners striving to work collaboratively to address multi-sectoral ocean and coastal challenges. She is also Director of the Aspen Institute Shipping Decarbonization Initiative, a project that engages businesses and policy makers to accelerate decarbonization of maritime shipping. As part of this work, she is the facilitator and project lead for Cargo Owners for Zero Emission Vessels (coZEV), a coalition of major multinational consumer products companies and other freight buyers working to accelerate the pace of decarbonization in maritime shipping.

Ingrid has experience developing coalitions and consensus building processes, strategy development to address intractable sustainability issues, and facilitation of high impact multi-stakeholder projects. These range in geographic scale from sub-national to international levels, and address topics such as maritime transport, ocean science and conservation, coastal and ocean adaptation to climate change, sustainable fisheries management, integrated regional ocean planning, offshore energy, and coastal resiliency and land management.

Prior to joining Aspen in 2018, she was a Senior Mediator and Program Manager at Meridian Institute. Prior to this, among other positions, Ingrid was a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellow with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

She holds a Masters of Environmental Management from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from the University of New Hampshire.

Session Panelist: The Metaverse

Bianca J. Jackson is an award-winning Entrepreneur and Founder of BrickRose Exchange, an event space that engages audiences in-person and through virtual reality events in the Metaverse. Jackson's work in tech, digital marketing, and social impact has landed her speaking opportunities at SXSW, Digital Summit Philadelphia, and Tech Inclusion NY. She has been featured in Forbes, The Washington Post, and Tech Republic. One of her Metaverse projects, USA Today's The WallVR, won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018. Now, Jackson advises small businesses on leveraging Web 3.0 to enhance their business strategies, especially around events.

Session Panelist: Ten Ways a VC Fund Will Fail

Mr. Jimenez has spent the last 20 years in Corporate and Business Development for a variety of clients in telecommunications, interactive media and health care. He specializes in working with emergent companies that have an evolutionary product or service, to develop and execute on capitalization and strategic business development plans. Mr. Jimenez began his current career path with an ISP start-up, World Wide Net, and a successful exit. From there, he became a successful Business development executive at NorthPoint, a pioneering broadband provider, MetroMedia Fiber Networks and Dicon Fiber Optics. His client roster included Microsoft, Hughes Network Systems, Tandy and Toshiba. Mr. Jimenez founded Bethlehem Technologies, as he saw the exciting opportunities in the convergence of interactive media with telecommunications. This convergence would require experienced technologists and corporate development strategists to serve the next generation of technology entrepreneurs and their emergent companies.

Currently, Mr. Jimenez is on the Board of Tu Vision Canal, the “YouTube for Hispanics” and LuvBeats, an E-Greeting App for On-Line Daters and is the Interim EVP & GM of TuStarShop. He is also an Angel Investor in emergent companies such as SpotMagic, LuvBeats and TeleTienda.

Session Panelist: Ten Ways a VC Fund Will Fail

Steve is a serial entrepreneur, corporate executive and university technology commercialization executive. He started his career in research and then moved to research management and general management for Union Carbide, Akzo Coatings, GE and Alcoa. As an entrepreneur, Steve was CEO of a revolutionary composites venture and a medical device venture, in addition to serving on boards of a number of early stage ventures. Steve’s passion for commercializing early technologies and growing entrepreneurial communities led him to university technology commercialization operations at Utah State University, The Johns Hopkins University and The George Washington University. In Utah, Steve was a leader in the successful USTAR program, where a $500M appropriation (over ten years) supported a joint government, industry, university program to expand technology based economic development in Utah. At each institution, the focus on commercializing university technology through startup formation moved each to the top of the national rankings. In 2008, Hopkins achieved the strongest startup portfolio in the nation with 12 startups and $76M in venture capital raised. At George Washington startup formation has more than doubled and licensing income increased more than 50-fold. Steve retired from George Washington in 2021 and is now active in advising a Noblis, a $500 M defense research organization, as well as a number of startup ventures.

Steve is also active in the angel investment and entrepreneur communities. He founded an angel group while in Utah and is currently on the Advisory Boards of the Washington DC ArchAngels and the Capital Region Chapter of Society of Physician Entrepreneurs. In recognition of his career commercialization accomplishments, Steve was elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2015. Steve has an A.B. in chemistry from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Harvard University.

Session Panelist: How the Circular Economy Improves Sustainability

Anica leads HOK’s global sustainable design practice, serving on the firm’s board of directors and design board.

Based in Washington, DC, Anica manages the successful development and implementation of sustainability strategies on local and worldwide projects, working with both public and private sectors clients on regional, campus, portfolio and building scale projects, including existing building stock.

Anica serves locally on the Green and Energy Codes TAG, is on the Mayor’s Green Building Advisory Council and co-chairs the Building Energy Performance Standard Task Force. Anica also serves on the national USGBC LEED Advisory Committee, IECC 2024 Code Development Committee and Consultative Council for the National Institute for Building Sciences. She is a Senior Fellow of the New Buildings Institute and a member of the AIA’s 2021 Board Government Advocacy Committee.

Anica previously served on the AIA Blue Ribbon Panel on Codes, coauthoring Disruption, Evolution, and Change: AIA’s Vision for the Future of Design and Construction. With the U.S. General Services Administration, she coauthored The New Sustainable Frontier: Principles of Sustainable Development.

Anica’s testimony before Congress and policy recommendations were included in the Majority Staff Report, Solving the Climate Crisis: The Congressional Action Plan for a Clean Energy Economy and a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America.

Session Moderator: Ten Ways a VC Fund Will Fail & Session Moderator: New Trends in Space Innovation and Funding

Dan Loague has an extensive background in venture capital and early stage investments. Over the past twenty-five years he has built, and now works with a national network of exceptionally active angels, professional investors, corporate, business development professionals, technology enterprise executives and government officials. He is currently President, Washington DC ArchAngels, and formerly the DC representative of Ventana Capital, Irvine CA, and Executive Director, National Association of Seed and Venture Funds.

In addition, he is Executive Director, Capital Formation Institute, Inc., a non-profit serving a national network of leading startup investors, licensees and commercialization professionals. In past positions, Mr. Loague has worked extensively as a state-level economic development professional, serving six consecutive governors of the state of Oklahoma. He is also a former university professor and instructor, and during 1963-67, served in the U.S. Air Force Systems Command as an Avionics Officer in RF-4C aircraft test program.

Session Panelist: How the Circular Economy Improves Sustainability

Eric Lundgren is an American social entrepreneur, innovator, and advocate best known for recycling electronic waste. He is the CEO of BigBattery, Inc. and Founder of IT Asset Partners (ITAP, Inc.), Both electronics reuse, and Hybrid Recycling companies. As a social entrepreneur, Lundgren's life purpose is to create sustainable energy and recycling solutions for the world.

Session Panelist: How the Circular Economy Improves Sustainability

Walker Lunn is an environmental, technology and hospitality entrepreneur. A 2003 graduate from Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration, Mr. Lunn launched commercial food waste composting operations servicing Washington DC, Philadelphia and Atlanta between 2003 and 2010. He has consulted to the World Bank and Conservation International, developed a real-time waste removal pricing and bidding platform that minimized trucking mileage associated with waste collection, and co-authored the first hotel-specific sustainability report for the Willard InterContinental.

Today, he is building a travel and experiences business, Certified Badass, that delivers free trips and experiences for a $10 monthly subscription, and working to open Bangin' - the first gun club in Washington DC. Mr. Lunn lives in Washington DC with his wife and two daughters.

Session Moderator: Public Governance of Sustainability: Smart Cities

Carola is the Executive Director of Smart City Works and Project Director for the Northern Virginia Smart Region Initiative. She a highly effective leader with a strong ability to translate vision and strategy into execution. She has cemented her experience in nonprofit management including establishing strategic partnerships, administration of staff and programs, financial systems, operations, and business development.
Carola has more than 18 years of experience managing development grants/contracts funded by multiple donors including US Government, corporations, foundations, foreign governments, and high net worth donors. She has extensive experience administering management programs that develop the capacity of civil society organizations in complex domestic and international environments.

Session Panelist: Workforce, Workplace, and Innovation Districts

Since 2007, Rob has played a leading role in the successful transformation of the National Landing area into a vibrant downtown community that is attracting residents, new businesses, and a wave of new investment by the private sector. His background in urban planning and economics combined with his passion for placemaking and collaboratively building communities for people, not just buildings, drives his perspective and vision. Rob’s work envisioning and championing a new pedestrian connection to Washington National Airport, the CC2DCA Intermodal Connector, helped propel a unique, differentiating idea into an important infrastructure investment included in the Commonwealth’s winning Amazon proposal. Additionally, Rob’s framing of the Greater Crystal City area as a downtown of scale and substance as the largest, walkable downtown in Virginia helped propel the BID’s efforts to extend its boundaries to Pentagon City and Potomac Yard.

Outside of National Landing, Rob has a track-record for active and engaged community involvement with a vision for community action that embraces creativity, efficiency, and partnership building in order to proactively make change, not just advocate for it. Rob has founded a downtown Civic Association in Norfolk, launched a farmers market in the Petworth neighborhood of DC, and served a term as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner where he championed new bicycle infrastructure and traffic calming measures, supported community organizations, and advocated for economic development efforts along Georgia Avenue. Rob is also currently serving as Assistant Cubmaster for Scouts BSA Pack 98 providing leadership and management that supports a team of volunteers providing programming to over 100 youth.

Rob earned a graduate degree in Urban and Regional Planning at Virginia Tech’s regional campus in Old Town Alexandria. Rob is also a graduate of Bowdoin College of Brunswick, Maine having earned a degree in Economics and Environmental Studies. Rob resides with his family in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Session Panelist: Public Governance of Sustainability: Smart Cities

Mina Marefat is principal of Design Research in Washington, focusing on design and innovation. Architect, architectural historian and urban designer, her cities projects included working with the Chief Architect of Historic Monuments in France, the Historic Preservation Office of Washington DC and the City Administrator of Newark, NJ. She served as Education Director at the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Geneva, as Senior Architectural Historian at the Smithsonian Institution, and as Research Associate at the National Gallery of Art. Mina has taught at MIT, Johns Hopkins, Catholic University, Georgetown University and Technical University in Vienna; lectures internationally and has published extensively. She curated the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition at the Guggenheim in NY and Bilbao and Eero Saarinen, A Reputation for Innovation. She received the MIT Great Dome Award, Fulbright Fellowship, Rockefeller Fellowship at the Library of Congress, NEH, SSRC and AAUW awards. She served as president of the MIT Club of DC and is a founding member of the MIT Architecture Alumni. She holds a Masters from Harvard University and a PhD from MIT.

Session Panelist: Healthcare & Wellness Technology: Evolution to Revolution & Session Panelist: The Future is Now: Exploring the Intersection of Human Touch & Tech in Aging

Marc McGrann, director of business development for Vayyar Care, is an experienced professional with an extensive background in PERS, IoT, M2M, SaaS, Channel Development, and IT Consultative Services.
He has a 10+ year track record in Business Development / B2B Sales, generating millions of dollars in new business and providing consultancy on the development of multiple products.

Marc has introduced a number of industry-changing products for fall detection and emergency response. His technology focus centers around developing simple, effective solutions that result in better outcomes with minimal change to user behavior.

Session Panelist: The Future of Wellness Real Estate

Since 1997, Janet Meyer has focused on creating thoughtfully designed environments for aging adults.
With a deep understanding of this demographic, she feels strongly that the key to longevity and mental
and physical well-being is creating an engaging and purposeful community. In 2009, this led her to BCT
Design Group where she and a fellow architect established the firm’s housing studio which she co-leads
today.

As a principal at BCT Design Group, Janet’s work is influenced by the trends in multifamily housing,
retail, hospitality, and office. Today she brings her knowledge of the full continuum of care, combined
with the experience of other BCT studios, to design state-of-the art communities for the elderly, that
engage younger generations and offer amenities often found in urban settings.

She frequently works together with BCT colleagues to evaluate how both senior housing and multifamily
housing can be integrated into existing, yet reimagined retail sites and urban infill areas. She has led
office-to-residential conversions, tackling the intricacies and challenges inherent in older buildings and
frequently leads large-scale planning efforts that include senior and market-rate housing, arts, entertainment, office and hospitality.

A passionate proponent of well-designed communities for older adults, Janet frequently speaks
nationally on the trends impacting the senior housing space. Janet is a registered architect and has
designed numerous communities throughout her career. She is a member of the American Institute of
Architects (AIA), American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA) and the National Investment Center for
Seniors Housing & Care (NIC).

Session Panelist: Innovation in The Game of Life and How We Play It

Ms. Mulheron spent fifteen plus years advising high-ranking politicians, including former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former First Lady Michelle Obama, and translating basic science into public policy. She has enjoyed leading major initiatives for the National Governors Association, the National Academies of Science and the American Cancer Society.

She holds a master’s in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University and degrees in Biochemistry and English from Virginia Tech.

After a series of high-profile death events and the death of her daughter, Ms. Mulheron founded Evermore to change policy, advance research and make the world a more livable place for bereaved families.

Session Panelist: Artificial Intelligence is Becoming Ubiquitous: Impacts & Issues

Joseph E. Mutschelknaus is a director in Sterne Kessler’s Electronics Practice Group where he prosecutes post-issuance proceedings and patent applications before the United States Patent & Trademark Off ice. He also assists with district court litigation and licensing issues.
Joe has extensive experience before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), challenging and defending already-issued patents. In particular, hehandles post-grant review, inter partes review, and covered business method review proceedings under the America Invents Act, representing both petitioners and patent owners. In addition, he has handled reexamination proceedings, winning several high-stakes appeals before the PTAB. To win these cases, Joe brings his ability to clearly explain the relevant technology in a way that is most favorable to his clients.

Also, Joe has prepared and prosecuted hundreds of patent applications. His approach to patent application drafting is technology-focused, working within ventors to identify specific metes-and-bounds of the subject matter sought to be patented. This approach draws from his experience litigating patentability before the PTAB, where ambiguity in a patent's scope is often held against the patentee.

During prosecution, Joe has particular expertise using new expedited procedures, such as the Patent Prosecution Highway and the USPTO’s Track I program. With these procedures, he has helped both small start-ups and large multinational companies build large, multifaceted patent portfolios quickly that can be licensed or enforced internationally. In developing a patent prosecution strategy, Joe believes in focusing efforts efficiently to maximize return on investment.
Joe regularly writes and publishes on cutting-edge patent law issues. For example, he published a scholarly note on the scope and applicability of implied patent licenses to open source software products (19 Fed. Cir. B.J. 409). Additionally, he is also a contributing author of Patent Office Litigation, Second Edition, published in 2017 by Thomson Reuters Westlaw. The book provides a fresh and comprehensive exploration of patent office litigation proceedings, including how the proceedings interact with other aspects of patent procurement and enforcement, while delivering practical analysis and advice. He is also an adjunct professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School.

Joe’s areas of technical expertise include object oriented software design, web technologies, data security, graphics, imagery, panoramic photography, 3Dprinting, geographic information systems, networks, and Internet engineering. Prior to joining Sterne Kessler, he worked in industry, providing software engineering and consulting services.

Joe received his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, with honors. He earned his B.S. in computer engineering from the University ofVirginia, with distinction.

Session Panelist: Company Analysis Workshop with Randall Reade

Ashwath Narayanan is the founder and CEO of Social Currant. He is a recent graduate of The George Washington University where he majored in journalism and political science. Previously, he was a project manager for Community Engagement Consulting and Director of Communications for March for Our Lives.

Session Panelist: Coping with Climate Change: Climate Change Technology

Krystal Noiseux is the Associate Director of The Climate Pathways Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Sloan School of Management, where she oversees engagement efforts in support of the project’s main goal: to use interactive simulations to advance the adoption of evidence-based climate policy through top decision-makers in the public and private sector.

Krystal holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from Juniata College and an M.S. in the Human Dimensions of Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida. Prior to MIT, she worked in environmental affairs for state government and in the Harvard University Office for Sustainability. Krystal is originally from Providence, RI and currently resides in Washington, DC.

Session Panelist: New Trends in Space Innovation and Funding

For over three decades, Mr. Olson has been a business systems engineer and analyst in the Communications, Aerospace, and Publishing sectors. In addition, he spent several years in the Financial Services sector (cash and fund management). He served on the original organizing committee for the ’Space Investment Summits’, an event that brought together interested investors and space entrepreneurs for knowledge sharing and professional networking. From 2006-2010, he was a regular contributor to the "Space Cynics" blog, fighting against the ignorance, obfuscation, and boosterism that often pervades the NewSpace sector.

Today he serves as Director of Business Development for Avealto, Ltd., an early-stage firm that will will soon provide High Altitude Platforms distributing internet and mobile services to under-served areas around the world. He is also Chair and Founder of the not-for-profit Center for Space Commerce and Finance, based in FL, manager of the NewSpace Business Plan Competition, and the Space Investment Summit series of events.

Leading with a strong interest in people and what it takes to age well, the impact of products and technology supports Ms. O’Neil’s expertise in the Aging Industry.

Alison was aging technology leader, Aging2.0’s Atlanta Ambassador for 3 years. Recognized speaker and author to several published articles of note, she works closely with and has been recognized by numerous institutions like Georgia Tech Research Institute and organizations including AARP, American Society on Aging and Geriatric Educators Association who focus on the growing longevity market.

Awarded by Atlanta Magazine for her unique Certification Mark, Alison is the Founder and President of Senior Select Seal a unique certification that identifies, tests and certifies packages and products for Easy Open and Ease of Use for Senior adults and Any One at Any Age with a disability that threatens independence.

She is Founder of the Beauty Becomes You™ Charitable 501(c)(3) Foundation whose mission to Prevent Failure to Thrive Syndrome is accomplished through serving the Aesthetic Health and Hygiene needs of senior adults. Among other esteemed recognitions, she was selected out of more than 6300 Charity Founders and is a L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth. She is a Point of Light honoree and recipient of the highly coveted, Presidential Service Award.

Focused on a well-rounded approach to Living Well Life Long, Ms. O’Neil led the podcast path by hosting Aging Beautifully Today on The Better You Project.com. introducing leaders devoted to health, wealth and Quality of Life~ lifelong.

Session Moderator: Innovation in The Game of Life and How We Play It & Session Moderator: Healthcare & Wellness Technology: Evolution to Revolution & Session Moderator: The Future of Wellness Real Estate & Session Moderator: The Future is Now: Exploring the Intersection of Human Touch & Tech in Aging

Award winning food journalist, speaker, author, nutrition communications consultant, cookbook author, television personality and registered dietitian nutritionist, Carolyn believes “The More You Know, The More You Can Eat!” Carolyn writes food, nutrition, travel and healthy lifestyle features for numerous publications. Her blog is www.TheHappyHealthyKitchen.com “good for people and the planet”.

Carolyn leads a project to update the Delta Air Lines’ special meals worldwide and is a member of the Delta Air Lines Culinary Council.

She is an adjunct professor of nutrition science and nutrition communication for Florida State University’s London Study Centre for Spring Semester 2022.

She is a contributor to NBC Atlanta & Company and can be seen as “The Lady of the Refrigerator” on Alton Brown’s Good Eats on Food Network.
Carolyn is the author of Southern Living’s best selling The Slim Down South Cookbook and co-author of The Dish on Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous winner a the World Food Media awards.

Carolyn led CNN’s coverage of food and nutrition for nearly 20 years. She’s earned three James Beard Foundation Awards and has been honored by the National Restaurant Association, the American Heart Association, the American Society for Nutrition and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics for her pioneering work in nutrition communications.

Her master’s degree in Nutrition is from Boston University and undergraduate degree in Foods and Nutrition is from Florida State University. Carolyn lives in Atlanta.

Session Panelist: Company Analysis Workshop with Randall Reade

Tim Peara, MBA, President brings to Bridge deep experience in business development and finance, building departments for large companies as well as developing projects and small technology companies, both in the USA and abroad. For 20 years Tim has developed technology start-ups (Greenfuel Technologies) and energy projects (Koch, GE) preceded by 14 years on Wall Street as an investment strategist (Prudential, Lehman). He earned a BA from Wesleyan University, Connecticut, an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Session Moderator: Fintech: The Impact of its Continued Growth

Drew is a risk management professional with a background in financial services, cybersecurity and foreign policy. He is currently Manager, Security Governance & Risk at Navy Federal Credit Union where he implements risk reporting and mitigation strategies designed to safeguard members. He previously worked as Government & Industry Relations Manager at U.S. Mortgage Insurers, where he collaborated on legislative and industry strategies to support record-setting levels of new originations and address the impacts of COVID-19 on homeowners throughout the nation. He is also a consultant for the Korea Risk Group, publishing analysis on U.S.-China and China-Korean Peninsula relations. He holds a BA from George Washington University and an MA and MBA from Georgetown University.

Session Panelist: Artificial Intelligence is Becoming Ubiquitous: Impacts & Issues

Pramod Raheja, is the CEO & Co-Founder of Airgility, Inc., a Washington DC based company bringing artificial intelligence and autonomy to professional applications. He is an entrepreneur of 25+ years and a longtime member and past president of the Entrepreneur's Organization of Washington DC, He is a graduate/mentor of the Founder's Institute, Mass Challenge US Air Force Labs and the Fedtech Accelerator Program. He is also a commercial pilot with 14000+ hours in 30+ aircraft types. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland and is a graduate of the Entrepreneurial Master's Program at MIT. Pramod thinks of himself as half geek and half sales guy and is passionate about how innovative, deep tech technologies, particularly Aerospace tech, can solve problems.

Session Moderator: Midday Keynote Panel - David S. Rose & Session Moderator: Red Flags that Keep investors Away & Session Moderator: Company Analysis Workshop with Randall Reade & Workshop Speaker: Be an “A” Leader by Discovering Your Natural Entrepreneurial Assets

Randall Reade is the co-founder of the Washington DC ArchAngels, an angel investment group that finds, vets, and presents early stage companies to hundreds of investors. Founded in 2011, The ArchAngels has presented over 800 companies from clean tech, biotech, medical devices, AI and blockchain, energy, apps, games, and even cookies. Mr. Reade has developed an extensive network of investors around the US, and taken companies to China and Poland for investment and access to markets in Asia and the EU.

Recently, Mr. Reade has become a popular speaker for webinars and podcasts on what investors are looking for when they hear a company pitch. He has also develop a Training Program for investors and entrepreneurs on how become an investor and an entrepreneur at dcarchangels.org.

Session Panelist: Innovation in The Game of Life and How We Play It & Session Panelist: Healthcare & Wellness Technology: Evolution to Revolution & Session Panelist: The Future is Now: Exploring the Intersection of Human Touch & Tech in Aging

Elena Remillard is a research scientist at the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Elena has 9 years of experience as a researcher in the areas of: design and technology for aging-in-place, technology acceptance among older adults, and aging with disability. She serves as both the project coordinator and an investigator for the TechSAge Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center– funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). TechSAge is an interdisciplinary center that conducts research, development, and training projects that are dedicated to understanding the needs of, and developing supportive technologies for, people aging with long-term disabilities. She has a Master of Science in Gerontology from the University of Southern California.

Session Panelist: New Trends in Space Innovation and Funding

Jonathan Root is a senior advisor and project manager for the Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) program within the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) at NASA Headquarters. He also manages the Supplier Research and Analysis program for the SMA Directorate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center where he is based. With over 30 years of NASA experience, Root has performed leadership, program / project management and policy roles in the fields of technology innovation and commercialization, supplier quality management and SCRM. His experience includes serving as deputy program manager for NASA’s Small Business Innovative Research/Small Business Technology Transfer programs (annual funding of $125 million for technology development), and as a program executive for technology transfer, commercialization and partnership programs at NASA Headquarters.

Among other honors, Root was awarded NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal, Silver Achievement Medal, and Robert H. Goddard Honor Award for Exceptional Mentoring. He began his NASA career as a Presidential Management Intern after earning master’s degrees in government administration and international relations at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. Root also received a master’s degree in national resource strategy from The Industrial College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. which he attended as a NASA fellow.

Ruwan Salgado is Principal of Strat8gy International, LLC, an international management consultancy, and was a Partner at Sino America Investment Partners, a venture seeking to assist Chinese companies with investing in the United States. He has expertise in business development, project management, operations, financial management and analysis, and strategic planning. As a management consultant in and outside of the U.S., Ruwan has worked with senior government officials and corporate executives in a wide range of industries including oil, mining, healthcare, finance/capital markets, education and agribusiness. He has served in general management, strategic planning, business development, operations and finance roles with both for-profit and non-profit organizations. Early in his career, he gained experience in venture capital at Calvert Ventures, which established the first socially responsible venture capital fund, helping to manage its portfolio companies and identify and assess new investment opportunities. More recently, Ruwan served as the Executive Director of World Links, an internationally award winning (e.g., from the World Economic Forum etc.) and innovative spin-off from The World Bank that focused on leveraging information and communications technology to improve global education. While at World Links, he spoke on educational technology at international conferences in Africa, Asia and the U.S.A. Ruwan served for over a decade as the President of the University of Chicago Booth School’s alumni club in the Washington, D.C. area and was co-founder and co-Chair of its Entrepreneurs’ Advisory Group, which provided monthly pro bono advise to Washington, DC area entrepreneurs. He serves on the White Flint Implementation Advisory Committee tasked to advise Montgomery County, Maryland’s Planning Board on the implementation of the County’s multi-billion dollar White Flint Sector Plan. Ruwan has an M.B.A. in Finance and Marketing from the University of Chicago and an M.Phil. in Economics from Oxford University. He received both a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Engineering from Swarthmore College.

Session Moderator: Workforce, Workplace, and Innovation Districts & Session Moderator: Sustainability and the New Geopolitics of Energy & Session Moderator: How the Circular Economy Improves Sustainability

Chuck Schilke is a real estate, corporate, environmental. and energy lawyer based in Washington DC. He is also a real estate developer, financier, strategist, and educator.

He has practiced law in firms mostly in the Washington DC area, but also on Wall Street and in Boston. He has also practiced in-house at Exxon Mobil, Marriott, and the American National Red Cross.’

In his real estate law practice, he seeks to reconcile the imperatives of sustainability, economic development, and the housing needs of citizens. Similarly, in his energy practice, particularly at Exxon Mobil, he has attempted to harmonize environmental concerns with society’s need for abundant energy.

In real estate development, Chuck has developed projects valued at up to $1 billion, such as rebuilding the Red Cross’s entire blood processing system nationwide.

In real estate finance, Chuck performed all of the real estate legal due diligence for the Exxon-Mobil merger, and collaborated on teams at the Cadwalader law firm on Wall Street to issue multi-hundred million dollar tranches of Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities every few days at the peak of the CMBS boom.

His major environmental projects include managing 100 Superfund sites while at Exxon Mobil, and remediating 20 of them.

As an educator, he has founded, led, and/or taught in real estate graduate and executive education programs at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, and George Washington University. He created the Georgetown program and grew it into the 2nd largest graduate real estate program in the US.

Prior to his legal and business career, Chuck was a doctoral student in International Relations at Harvard, where he focused on American Foreign Policy Institutions, East Asia, and Russia. At Cornell Law School, he majored in Business and Regulation Law and specialized in International Legal Studies. Chuck’s father is a Wharton alumnus.

Alan is the Summit Chair and President of the Wharton Club of Washington, DC. His dedication to the School and the Club resulted in his becoming a recipient of the Club’s Joseph Wharton Award and Wharton’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award. During his tenure, the Club has had 15 successful conferences, including the five Innovation Summits that have stimulated, connected and empowered a diverse group of innovators and entrepreneurs within and well beyond the Wharton alumni network.

An accomplished business attorney with the highest rating, “a v,” from Martindale-Hubbell, Alan’s career has been split between private practice (now in business and general practice) and public service. He received a Distinguished Service Award for his decade of service as a Senior Trial Attorney at the Federal Trade Commission after two years at the Justice Department. Alan earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School following his undergraduate work at the Wharton School.

Session Panelist: The Metaverse

Derrick Schwartz is a 16-year Microsoft employee who has worked across many verticals and industries helping customers transform their business with modern technologies. He works as a Technical Specialist in the Mixed Reality group, where he is helping customers bring Mixed Reality into their organizations. As the Metaverse becomes more of a topic for businesses, Derrick is passionate about helping them realize the promises of this new paradigm, while looking firmly at what is possible today and how to position themselves to move rapidly with the new emerging opportunities it brings.

Session Panelist: Fintech: The Impact of its Continued Growth

Eric has spent his career at the intersection of traditional financial services and fintech, serving as a successful operator, advisor, and investor.

As Operating Partner at Canapi, Eric is responsible for leading the Canapi Alliance and LP engagement to deliver strategic and financial value to our network of financial institution LPs and portfolio companies.

Prior to Canapi, Eric led the Strategy and Optimization practice for the Americas at Promontory Financial Group. In that capacity, he and the team advised fintechs and other non-banks with their business, regulatory, and risk strategies. During his 13 years at Promontory, he also designed and implemented the client coverage program for the Americas, focusing on sales and business development efforts for new and existing clients.

Earlier in his career, Eric was a founding employee and manager at IntraFi Network (formerly Promontory Interfinancial Network), a fintech specializing in innovative investment and cash-management products for the banking and brokerage industries.

Eric earned a B.S.B.A in finance from Georgetown University.

Session Panelist: Red Flags that Keep investors Away & Workshop Moderator: Be an “A” Leader by Discovering Your Natural Entrepreneurial Assets

Sharon Seivert is the leader of Core Coaching & Consulting, LLC an international partnership that helps leaders, businesses, and individuals increase their effectiveness and power by implementing The Balancing Act’s agile strategies.

Sharon has been an entrepreneur for almost the entirety of her working life. Prior to launching Core Coaching & Consulting (CCC), she served as the Founder and CEO of a Group Health Plan that established an industry record for earliest-ever break-even. Since that time, she has coached numerous startups and small businesses to their next level of success.

Sharon is a prolific author. Her foundational book, The Balancing Act, first outlined the 6-point holistic improvement system that Core Coaching & Consulting uses today for all its programs. Sharon’s other books include SOS: Switch Off Stress; Working from Your Core; Knowledge Leadership; Prospering: 6 Steps for Spiraling up to Great Wealth; 6 Steps to Leading Your Life & Work (from the Inside out); and most recently, The Superpower of Balanced Leadership in Unbalanced Times.

Sharon concurrently heads a non-profit organization, Core Learning Services, Inc, whose mission is to bring The Balancing Act framework to educational institutions and at-risk students around the world.

Session Panelist: Fintech: The Impact of its Continued Growth

Jon Sisk is the Regional President/Chief Banking Officer at Santa Cruz County Bank.

Session Panelist: The Metaverse

As the Head of Community at Spatial, Jake Steinerman is leading a community of artists, designers, and creators, as well as a vast network of partners, in building a metaverse for culture. He has worked in the space for nearly a decade, helping everyone from Fortune 500 enterprise & consumer brands, to individual creators, create engaging augmented & virtual reality experiences for their audiences. Now at Spatial, which is at the unique intersection of the metaverse and NFTs, is building the community of the next generation of the internet and global connectivity.

Session Panelist: Fintech: The Impact of its Continued Growth

Andrew Ting leads legal and compliance teams at financial services companies, technology companies, and venture capital funds. Andrew is currently General Counsel at West Creek, a fintech applying machine learning and big data analytics to point-of-sale finance. Andrew teaches Startup Law at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business and Business Planning at George Washington University Law School.

Session Panelist: Innovation in The Game of Life and How We Play It & Session Panelist: The Future is Now: Exploring the Intersection of Human Touch & Tech in Aging

A five-time company CEO, Jon Warner is a health and healthcare entrepreneurship expert who has founded and led three startups of his own. Following his 15 years in the corporate world Jon founded and grew a management consulting business - The Worldwide Center for Organizational Development - which had 30 people carrying out a range of strategy assignments for large companies mainly in the life sciences and general healthcare sector.

Jon has two major roles. As CEO of Silver Moonshots, Jon manages a “virtual accelerator” for entrepreneurs and startups focused on the 50+ population and its needs for health and healthcare (and digital health in particular) innovation and technology. As President of ORCHA in the US, Jon seeks to promote and distribute safe third-party digital health solutions to Health Providers, Payers, Pharma and Patients, at scale. Jon is a noted speaker at businesses and colleges across the world. He is also a prolific author, having published 40 books, all concerning business, management, leadership, innovation and technology. Jon has a PhD in Psychology (Neuroscience specialization).

Workshop Moderator: Optimizing Decision-making in a World of Uncertainty

Madelaine began her career with Certification in Medical Laboratory Technology from Penn’s Graduate Hospital.
As the daughter who lost a parent through one of the 120,000 work stress-related deaths per year, Madelaine left the lab bench early to address this problem head on.
She is a co-author in the Handbook of Stressful Transitions Across the Lifespan, bestselling author of “Getting to G.R.E.A.T. 5-Step Strategy for Work and Life,” a former mental health practice director, a corporate chief organizational development officer, and associate director of the Anatomical Gift Program at Harvard Medical School.
Madelaine has been featured on NBC, W4WRadio, Fox TV, Talk4TV, and presented for The American Bar Association, Harvard Law School, The International Association of Business Communicators, National Association of Realtors, DC Academy of General Dentistry, AARP, and the Bureau of National Affairs.