Adjunct Professor at Stanford Engineering

Tom Kosnik

Tom Kosnik is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford Engineering, Department of MS&E (1990-present). He is also a Consulting Professor for National University of Singapore (NUS) College in Silicon Valley (NCSV) and the NUS iLEAD program (2002-present). His current Stanford courses include Global Entrepreneurial Marketing (GEM), Technology Entrepreneurship, and Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL) Program. He also teaches New Venture Creation for NUS. He taught Marketing at Harvard Business School from 1985-89, and launched HBS’s Entrepreneurial Marketing course in 1995-97. Tom Kosnik is a coauthor of Ramfelt, Kjellberg and Kosnik (2014) Gear Up: Test Your Business Model Potential and Plan your Path to Success, John Wiley and Sons. Gear Up helps executives and new product development teams in organizations large and small to launch innovations that create new markets or disrupt existing markets. Kosnik has worked with hundreds of startups on the Pacific Rim since 1981, helping them to raise money, attract talent, acquire customers, and enter new countries. He is Venture Partner, FoundersX Ventures. Early stage cross border investor focused on Silicon Valley; Singapore; Chengdu; Beijing; Shanghai; Chongqing; Hangzhou; Bangkok; Ho Chi Minh City; Jakarta.

Associate Professor of Computational Thinking

Daniel Spikol

Scientist, educator, and creative technologist investigating how people learn and play. Currently, I am Associate Professor of Computational Thinking at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Digital Education. From 2011-2021, I have worked for Malmö University in the Department of Computer Science and Media Technology. I previously worked for Linnæus University and Sweden’s Interactive Institute. My passion is to design and develop digital experiences to provoke people’s curiosity to explore the physical and digital world. My background combines design, digital art, and computer science to investigate how people learn and play. I have worked for different companies previous to academia, founded several companies, and actively integrated design, science, industry, and culture. My current research looks at understanding how people to collaborate to solve open-ended design tasks with physical computing to inspire learners for computational tinkering and thinking. In my free time, I like bicycle adventures on gravel, dirt, and road, snowboarding, and the practice of martial arts.

Entrepreneur and Educator

Robbie Nock

Robbie Nock is an entrepreneur and educator at the forefront of creative innovation. He builds programs, pathways and curriculum to inspire interdisciplinary teams and groundbreaking collaborations in the public and private sector. Through creative education and partnership development, Robbie connects designers, artists, engineers, scientists, researches and investors to launch and grow new ventures and social enterprises. With a background in photography, media production, technology and startups, Robbie works on behalf of a wide range of communities to generate opportunities for collaborations with partners spanning industries. Through all, he focuses on fostering teams that seek to develop sustainable products, services and systems that improve the human condition and positively impact the environment. Robbie believes that solutions to the most challenging problems can be found in unlikely places and is drawn to the edges and intersections of established fields to propel visionary entrepreneurs and teams beyond established boundaries and expectations. He received an MA in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh and MFA in Art and Technology from the California Institute of the Arts. Robbie is a practicing visual artist and lover of the outdoors. He surfs, skis and runs whenever possible.

Professor of Food, Design, Technology + Climate Change

Stefani Bardin

Stefani Bardin is an artist whose work is split between food + climate change projects and initiatives. Based in New York City she partners with scientists, chefs, architects, technologists and designers to investigate the influences of corporate culture and industrial food production on our food system and the environment. She is currently a member at the New Museum’s Cultural Incubator NEW INC where projects include collaborations with Smallhold on a modular unit for NEW INC as well as workshops and collaborations with the Matter House Restaurant Group on food and climate change. Her work has been featured in and commissioned by organizations including Wired Magazine, Scientific American, Art21, Forbes, Creative Time, The Bauhaus and The Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal.

As a professor of Food, Design, Technology + Climate Change in NYU’s Food Studies and Interactive Telecommunications Programs and Parsons Interactive Design department, she has worked with The James Beard Foundation, Rethink Food NYC and Brigaid on projects that developed scalable and actionable design outcomes to uncover and respond to ruptures in the food system. She is also the founder of the project No Free Lunch through NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge a web platform that focuses on mapping the context and content of climate change issues, beginning locally with New York stakeholders and organizations working to address climate and environment related impact on our food system.

She is also the CEO and founder of the company blixt! A fully hosted SaaS platform for securely redacting and selectively sharing documents to multiple recipients at the same time, because keeping your data safe is not just about walls, it’s about permissions. Comprised of a team of world class engineers and award winning designers they have built the next redaction platform for the modern workplace, a reverse mullet: party in the front, business in the back.

Co-founder of Make A Difference "MAD"

Fiona Hazell

Fiona is the co-founder of MAD, an organization that works with entrepreneurs from over 40 countries to catalyze leaps in social innovation. (MAD is an acronym for Make A Difference, and a nod to the fact that it is the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, actually do.)

Through MAD she has supported the growth of social entrepreneurs across Africa, Middle East, Asia and Europe; developing international incubators, accelerators and fellowship programs on behalf of development agencies, impact investors and NGOs around the globe.

Prior to adopting the MAD lifestyle, as a single woman under 30 she “business backpacked” through Africa (Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia) working with entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses that provide vital community services whilst also stimulating local economies.

An adventurer at heart, Fiona is happiest when she is exploring new countries and concepts. Forming deep connections and relationships with local leaders across the globe, she loves to identify patterns in the seemingly disconnected. e.g discussing the merits of; Universal Basic Income with the chief of a Masaai tribe in Kenya, rebuilding Gaza with rubble from demolished houses with a Gazan female engineer, environmentally friendly menstruation products with girls in a Malaysian rainforest, digital education with members of the Amazonian Kichwa tribe and the feasibility of sanitation innovations providing an income for community schools in Uganda. It’s working with these leaders from too-often overlooked markets that Fiona continues to learn and be inspired.

Keen to ensure that impactful projects are funded, she sits on Social Innovation review panels for the Swedish Development Agency (Sida) and the European Union. And in an effort to cultivate the next generation of conscientious leaders she is the social innovation advisor for ECIU – a collaboration between 12 European universities where learners, teachers and researchers cooperate with cities and businesses to solve real-life challenges – pioneering a degree that really makes a difference.

Strategic and execution-oriented professional

Greta Gerazimaite

Greta is a strategic and execution-oriented professional with experience across European, US and Indian markets. Greta started her career as a Future Leaders Associate at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) where she worked in product management, marketing and process set-up & optimization across Scandinavia and Baltics, and where she gained global recognition for her work in digitizing selling models. She learnt how to implement change and act as an owner with much fewer resources when she digitized sales and diversified strategy for her family business – a local property developer in Lithuania. Greta honed her strategic and analytical skills as a Consultant at Bain & Company and has a record in world-class education: she completed a summer program at Stanford University with a focus on Technology Entrepreneurship and has an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.

Advisor and investor in creatively driven start-ups

Bill Foulkes

Bill Foulkes is an advisor and investor in creatively driven start-ups, an entrepreneur, and currently a faculty member at the Rhode Island School of Design. The course he has created, Design and Entrepreneurial Thinking, introduces artists and designers to business concepts and enhances their abilities to bring their ideas to reality.

Through his work at RISD, Bill has helped artists and designers understand that their approaches and mindsets are uniquely suited for entrepreneurship and instrumental in fostering innovation, change and growth.

Bill has over twenty years of experience in strategic planning, people development, marketing and finance in both high tech and consumer companies where he has successfully identified, communicated and implemented new business concepts and initiatives, led organizational change, built strategic partner relationships and led creative processes.

Bill holds an A.B. in History from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Lecturer on Economic Development

Rodolfo Acosta-Pérez

Rodolfo Acosta-Pérez holds a Doctorate in Economic Development and an MBA from New Mexico State University (NMSU), and a Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico de Chihuahua. Rodolfo has worked for multinational companies, educational institutions, the Chihuahua State Government, economic development organizations, and non-profits.

Throughout his career, Rodolfo has provided technical assistance to small businesses while advancing economic development initiatives in economically depressed areas in southern New Mexico and in other parts of the country. Whether designed for youth or adults living in urban and rural areas, Rodolfo has delivered numerous business development workshops in English and Spanish to established and nascent entrepreneurs.

Rodolfo is an international speaker and has lectured on economic development, leadership, and business topics in Russia, Finland, Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Rodolfo is fluent in English and Spanish and has full working proficiency in French. He also completed introductory courses to Japanese and Italian.

He is the proud parent of a girl and a boy and he holds a Chess National Master title awarded by the Mexican Federation of Chess.

Manufacturing and Supply Chain

Brian Rashap

Intel Corporation (Retired)

Dr. Rashap is Internet of Things educator at Central New Mexico Community College where is focused on workforce development for advanced manufacturing, smart cities, and immersive entertainment. He recently retired from nearly a quarter of a century at Intel Corporation where he was the General Manager of Corporate Services for the Americas Region. Prior to Intel, Brian received his B.S.E., M.S.E. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan. He worked at the NASA Langley Research Center on control of large unmanned space structures, as well as autonomous space-based robotics. His expertise includes Structured Problem Solving, Lean Manufacturing, Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, Business Process Design, and creating Diverse and Inclusive work environments. Brian is an active Angel Investor, and serves, or has served, on the boards of numerous non-profit and for-profit organizations.

Fine Arts and Gallery Management

Sandy Zane

Owner, Zane Bennett Contemporary Art Gallery

Sandy Zane is the owner of the Zane Bennett Contemporary Art and form & concept galleries in Santa Fe, NM. Ms. Zane is an accomplished artist and has exhibited her prints and paintings in exhibitions in New York, Texas and New Mexico. She has served on the Foundation Boards of the New Mexico State University and Santa Fe Community College as well as on the boards of several non-profit arts organizations. She also serves as Chairman of the Board for Bravo Mic Communications, a network of five radio stations in Las Cruces, NM. Ms. Zane earned a BA in Arts Administration from Bard College, New York. She and her husband live in Santa Fe.

Finance

Steve Prickett

Founder, Prickett and Associates
Founder, Eldora Chocolate

Currently, Steve is the Founder of Eldora Chocolate, a Craft Bean to Bar retail fine chocolate business. In 2018, he retired from Prickett and Associates, a Merrill Lynch team headquartered in Albuquerque that provided financial advice and guidance to institutions and high net worth clients throughout the United States for 32 years.

Operations

Roman Ponos

CEO, Griffinworx

Roman is a skilled international development professional with more than 20 years of strategic business development and management experience. He has built and led multidisciplinary business development teams, managed large, complex multi-million dollar donor-funded proposals and projects, and supervised domestic headquarters and global project operations. Roman is currently the Vice President of Business Development at Blumont, and has held senior executive level and field project leadership positions with CARANA Corporation, IMPAQ International, GriffinWorx and Abt Associates. His diverse sectoral expertise incudes economic growth, food security, livelihoods development and entrepreneurship. He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, a mentor and angel investor to social enterprises at the Halcyon Incubator and has worked in and visited over 30 countries. Roman earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Affairs from The George Washington University. He is fluent in Ukrainian.

Fintech Entrepreneur

Adrienne Harris

Adrienne A. Harris is a Professor of the Practice at the University of Michigan, as well as a Gates Foundation Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Finance, Law and Policy at the University. Adrienne is a successful fintech entrepreneur and previously was a Special Assistant to President Obama for Economic Policy at the National Economic Council in the Obama White House, where her portfolio included financial reform, financial technology, cybersecurity, consumer protection, and housing finance reform.

Publishing

Lee Francis

CEO & Founder, Native Realities and Indigenous Pop Expo

Lee Francis IV (Laguna Pueblo) is an educator, activist, poet, and comic creator with over fifteen years of experience teaching and conducting workshops with minority populations, especially in and around Indigenous and Native American communities in North America. His primary focus has always been on positive youth development and student success. He is an award-winning poet and performer, being published in numerous journals and appearing on stages around the U.S. He is the CEO & Publisher at Native Realities Press.

Brand Development and Design

Bob Borden

CEO, Ideas and People

Bob is the Founder and CEO of Ideas And People. Borden’s incessant ingenuity and passion for entrepreneurship have fueled his nearly three decades of significant accomplishment as a design and marketing executive. Borden brings a meticulous eye for quality design and immense versatility to his work with international clients such as MoMA, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales, Nambé, Luigi Bormioli, Royal Selangor, and Elite Model Management. He is widely recognized for his cross-sector competence and his ability to analyze—and redefine—markets, businesses, and brands.

Philanthropy

Debbie Fleischaker

Fleischaker Women’s Legacy Fund

Often referred to as a visionary and a pioneer, Dr. Debbie Fleischaker’s most passionate pursuit is social and economic justice through socially conscious entrepreneurship. Her diverse education and experience constitute a depth of knowledge and breadth of experience in the nonprofit, for-profit and government sectors.

Tech Entrepreneur

Trevor Wolfe

A serial tech entrepreneur, Trevor sold BigTeam to Mailchimp in 2020 and now leads Mailchimp’s product development team. BigTeam was an award-winning feedback platform that made it silly simple to engage customers, users, and fans through feedback.

Environmental Planning and Design

Miriam Diddy

Miriam was born and raised in New Mexico and is a member of the Navajo Nation with additional family roots in the Hopi Tribe. In addition to her experience in architectural design, Miriam has traveled the region working on a range of commercial, institutional and tribal interior design projects.

Since joining Atkin Olshin Schade Architects, Miriam has worked on several comprehensive plans and assessment projects for the Kewa Pueblo Historic Building Inventory, Pueblo de Cochiti Plaza Revitalization Plan, Picuris Pueblo Master Plan and Zuni GIS Housing Needs Assessment. She recently managed two comprehensive housing assessment projects using a mobile survey app she developed for the Zuni Housing Authority and for the Pueblo of Laguna. Miriam is a graduate of the University of New Mexico and has a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Planning and Design.

Operations, Walt Disney Parks

Denise Love

Denise has 20+ years of technical project and leadership experience. She is a lean six sigma black belt. Denise built her career with Disney Parks and intel. She has won awards such as: New Mexico’s 40 under 40 nominee; Intel International Engineering and Science fair Honoree; IMPACT! Award finalist.