Presented at
The Eleventh HOPE (2016),
July 24, 2016, 5 p.m.
(60 minutes)
It's rare that you see an engineer as CEO, but occasionally taking a technical idea to its logical conclusion requires the person who knows what's going on inside the black box to take the reigns. Someone who knew everything they needed to know to start the project technologically is suddenly confronted with human problems and legal issues and paths forward that might require new types of specialized knowledge and very different gut decisions. This extended panel discussion will address both the blue sky possibilities of a company led by tech, as well as the plethora of challenges thrown at anyone who finds it necessary to not let someone else run their business.
Presenters:
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Limor Fried / Ladyada
as Limor Fried
Limor "Ladyada" Fried is founder and engineer of New York based Adafruit Industries. Limor started Adafruit in 2005 while at MIT studying engineering. Her goal was to create the best place online for learning electronics for makers of all ages and skill levels. Adafruit has grown to over 100 employees in the heart of New York City with a 50,000 plus square foot factory. Limor was the first female engineer on the cover of Wired Magazine and was awarded Entrepreneur Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year. Ladyada was on the New York City Industrial Business Advisory Council and Adafruit was ranked Number 11 in the top 20 USA manufacturing companies and number one in New York City by Inc. Magazine's 5000 fastest growing private companies.
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Phil Torrone
Phillip Torrone is partner at Adafruit, helping to manage the day-to-day challenges of running a factory in New York City. He was previously senior editor at Make Magazine, producing the Make blog, creating the Make video series, and working on the Maker Shed online store and Maker Faire. He was also senior editor at Popular Science, how-to editor at Engadget, and founder of Hackaday.com.
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Ben Dubin-Thaler
Ben Dubin-Thaler created the BioBus in 2007 to test his hypothesis that if people felt the excitement of scientific discovery, they would become more excited about doing science and becoming a scientist. This hypothesis has since been validated with 165,000 students from 500 schools boarding the BioBus and exhibiting dramatic positive changes in attitudes towards science and science careers. "Dr. Ben's" philosophy of providing hands-on, inquiry-based research lab experiences guides him as executive director of the nonprofit Cell Motion Laboratories, whose continuing mission is to create a future in which all people know the joy of scientific discovery through the construction of laboratory environments in which scientists join students for hands-on explorations of the natural world. Ben and his team recently created the BioBus Base, or "BioBase", a new community laboratory in Manhattan that is empowering, accessible, unintimidating, and facilitates in-depth scientific engagement even amongst populations historically underrepresented in science professions. He created the BioBus after completing his BA in physics and mathematics, as well as his PhD in biology from Columbia University. The author of numerous high-profile research articles and book chapters in cell biology and biophysics, Dr. Ben has lectured at the American Society for Cell Biology, the National Institutes of Health, Rockefeller University, New York University, the University of Illinois, PopTech, TEDxWoodsHole, and the Materials Research Society, receiving numerous awards and accolades for excellence in research and teaching.
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Charles Beckwith
Charles Beckwith is a freelance executive and consultant, using his unique horizontal experience in fashion, media, and technology to help fashion and fashion-tech brands solve problems and build future-ready solutions. He is concurrently chief exploration officer at Open Source Fashion, and CEO of the Fashion Media Center think tank and marketing lab, where he is producer and co-host of the fashion industry's favorite show, American Fashion Podcast. A veteran media producer and artist with experience across radio, television, filmmaking, publishing, photography, theater, technology development, fiction writing, and live events management, he paints in his spare time.
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Sean Auriti
Sean Auriti has skills in web development, engineering, and technical leadership. He graduated from NYIT with a BS in electronic engineering technology and has since worked as a CTO and lead developer at several web development and technology firms in New York City. He has won over 11 hackathons, including NYC BigApps and the BSR sustainability app. Sean has also founded, managed, and built infrastructure for the Alpha One Labs hackerspace, at which he has built prototypes for an LCD hat, laser scrolling sign, electronic game, 3D POV holographic display, robotic chef, smart recycle bin, and robotic food exchange. He was on the front page of The New York Times for a space group he was a part of that received DARPA funding.
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Mitch Altman
Mitch Altman is a San Francisco-based hacker and inventor, best known for inventing TV-B-Gone remote controls, a keychain that turns off TVs in public places. He was also cofounder of 3ware, a successful Silicon Valley startup in the late 1990s, and did pioneering work in virtual reality in the mid-1980s. He has contributed to Make Magazine and other magazines, and wrote a chapter for Maker Pro, a book about making a living from projects one loves. For the last several years, Mitch has been giving talks and leading workshops around the world, teaching people to make cool things with microcontrollers, and teaching everyone to solder. He promotes hackerspaces and open-source hardware, and mentors others wherever he goes. He is a cofounder of the Noisebridge hackerspace in San Francisco, and is president and CEO of Cornfield Electronics.
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