Speakers
Hear from inspiring panelists and speakers influencing the technology industry
Keynotes
Dr. Anousheh Ansari is a Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Prodea Systems a leading Internet of Things (IoT) technology firm. As she launched her new company, in 2006, she also blasted off for an 11-day space expedition and captured headlines around the world as the first female private space explorer, first astronaut of Iranian descent, the first Muslim woman, and the fourth private explorer to visit space. This was the accomplishment of a childhood dream for her.
As a successful serial entrepreneur and active proponent of world-changing technologies she along with her family sponsored the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million cash award ignited a new era in private space industries. Anousheh has published her memoire titled “My Dream of Stars” to use her life story to inspire young woman around the world.
Anousheh is a Vision Circle and Board member of the X Prize Foundation’s. She serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council and has received numerous honors, including the WEF Young Global Leader, Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and STEM Leadership Hall of Fame, to name a few.
Anousheh is a UNESCO Good Will Ambassador and serves on the board of Jabil (NYSE: JBL) and Peace First as well as several other not-for-profit organizations focused on STEM education and youth empowerment. She currently works to enable social entrepreneurs to bring about radical change globally, with organizations such as ASHOKA, which supports social entrepreneurship around the world.
Anousheh holds BS in electronics and computer engineering from George Mason University, MS in electrical engineering from George Washington University; honorary doctorate from George Mason University, Utah Valley University, and International Space University.
Dr. Homaira Akbari is President and CEO of AKnowledge Partners, LLC, a global strategy advisory firm providing services to leading private equity funds and large corporations in the sectors of Internet of Things, Cyber Security, Big Data and Analytics, and Supply Chain Visibility. A thought leader in the mobile, software and security sectors, she brings extensive operating experience and deep domain knowledge to a broad range of high-tech industries. She draws on her international track-record including nine years of professional experience in Paris, London, Beijing and Cape-Town.
Dr. Akbari serves on the Board of Directors of several Fortune 500 companies including Banco Santander S.A. (NYSE: SAN), Landstar System, Inc. (NASDAQ: LSTR), Gemalto N.V. (Euronext: GTO), and Veolia (Euronext: VIE).
Dr. Akbari has held senior management roles in Fortune 1000 companies including: Microsoft, Thales, SA, and Liberty Media subsidiary, Trueposition. Dr. Akbari has served as the President and CEO of SkyBitz, Inc., a leading provider of remote asset tracking and security solutions. Under her leadership, the company had record performance. She successfully sold SkyBitz to Telular Corporation (NASDAQ: WRLS).
Dr. Akbari holds a Ph.D. with honors in particle physics from Tufts University and an MBA with distinction from Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business. She is the author of numerous scientific and industry articles, two patent-pending inventions, and a frequent speaker at industry conferences. She is fluent in several languages including English, French, Farsi, and Spanish (conversational).
Dr. Akbari’s many accolades include being named by Washington Business Journal as among its list of “Women Who Mean Business.” Additionally, she was the recipient of several awards including: “SmartCEO Brava! Award”, the “Business Leader of the Year Award”, and the “NOVAEXEC Top 10 Business Women”. In 2012, she was awarded the Women in Technology “Global Impact Award.”
Throughout her life, Dr. Akbari has been active in and a contributor to many non-profit organizations. She currently serves as the Chair of Johns Hopkins University Physics and Astronomy Advisory Council. Together with her husband, they have established Akbari-Mack Postdoctoral Fellow Endowment in Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University
Allison Allen is VP of Diversity & Inclusion; Talent Management at Oath. In this role, she leads global efforts across Oath’s 50+ media and technology brands to build strong talent and organizational philosophies and culture. Allison also partners and works collaboratively across all levels of Oath’s brands to guide the company’s diversity and inclusion strategy, focusing on creating innovative approaches that result in an all-inclusive and diverse work environment. Her goal at Oath is to enhance the internal and external brand of the company from both the people and process perspective, as well as maintaining an exceptionally high bar for diverse talent.
Prior to Oath, Allison was Vice President, Talent & Organizational Development for AOL Inc., where she created a series of new learning programs, technical end products and organizational/project models.
Before AOL, she headed up the Global Organizational Development Practice at Bloomberg LP and was Vice President in Global Talent and Leadership at Deutsche Bank, where she worked with clients around a broad range of issues (e.g., strategy execution, leadership pipeline building, talent identification, change management and human capital systems).
Allison began her career at Johnson & Higgins (now part of Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc.) where she focused on designing and implementing courses on insurance brokerage systems. Earlier in her career, Allison was a Manager of Learning & Organizational Development with Cushman & Wakefield,Inc.
Allison completed her degree from New York University and is currently researching Masters programs focusing on Industrial Organizational Psychology & Human Resources Management.
Master of Ceremonies
Mandana Ansari is a digital marketer, brand strategist, lifestyle blogger, tech nerd and pop culture enthusiast who is passionate about harnessing the power of technology to make the world a more connected, smaller and better place. Mandana is the Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Rodan + Fields, the fastest growing skincare company in North America, which has boasted an average 93% year-over-year growth rate throughout her tenure there.
When she’s not busy disrupting the skincare world, she finds time to fuel her unbridled passion for creativity and social commerce through public speaking, social media and advising Silicon Valley start-ups on how to grow their influence.
Her work has been featured in publications such as Huffington Post, GQ Magazine, Vogue, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, POPSUGAR and many others. Most recently, Mandana lent her social media gusto and expertise to help pen the much-lauded book Read This If You Want to Become Instagram Famous.
Moderators
May is an Investor at the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm that provides seed capital and regulatory support to entrepreneurs shaping the future of cities. The Urban Innovation Fund invests in high growth startups in industries such as transportation, financial services, and the future of work. 73% of its portfolio companies have a woman or person of color on the founding team.
Previously, May served as a Director at Tumml, an urban ventures accelerator, where she managed the accelerator program and worked closely with the organization’s portfolio companies. During the last four years, Tumml incubated 38 startups, which created $190M in enterprise value and launched products and services for over 3.6M people.
May has a background in law and public policy. Before Tumml, she worked as a strategy consultant at a boutique venture firm in Sydney, as a corporate lawyer at an international law firm, and as Deputy CEO at the world’s largest volunteer consultancy. In addition, she has provided strategic advice to Australian governments and corporations on digital innovation and startup policy.
May earned her MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School and her economics and law degrees from the University of Sydney. She is also an Australian John Monash Scholar, a Gleitsman Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership, and an Australian American Young Leadership Dialogue delegate.
May’s writing on entrepreneurship has been featured in numerous press outlets, including TechCrunch, VentureBeat, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Philanthropy News Digest, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others.
Karim Emami is a transportation and logistics manager at Walmart eCommerce where he is responsible for operational and financial aspects of the direct-to-consumer and omini-channel businesses for the US market. In his previous role, he oversaw the reverse logistics program for all product categories with the objective of reducing returns while improving the customer experience.
Prior to Walmart, he managed strategic planning initiatives at Guess, Inc. where he was responsible for due diligence, competitive analysis, and roadmaps for international market expansion and pricing optimization.
Karim started his career as an engineer at Skanska (one of the largest construction companies in the world) and was involved in development of commercial projects within the public and private sectors.
Karim holds a B.S. in civil engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from the University of Southern California
Paria Rajai is a marketing and communications strategist who has worked with startups, Fortune 500 companies, and international nonprofits. Past clients include United Nations, Yahoo's Business and Human Rights Division and Hackbright Academy. She has been selected to be a member of TechWomen, a U.S. State Department initiative to help advance women in technology, for three years in a row and has traveled to South Africa, Kazakhstan and Jordan advocating for tech access for women.
Having worked in the private, public and nonprofit sectors, Radin started her career in finance and transitioned to technology and transportation to explore her passion for using data science to elevate stories, build economically and environmentally resilient cities, and empower civic spaces. Radin currently works as a consultant with Stantec Consulting and the GoMentum Station, one of ten federally approved Autonomous Vehicle testing sites. In this capacity, she advises on Smart City and Intelligent Transportation System solutions and policy to ensure that innovations in transportation are developed and deployed as a result of diverse, intersectional and inclusive conversations and P3 collaborations.
Radin is guided by the motto to connect, converse and build community. This motto stewarded the 501(c)3 that she founded, New Day International, a platform that connects Middle East and South Asian youth to resources in professional, volunteer, and educational and entrepreneurial development. Over the years, Radin has advised incredible female change-agents and founders in the nonprofit space and currently serves as a Board Advisor and Los Angeles City lead for Persian Women in Tech.
Shanna Nasiri received her B.A. in Business Marketing from the University of San Diego in 2011 and a Master of Science in Social Entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business, in 2016. Shanna is passionate about opportunities for technology to accelerate social welfare and create sustainable impact. She values bold ideas that disrupt the status quo, collaboration, and risk-taking.
Early in her career, Shanna gained experience in market research, corporate communications, and event planning while working at technology companies, Qualcomm and InvenSense. Shanna also serves as a Board Member for Wishbone.org and GreatNonProfits.org and a mentor for Fast Forward Accelerator. Aside from her work in philanthropy, Shanna is currently a Product Marketing Manager at an AI-technology start-up in San Francisco.
Speakers
Alison Sonderegger is an Engineering Manager at Oath, where she oversees engineering teams focused on Video and Display Advertising. She is the Global Lead of the Women’s Inclusion Network ERG, which champions female advancement at Oath and provides an open forum for employees to discuss the realities of women’s experiences in the workplace. Alison is an advocate for inclusion and diversity in hiring as well as managerial practice. She has spoken to a number of underrepresented groups about issues they may face in the tech industry.
Prior to Oath, Alison spent over 18 years working as a software engineer across various technology industries, including e-commerce site Nextag/WizeCommerce, mobile computing at Danger, Inc. (acquired by Microsoft and the precursor to Android), IP/trademark company NameProtect, not-for-profit health insurance company WEA Trust, and the early portals Excite and Snap.com. Alison holds a BS in Computer Science and a BA in Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Dorra Belhadj Ali is a Senior Software Engineer at DocuSign with over five years of experience, working in US, Europe, and North Africa. She is also the Founder & CEO of Imcovery, a social app and network for expats. She holds a M.S degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Bordeaux Polytechnic School of Engineering in France.
Jillian Scott helms the TechWomen program at the Institute of International Education, directing the U.S. State Department’s mentorship and exchange program for emerging women leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from 22 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia. She has led international, women-focused programming for a decade, managing a portfolio of ICT, mentorship, leadership, and education programs in more than 40 countries.
Passionate about supporting women to empower themselves through technology and create sustainable change in their communities, Jillian works to build and scale STEM programs with the aim of advancing development outcomes. Herself a science geek, Jillian completed her bachelor’s degree in biology and physiology at the University of Oregon and holds a master’s degree in public health from the George Washington University.
Parinaz Firozi currently works as an investor for the venture capital group of the private arm of the World Bank with later stage investments made in consumer technology, health-tech, ed-tech and clean energy. Parinaz is also a partner and co-founder of Ocean Avenue Realty Fund, a micro-fund focused on opportunistic real estate investments across Bay Area.
Previously, Parinaz was the CEO of Jumia Kenya, the largest e-commerce platform in Kenya that is a part of Jumia Group, Africa's first unicorn. She led a team of 250 people and helped scale the organization 29x in top line while reaching operating income breakeven.
Parinaz started her career in investment banking at JPMorgan in both Syndicated Leveraged Finance and Interest Rate Derivatives. She earned her MBA from the dual program at IESE and London Business School.
Shayna Modarresi is founder and managing partner of Lodestar Ventures, a seed stage fund focused on investing in dedicated entrepreneurs building technologies that create lifestyle efficiencies. She is also an Advisory Board Member at Correlation Ventures.
Previously, Shayna was a Partner at XG Ventures where she helped back nearly 40 early stage companies with 18 having been acquired by the likes of Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Box. Prior to XG, Shayna managed DLA Piper's Venture Group where she focused on making investment recommendations and enhancing the funding prospects of early and growth stage companies as well as actively managing portfolio companies. Prior to DLA, Shayna was with Probitas Partners and CMEA where she advised on and was responsible for raising more than $3B from institutional, venture, and strategic investors for ventures funds like Scale Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, BCE Ventures, and IDG Ventures. While at Probitas, Shayna also advised on the firms secondary activities.
Prior to joining Probitas Partners, Shayna spent approximately six years as an Investment Banker, advising numerous multinational and regional corporate clients on merger & acquisitions and private placement transactions. She started her career in Investment Banking at Lazard in New York. Shayna was named a Women of Influence in Venture Capital by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Shayna attended the University of California at Berkeley. She holds degrees in Molecular Cell Biology and Business.
Angela M Solomon is a social entrepreneur, communications consultant, and ex-diplomat.
Angela is CEO and co-founder of Jaleesa, an award-winning tech driven social impact business in Lebanon. Jaleesa connects families with a trusted babysitter, helping women of all socioeconomic backgrounds to access safe, dignified and professional work. Jaleesa’s mission is to build a business with a social impact that scales with commercial success.
During a ten-year diplomatic career, Angela advised the British government on foreign policy in Africa and the Middle East, and negotiated for the UK at the United Nations. She also served as
communications strategist with British Ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher, one of the most
influential digital diplomats in the region. Angela took a career break from the Diplomatic Service to explore how social entrepreneurship can build more prosperous societies. In 2014-2016 Angela co-founded two restaurants in Beirut, and established Angela M Solomon Communications, a consultancy that supports international organisations, governments, and the private sector to devise and deliver compelling communications. In July 2017 Angela was listed as one of Forbes Middle East’s ‘Next wave of female entrepreneurs’. Angela has been an abseiling instructor, French teacher, music journalist and photographer. She is half
Lebanese, half British, and speaks English, French and Arabic.
Duygu Oktem Clark is a VC at the European Investment Fund where she leads early stage tech startup investments, and the Founder of DO Consultancy LLC - a boutique consultancy company focused on corporate innovation. Prior to that; as an Intrapreneur, she founded and ran Turkey's first corporate-run startup accelerator from scratch where she led 22 early stage investments. Before that, she was a Founding R&D Manager at Turk Telekom where she oversaw more than 40 R&D projects with an overall budget of +$100M. She has mentored hundreds of startups in the last 5 years and continues to help startups by serving as a jury member and mentor at many startup programs including the Chobani Startup Program,Founder Institute,United Nations Clean Tech,Telefonica Wayra UK and Startup Bootcamp. She is a Computer Engineer with Master Degree in Technology Management.
Keshet Bachan is a passionate gender equality, inclusion and diversity expert currently serving as the Vice President of Partnerships and Policy at the US National Committee for UNWomen SF and the Bay Area. As a gender expert Keshet led influential campaigns and programs to advance equity and inclusion, and served as an adviser to diverse entities from the White House and the United Nations, to Bay-Area start-up companies like 'Gap Jumpers' who are working to reduce bias in recruitment.
Keshet spent many years as the manager of Plan International’s ‘State of the World’s Girls’ report, and led global girl-centered programming and policy efforts in the Middle-East, South-East Africa and Asia. She’s written extensively on gender issues, including policy reports, research studies and op-eds, and has developed influential change management training tools. Keshet holds an MSc in Gender from the London School of Economics (UK), and a BA in Government from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzelyia (Israel).
Rory is a consultant, advisor, and facilitator on sexual harassment, bias, and diversity & inclusion. She currently works with the diversity solutions firm ReadySet.
Rory regularly develops DEI organizational strategies and advises on their implementation. She reviews company handbooks and revamps policies which seek to promote inclusion and eliminate workplace harassment. She designs and facilitates workshops to operationalize policies into daily practices. Her sexual harassment work integrates behavioral science insights into more effective prevention and response. She tailors content to a wide-range of clients, from small startups to large tech firms in today's headlines.
Rory holds a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Her work on gender and inclusion has spanned workplace sexual harassment; sexual harassment and assault at Harvard and U.S. college campuses nationally; and sexual violence in Latin America.
As an Adrienne Hall Fellow at Harvard University, Rory developed an interactive training module on sexual harassment and assault and manual to guide facilitators. She submitted written comments on campus sexual assault policies and programs to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and to the U.S. Department of Education for rulemaking on the Violence Against Women Act. She published Op-Eds in the Boston Globe and Harvard Kennedy School Review, and was featured in the New York Times, Associated Press, NPR, and CBS This Morning. Her work on sexual harassment and assault was recognized with Harvard's Holly Taylor Sargent Award for Women's Advancement.
Meron is a Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition & University Programs, where she leads all of Oath’s Emerging Talent Acquisition efforts across the Americas and Programmatic initiatives globally. She oversees the end to end recruitment process as well as budget and compensation analysis. Prior to this, Meron lead Oath Talent Acquisition teams across EMEA and NAR who focused on cross-company full cycle talent acquisition initiatives, while ensuring corporate vision and goal alignment.
Meron joined Oath EMEA (Ireland) in 2009, on the Search Advertising team providing Account and Campaign Management support to EMEA Yahoo Sponsored Search advertisers. Prior to joining the Talent Acquisition team, Meron worked within various parts of the EMEA business where she oversaw fraud traffic control and fraud prevention as well as e-Payments fraud risk management of the EMEA Yahoo Search Advertising Platform.
Godmother of Silicon Beach, Expert Speaker with US State Department, 3x founder, and single mom of twin boys, Cam has worked with 4000+ Entrepreneurs and 700+ startups.
She is on a mission to humanize business and her vision is a global economy that thrives on WE, not ME.
Today, Cam is on to her third company, COACCEL: The Human Accelerator, a unique 3-month program, 1-1, that focuses on building powerful, mindful leaders. COACCEL: The Human Accelerator specializes in Female Founders, though are open to Humans. Learn more at COACCEL.com.
Previously, Cam cofounded the first co-working space in Los Angeles for technology startups and entrepreneurs in 2010, Coloft, which was infamously referred to as ground-zero for the LA tech ecosystem. During her four years there, Coloft had over 1400 alumni, including Uber LA, Instacart, Fullscreen and so many more.
While Cam works with men and women, she is specifically passionate about working with women because she believes that if women embrace their own deeply rooted power, they can collectively shift the energy in business and ultimately create a harmonious environment for all.
Loud, energetic and relentless. Emna Ghariani multitasks when multitasking. Raised in a Navy family, Emna always thinks on her feet. Ghariani has experienced life at its worst and its best always with a positive edge.
Her first business was a mini library at the age of 11, lending books and her first sales job was when she was 12 in France with her uncle. Wanting to learn all aspects of the business, she learned everything from marketing to code, passing by supply chain and finance. That led her to become a product manager, running teams all over the world but also helped her launch 18 startups as a global director with the Founder Institute. She has a dream to change the way people communicate and kill the world of assumptions. She is immensely passionate about communication and data. This is why she co-founded her company Veamly.
Minoo Ayat is a Talent Acquisition leader at Amazon Video Studios who has been on the hunt for tech talents in Silicon Valley over the last 20 years working for fortune 100 companies such as Sony, Yahoo! and Amazon. Minoo has been an advocate for diversity and women empowerment by coaching, mentoring and supporting women empowerment causes in the tech world. As a single mom responsible for raising her two children she understands the importance of work and life balance. Her philosophy is such that our society should consciously push for policies that encourages women excelling in their career while supporting their family and raising the children.
Sepideh (“Sepi”) Nasiri is an award winning serial Entrepreneur with 16 years of experience working in the Tech Industry, the Founder of Persian Women In Tech, the former Vice President at Women 2.0 and a life-time advocate for women, diversity and inclusion. Mrs. Nasiri started her career as a Co-founder and Managing Editor of a digital and print Los Angeles Magazine and later joined a number of successful startups in Silicon Valley.
In 2014, she was recognized by San Francisco Business Times/Journal “40under40” and Diversity Journal’s 2014 “Women Worth Watching”. Currently, Mrs. Nasiri advises early stage startups including at global initiatives such as WeMENA (a program by the World Bank) and mentors globally many female entrepreneurs and founders in technology serving as an advisor to initiatives such as TechWomen, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
Yasmine El Baggari, a native of Morocco and San Francisco based, is the founder and CEO of Voyaj, an online platform that connects people from around the globe for one-on-one meaningful exchanges to foster global understanding. Yasmine is committed to creating a safe environment where the exchange of ideas will result in mutual respect and our ability to embrace our differences, to empower each other to become citizens of the world committed to a healthy, peaceful planet.
For the past four years, Yasmine’s reach includes research at Harvard University, and the U.S. State Department as an Youth Moroccan Ambassador to the United States. She has spoken at international conferences, including the World Economic Forum, the Middle East Studies Association, and Obama's Global Entrepreneurship Summit. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, NPR, Forbes, and the Huffington Post. Yasmine has also received the Royal Air Maroc Award from the African Studies Association, Glamour Women of the Year Microsoft's Made Achieving Award, Hampshire College’s $60K Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, The Entrepreneurial Spirit Award, the Sander Thoenes Research Award, and two Ingenuity Awards. Recently, she was invited to the White House as one of the 100 Most Influential Travel Bloggers, and on Forbes 30 Under 30's list as one of of the most inspiring and promising entrepreneurs in Africa.
Deena Shakir is a partner at GV (formerly Google Ventures), where sheis responsible for managing partnerships for GV’s portfolio companies. She helps startups scale and grow by connecting them to the world’s largest companies.
Prior to joining GV, Deena spent five years at Google doing business development for early-stage products in health care, research and machine intelligence, and search. She also spearheaded social impact investments for Google.org.
Deena previously led public-private partnerships with Global 2000 companies as a presidential management fellow in the office of Secretary Clinton at the U.S. State Department. At the U.S. Agency for International Development, Deena was a partnerships advisor where she helped launch President Obama’s first Global Entrepreneurship Summit in 2010.
Deena co-founded her first company at 19, and is an angel investor and startup adviser. She serves as an advisor to the board of TechWadi (after serving as a Board Director for several years), and sits on the boards of the Harvard Alumni Association, the Project on Middle East Democracy, the Arab Film Festival, and the Asian University for Women. She is also a Board Advisor to Girls Who Code.
Deena holds a joint Bachelor of Arts in social studies and Near Eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard College and a master’s degree from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She delivered the 2008 Harvard Class Day speech, “From Baghdad to Boston: Dropping the Global H-Bomb.”
Founder of Femigrants Foundation - Diverse and Powerful Network of Female Immigrant Leaders.
Ika Aliyeva is originally from Azerbaijan. She graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a degree in Communications,New Media. She is a winner of 4 various international educational and leadership programs and an Alumni of Edmund S. Muskie Exchange Program.
Mrs. Aliyeva is a blogger, social media expert. Additionally, she also works as a Data Integrity Specialist at Instagram. As a Founder of Femigrants Foundation, Ika Aliyeva empowers, inspires and leads a group of 6k+ immigrant and diverse women living in the United States.
“No race, religion, language or ethnicity divide us. We are all the same, we are all unique! We can have different goals but we all have one mission – to change our life and prosper in a new community!” – Ika Aliyeva, The Founder of Femigrants
Pamela O'Leary is a diversity and inclusion expert. She has been an Adjunct Instructor at American University and Trinity Washington University, where she taught courses on women’s leadership, gender and politics, and nonprofit management. Pamela is the former Executive Director of the Public Leadership Education Network. She currently serves on the Advisory Council for Running Start and facilitates a Women in Management (WIM) group at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She serves as an Appointed Commissioner on the City of San Mateo Planning Commission. She was selected as a 2016 Impact Fellow at Singularity University. Pamela is the youngest elected member of the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee.
In 2013, she was invited to participate as an Expert at United Nations meetings in Geneva and New York for the UN System-Wide Action Plan (SWAP) for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. At the US House of Representatives, she proposed and led efforts to successfully pass a resolution condemning rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (H Res 1227, 110th).
Pamela has been featured in the The Los Angeles Times, National Journal, Washington Post, and ForbesWoman. She was profiled in Joanne Cleaver's book The Career Lattice as a case study of a high achieving millennial. Pamela has a M.A. in Applied Women's Studies from Claremont Graduate University, and a B.A. in Environmental Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Organizational Development & Change, focusing on women’s leadership and diversity management, at Fielding Graduate University.
Sharif El-Badawi currently serves as Partner at 500 Startups, the most active venture capital firm in the world. In his role, he manages 500 Startups' MENA fund, focusing on seed stage investments in the Middle East and North Africa. In addition, Sharif is the Chairman of the Board and Head Mentor at TechWadi, where he leads the TW100 mentors and helps bridge MENA startups with Silicon Valley. He also serves on several advisory boards for startups in the MENA region and Silicon Valley.
Previously, Sharif was the Partner Lead to VCs and Startups at Google where he worked with top tier VCs and their most promising startups on strategies that bring all of Google to their businesses. Joining from AdMob almost 7 prior, he led performance advertising strategy for Google's largest customers in North America covering Mobile, Search and Display ads. Before AdMob, Sharif was a technologist and serial entrepreneur having founded or co-founded several companies in the Consumer Internet and B2B space over twelve years. Sharif earned his MBA from UC Irvine Merage School of Business and his BS in Neuroscience from UCLA. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children.
Zanoon Nissar is the Founder of Women4Good, a network of women who have a passion for social impact. Zanoon has held various roles at Google and Microsoft in Corporate Social Responsibility, and scaled Google's Giving Week into a multi-million dollar giving initiative. She advises social impact startups and mentors women in Silicon Valley. Ms. Nissar is an Alumni of University Of Waterloo.