Dinner with World Changers Speaker Series
What do Shark Tank Winners, Forbes 30 Under 30s and White House Fellows have in common? They are our guests for dinner! Join us on Mondays in the fall to meet some incredible social innovators, entrepreneurs and changemakers who are finding solutions to the world’s most pressing problems! This is not just a regular presentation, these are conversations led by our students!! Eat, drink and be inspired!
Upcoming Dinners
Yscaira Jiminez
Founder, LaborX
February 26th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Yscaira Jimenez is a Dominican immigrant from the Bronx. Yscaira is inspired by the substance addiction and incarceration struggles of people in her life and feels compelled to use education and employment to break the cycle of poverty. She started a tutoring business in high school helping kids in her neighborhood who were struggling in school. She also founded La Pregunta Arts Cafe, an arts cafe in Harlem, and worked for 3 NY education startups (Rocket Learning, Learn-It Systems, Platform Learning) in business development, operation, and corporate trainer roles bringing tutoring to more than 10,000 low-income students across the U.S. She attended Columbia University and MIT and speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and conversational Italian. She is a 2014 Echoing Green, Carroll Wilson, and MIT Legatum Fellow, MassChallenge Finalist and Start-up Chile Accelerator.
Yscaira is the founder of LaborX, a job matching platform for entry level candidates with non-traditional educational backgrounds and underrepresented folks. Her skills and experience in creating, launching and running LaborX demonstrates that she is not only able to cultivate diverse community in the greater Bay Area but has already started utilizing her own knowledge and problem-solving skills to tackle this problem on her own. Her work with LaborX is a direct response to the lack of diversity in tech. She works with vocational training programs and bootcamps to create a diverse talent pipeline for companies. By cultivating these partnerships and pre-screening candidates for her talent platform, she is creating an ecosystem of diverse candidates. LaborX’s candidates are women, people of color, immigrants, single moms, veterans, members of the LGBTQQ community, and other groups that have been traditionally left out of the new economy. LaborX’s purpose is to connect low opportunity individuals to living wage jobs in the new economy, increasing pathways out of poverty.
Her vision is that all companies will hire people for great jobs based on skills, not pedigree. She sees a world where anyone who can do a job can get a job, regardless of whether they have a college degree. In the next 5 years, she wants to place 10,000 low opportunity individuals from alternative programs such as boot camps, vocational training programs, and community colleges in living wage jobs.
Keno Sadler
Breakthrough Collaborative and Echoing Green
March 5th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Keno Sadler is a social entrepreneur, conference speaker, facilitator, and educator. While leading programs designed to shape the lives of young African American men through close guidance from older males, Keno began his 22-year relationship with the Breakthrough Collaborative as a teacher in the Miami and Fort Worth programs before creating and leading the Atlanta program which graduated over 90% of its students into college and introduced hundreds of college students to careers in education. Breakthrough Collaborative works to increase academic opportunity for highly motivated, underserved students and get them into college ready to succeed; and inspire and develop the next generation of teachers and educational leaders.
Keno most recently served as the Executive Director of the Summerbridge Breakthrough Alumni Network (SBAN) and the creator of the SBAN Teacher of Color Preparatory Institute (TCPI) which connects aspiring teachers and administrators of color with schools that desire to be more diverse and inclusive. Keno has a degree in Mathematics from Morehouse College and has received many awards and certifications including a 1997 Echoing Green Fellowship.
Deo Niyizonkiza
Founder and CEO, Village Health Works
March 19th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Deogratias “Deo” Niyizonkiza, Village Health Works’ (VHW) visionary founder and CEO, is a leading advocate for the most impoverished people in the world. His compassion, expertise, and life experience have made him a key voice in global health and international development.
An American citizen, Deo was born in rural Burundi, where he attended grade school and part of medical school. He left the country during the catastrophic war that lasted more than a decade and took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Deo survived not only this man-made tragedy and poverty, but also homelessness in New York City.
Deo’s life journey is told in Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Kidder’s most recent work, Strength in What Remains, a New York Times best seller named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.
Despite the hurdles he faced in the U.S.—homelessness, illness, and low-paying work as a grocery store delivery boy— he eventually enrolled at Columbia University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and philosophy. After graduating from Columbia, he attended the Harvard School of Public Health, where he met Dr. Paul Farmer and began working at the medical nonprofit organization Partners In Health. He left Partners In Health to continue his medical education at Dartmouth Medical School.
In 2005, guided by his unwavering conviction that humanity’s progress should be measured by how we honor the dignity of others – including those a world away – Deo traveled back to Burundi. There, in the remote village of Kigutu, he established Village Health Works, with the goal of removing barriers to dignity and progress by creating a model healthcare system. Deo’s passion rallied the community of Kigutu into action. Thanks to community-donated land, a small amount of seed money from fellow American students and supporters, a community of compassionate volunteers, and Deo’s leadership, the health center opened in December 2007. Deo’s success in building a community-driven health and development organization is unprecedented, and makes Village Health Works unique among NGOs.
A frequent lecturer on global health, Deo is the recipient of multiple awards, including the 2014 Wheaton College Otis Social Justice Award, the 2014 Dalai Lama Unsung Hero of Compassion Award, the 2013 People to People International’s Eisenhower Medallion Award, a 2013 honorary degree from Williams College, the 2011 International Medal Award of St. John’s University, and the 2010 Women Refugee Commission’s Voices of Courage Award.
Christine Margiotta
Executive Director, Social Venture Partners
March 26th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Christine is the Executive Director of Social Venture Partners. Christine has dedicated her career to harnessing the collective power of Angelenos to create unprecedented large-scale social change.
Christine brings over 15 years of experience working on a wide range of issues including homelessness, education, racial and economic justice, and LGBTQ rights. She leverages a blend of collective impact, grantmaking, policy, and community engagement to ensure a more thriving and just Los Angeles.
Prior to joining SVP, Christine was the Vice President of Community Impact at United Way of Greater LA, where she led the strategic implementation of their mission to create pathways out of poverty. She designed, launched, and directed Home For Good, the region’s initiative to end homelessness. Home For Good cultivated the collaboration of over 200 cross-sector leaders and leveraged over $1 billion in resources to house 35,000+ of the most vulnerable Angelenos. Her team led the collaborative creation of the Coordinated Entry System (CES) in Los Angeles County, a groundbreaking system built by front-line staff that is now replicated across the country. Home For Good helped accomplish a 59% reduction in veteran homelessness during her tenure. Her work on the Home For Good Funders Collaborative received the Award for Public/Private Partnerships from HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and the Council on Foundations.
Christine is a graduate of Scripps College and received her MSW from UCLA in 2003. She lives in Culver City with her wife, Becky, and their two children, Huck and Vivian, and she serves on the Board of SVPLA Fast Pitch winner Swipe Out Hunger.
Laura D’Asarois and Rose Wang
Laura: Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer, Six Foods
April 2nd, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Laura D’Asarois the co-founder and chief operations officer of Six Foods, a company that works to normalize insect consumption as a sustainable source of protein. Laura’s journey in social entrepreneurship began at age fifteen, when she raised $14,000 through her lemonade stand to build a playground for her community. At nineteen, she co-founded Wema Inc., an education nonprofit in Kenya, and co-founded Six Foods at 23. Laura’s inspiration for Six Foods stemmed from the fact that she has been an off and on vegetarian her whole life, struggling with the moral and environmental aspects of eating meat. She first ate a caterpillar from a street vendor in Tanzania and realized that insects could be that sustainable protein she was looking for. Laura sent an article to her college roommate (now co-founder), and a few escaped crickets in her dorm room later, Six Foods was born. In addition, Laura has broken multiple world records, including the longest book domino chain and fastest time to crawl one mile. She is a 2013 Harvard college graduate.
Rose: Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Six Foods
Rose is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Six Foods, a company that works to normalize insect consumption as a sustainable source of protein. Rose has a background in strategy and marketing, having worked at Nutraclick and Microsoft. In college, Rose managed HSA Cleaners and The Harvard Shop through Harvard Student Agencies, managing an annual budget of $1.5M. She also has a passion for education and sits on the board of an education nonprofit, Wema Inc., in Kenya. She founded Six Foods at the age of 22 (after eating a scorpion in China). Business Insider named Six Foods as one of the top ten startups changing the future of food, and they have one of the most funded food Kickstarters to date. Rose is a graduate of Harvard College and plans to matriculate to Harvard Business School in 2018 as a part of the 2+2 program.
Rose and Laura many awards include the Echoing Green Fellowship, MassChallenge Gold Winner, Harvard Dean’s Challenge Grand Prize Winner, Harvard Asian American Alumni Elevate Pitch Grand Prize Winner, Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business Pitch Winner, Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneur (Honorable Mention), Forbes 30 Under 30 and won a deal from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank.
Damon Packwood
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Gameheads
April 9th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Damon Leon Packwood is co-founder and executive director of Gameheads, an organization that trains low-income and first-generation students ages 15–24 in video game design and development to prepare them for careers in the entertainment and tech industries. Damon has more than 18 years of experience in the youth development and education fields, with positions at Juma Ventures, Hack the Hood, and Upward Bound. A San Francisco native, he watched the city’s working-class community disappear with the rise of the Bay Area tech industry; his students couldn’t get jobs right out of college. His passion for film and media was ignited as a teen and an early love for movies inspired him to pursue a Film Studies degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and he’s nearly complete with his graduate degree in Multimedia Studies from Cal State, East Bay. During his master’s in multimedia tech, he spent a year in the San Francisco Mission District studying the effect of technology on low-income communities. Damon is an avid gamer, writer, filmmaker, educator and tech head and movie connoisseur. He is also a passionate advocate of for the use of multimedia and technology as entertainment and a tool for education.He believes that Gameheads’ students are our future tech zealots, digital rebels, and multimedia mavericks. Damon is an Echoing Green Fellow.
Michael Lwin
Co-Founder and Managing Director, Koe Koe Tech
April 16th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Michael Lwin is the co-founder and managing director of Koe Koe Tech, a health IT social enterprise based in Yangon, Myanmar. Koe Koe Tech trains local Myanmar people in computer science, sales, and marketing, and develops software for Myanmar’s data-deprived healthcare sector. Koe Koe Tech employs more women than men, and has Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and people of many ethnic groups on staff.
Koe Koe Tech has developed maymay, the first mHealth app for maternal and child health in Myanmar. maymay builds off of the MAMA content used in Bangladesh, South Africa, and India, and provides periodic messages to users with regard to their pregnancy and the care of their young child. Users will be able to locate nearby doctors and other healthcare professionals by specialty on Google Maps, and in the future will be able to place appointments. Users will also be able to conduct live-chat telemedicine sessions with doctors and other healthcare professionals, enabling isolated rural people to obtain healthcare information remotely.
Previously, he was a research fellow at Georgetown University and an antitrust lawyer at the Washington, D.C. office of Arnold & Porter LLP, working on antitrust M&A and litigation matters and pro bono immigration asylum cases. As a Myanmar-American, over time he grew more and more interested in Myanmar and when the parliamentary elections took place in Myanmar in 2010, Michael left Arnold & Porter shortly after to work as a C.V. Starr Lecturer at the Peking University School of Transnational Law in China. During this time, he also wrote for Al-Jazeera English and did research for the Economist Intelligence Unit. When U.S. sanctions for Myanmar were suspended in 2012, he came to Myanmar to form Koe Koe with his cousin, Dr. Yar Zar Minn Htoo, a Myanmar citizen, doctor, and computer scientist. Michael received his J.D. from NYU School of Law. Mike’s many awards include, Accelerate 2030 National Finalist for Myanmar, Global Entrepreneurship Summit Delegate, Global Social Benefit Incubator at SCU, IIX-N-Peace Challenge Winning Peacebuilder, 2015 DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge Asia, Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards, and he is an Echoing Green Global Fellow.
Past Dinners
Etosha Cave
Founder and Chief Science Officer, Opus 12
February 19th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Etosha Cave is chief science officer and co-founder of Opus 12, which is a startup recycling CO2 into higher-value products. Her team has developed a device that recycles CO₂ into cost-competitive chemicals and fuels. Their technology bolts onto any source of CO₂ emissions, and with only water and electricity as inputs, transforms that CO₂ into some of the world’s most critical chemical products. They can reduce the carbon footprint of the world’s heaviest emitters, while creating a new revenue stream from what is discarded today as a waste product. She received her PhD from Stanford University, where she gained the foundational knowledge for this technology. Etosha was a speaker at TedXStanford and the winner of the 2015 Cool Companies Competition at the Fortune Brainstorm E Conference. Etosha worked in Antarctica at the McMurdo Research Station. Etosha graduated from Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in its first graduating class.
Etosha is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Finalist, Echoing Green Fellow, on of Rolling Stone’s 25 People Shaping the Future, one of the Hot 20 Perennial Bay Innovators by 7×7, and one of Smithsonian’s Eight Innovators to Watch. Opus 12 is the recipient of the Roddenberry Foundation Grand Prize and Forbes Change the World Winner.
Kabira Stokes
Chief Executive Officer, Homeboy Recycling
February 12th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Kabira Stokes is the CEO of Homeboy Recycling, and founder of its predecessor Isidore Electronics Recycling. Homeboy Recycling is a woman-led, award-winning, social enterprise that provides on-the-job training and employment for men and women who face barriers to employment. In particular, Homeboy Recycling provides job opportunities to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women. Kabira holds a Master’s degree in public policy from the University of Southern California with a focus on criminal justice reform and environmental governance. She has consulted for the non-profit Green For All and worked for the City of L.A. as Senior Field Deputy for (then) City Council President Eric Garcetti. She is a graduate of Vassar College with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Spanish. Honors and awards include: CSQ’s “Innovation and Technology NextGen 10” (2016), inaugural “Smart on Crime” award by CA Attorney General Kamala Harris (2015), “Women For A New Los Angeles” honoree by the L.A. Alliance for a New Economy (2015), and “50 Under 40 Social Entrepreneur” by the AMEX Foundation (2014).
Elizabeth Scharpf
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE)
February 5th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Elizabeth is currently Founder and CEO (or Chief Instigating Officer as she likes to say) of Sustainable Health Enterprises (or SHE), a social venture shaking up the status quo in the international development industry by using business solutions (rather than the charity/donation-only approach) to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems. SHE’s first initiative is SHE28 which addresses girls’ and women’s lack of access to affordable menstrual pads in Africa, Asia, and South America causing them to miss school and/or work. SHE is currently helping women roll out a franchise model in Rwanda manufacturing and distributing affordable, eco-friendly menstrual pads by sourcing local, inexpensive raw materials (e.g., banana fibers) and leveraging existing female networks. Her work has won the Harvard Business School Social Entrepreneurship Fellow, Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Award, Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards, Rising Star in Public Health, Curry Stone Design Prize Winner, and was a 2015 the Tech Awards Finalist. Prior to SHE, Elizabeth spent two years researching the Austrian healthcare system on a Fulbright scholarship, worked for three years in global pharmaceuticals and biotech, and then went to Harvard to pursue a dual graduate degree at both the business school and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. In her free time, Scharpf interned for the World Bank in Mozambique. Most recently, Pulitzer Prize winner Nick Kristof featured Scharpf in his last book, following recognition from Harvard Business School, Echoing Green, MIT, the Clinton Global Initiative, UNESCO, and Stanford Social Ventures, among others. She is a Director on Harvard’s Women’s Leadership Board & the OpEd Project. Elizabeth has an MBA and MPA-International Development from Harvard and a BA from the University of Notre Dame. Despite all the academic acronyms, she thinks her best education has come from talking with those sitting next to her on buses around the world.
Rey Faustino
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, One Degree
November 6th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Rey Faustino, founder and CEO of One Degree, is an entrepreneur, innovator and fervent advocate for educational equity. Rey launched One Degree to ensure that all families have access to services they need to overcome poverty. Rey began his career as a teacher in Japan and later was the site director at BUILD, a college access nonprofit organization that propels low-income minority youth to attain a college education. Rey received his B.S. in Business Entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California and earned his Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is an alumnus of Y Combinator, an Echoing Green Fellow, and an Education Pioneers Fellow. Rey was nominated for the inaugural Visionary of the Year Award by the San Francisco Chronicle. In his spare time, Rey practices yoga, plays with gadgets, and builds furniture from scratch.
Kathleen Kelly Janus
Lecturer, Stanford University
Author, Social Startup Success
Co-Founder, Spark
November 13th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Kathleen Kelly Janus is an award-winning social entrepreneur, author, and lecturer at Stanford University. As an expert on philanthropy, millennial engagement and scaling early stage organizations, her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Tech Crunch and the San Francisco Chronicle. Based in the heart of the Silicon Valley, she is currently writing a book about best practices for early stage nonprofit organizations based on a four-year research project surveying and interviewing hundreds of social innovators.
An attorney, Kathleen has spearheaded numerous social justice initiatives. Kathleen is a co-founder of Spark, a nonprofit focused on building a community of young, global citizens promoting gender equality. Since its founding in 2004, Spark has engaged more than 10,000 young professionals nationwide and raised more than $1.5 million to support grassroots women’s organizations. In 2007, Kathleen was named Young Nonprofit Professionals’ Board Leader of the Year for her work with Spark. She currently sits on Spark’s Board of Advisors.
From 2007 to 2011, Kathleen helped launch and direct Stanford Law School’s international human rights clinics in Namibia and South Africa, supervising Stanford students on fieldwork projects related to HIV/AIDS, water rights and rural women’s issues. Kathleen lectures widely human rights and has taught courses at Stanford Law School, Berkeley Law School, Santa Clara Law School and the University of San Francisco Masters of Arts International Studies Program.
Info about Kathleen
Chris Ategeka
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Health Access Corps (Rides for Lives)
November 20th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Chris Ategeka, founder and CEO of Rides for Lives, is an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur at heart. Chris, the eldest of five siblings, was orphaned after losing both parents to HIV/AIDS. He became the head of the household and caretaker to his siblings at the age of seven, an experience he credits for his leadership abilities. Motivated by his experiences growing up in rural Uganda, Chris started Rides for Lives (formerly CA Bikes) to connect individuals and communities in rural Uganda to critical health and education services by means of locally made transport vehicles such as wheelchairs, bicycles, and bicycle-ambulances. Chris has been awarded several awards for his work at Rides for Lives, including the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) award, a Chevron award, and the Judith Lee Stronach award. He spoke at TEDxSacramento in 2012 and delivered the commencement student address at UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering graduation ceremonies in 2011. Chris holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently taking time off from pursuing his Ph.D at the same institution to concentrate full time on Rides for Lives.
Daquan Oliver
Founder, WeThrive
September 25th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Daquan J. Oliver is the founder and executive director of WeThrive (formerly Recesspreneurs), a nonprofit that works alongside undergraduate students to close the opportunity gap through after-school entrepreneurship programs. Growing up
in a single-mother, low-income household, Daquan made a promise at age fourteen to assist future children in a similar socioeconomic position to become successful, leading him to found WeThrive at age twenty-one. Prior to WeThrive, he founded Jossle, a youth marketing company which worked with large brands like Zipcar, Uber, and KarmaLoop, and amassed a nationwide student network of more than 100,000 students. Daquan selected as an Echoing Green Fellow, featured on the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 List, has been featured in Boston Business Journal, The Boston Globe, Boston’s 25 Under 25, named “One of Five Top Black Student Leaders to Watch in 2014” by the Clinton Foundation, delivered a TEDx Talk on actionable strategies to overcome structural violence, and received recognition for his work by Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Daquan earned his BS in Business Management from Babson College, the number one school for entrepreneurship. Learn more about WeThrive
Nanxi Liu
CEO and Co-Founder, Enplug, Inc.
Co-Founder and Board Member, Nanoly Bioscience
October 2nd, 6:30pm Kravis Center
Nanxi graduated from UC Berkeley in 2012 with a BS in Business Administration and a BA in Political Economy. While still in college she co-founded Nanoly Bioscience, a biotech company developing polymers that enable vaccines to survive without refrigeration. Their work won Airbus’s 2015 Materials and Manufacturing Award. Nanoly also received funding from Intel, Applied Materials, Duke University, UC Berkeley, and NASA. She is currently the CEO and Cofounder of Enplug, a rapidly growing tech company that’s built the leading open software for managing and distributing content on displays. Enplug’s software is used by businesses to show interactive social media feeds, videos, dashboards, games, and more on any size display. Previously, she served in an investment banking role at Goldman Sachs, a derivatives trading role at Citigroup, and an engineering role at Cisco Systems. Nanxi serves as a Member of Advisory Board of Covington Capital Management and is on the Advisory Board of Infobitt and on the Youth Advisory Board of Lady Gaga’s Foundation. She was named Intel’s Top Social Innovation of 2012 and the “Top Performer” at Colorado State’s Music Festival. Ms. Liu received a Mobilize.org National Leadership Award and was named one of Forbes’ top 30 under 30 in 2016. Nanxi also spends her time producing a multiple Emmy away winning digital drama series, composing music for R&B groups and snowboarding.
Latonya Slack
Leadership Coach and Strategist, Slack Global Consulting
October 9th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Latonya Slack is principal and founder of Slack Global Consulting, which specializes in facilitating, visioning and assisting individuals and organizations with planning and navigating critical decisions. For seven years, she served as Senior Program Officer for California Democracy supporting civic engagement, community organizing, voter engagement and capacity building for the James Irvine Foundation. While at the foundation, she served as secretary, vice chair and chair of Southern California Grantmakers board of directors. Prior to working in philanthropy, she was Executive Director of the California Black Women’s Health Project, where she created a comprehensive policy advocacy program, a mental health initiative and the Advocate Training Program, which trains lay community members as health policy advocates. She has also worked for the Service Employees International Union as a community political organizer, engaging community, religious, labor and health organizations on health care justice issues. After graduating from UCLA School of Law, she worked with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles as a Consumer Law Advocate and, through AmeriCorps Legal Corps, on the Youth Empowerment Project, helping community groups in South Los Angeles create nonprofit organizations. Latonya is a graduate of Brown University with a concentration in Biomedical Ethics. She is a 2006 German Marshall Fund American Marshall Memorial Fellow and is currently a board member of California NonProfits Insurance Services. She was formerly on the board of the California Association of Non Profits and the Liberty Hill Foundation from 2012-2017. In 2006, Mayor Antonio Villaraigoso appointed her to serve as a Los Angeles City Commissioner for El Pueblo Historical Monument also known as Olvera Street.
Emily E. Arnold-Fernández
Founder and Executive Director, Asylum Access
October 23rd, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Emily Arnold-Fernández, the founder and executive director of Asylum Access. Asylum Access is an innovative international nonprofit dedicated to making refugee rights a reality. Asylum Access empowers refugees in Africa, Asia and Latin America to live safely, work, send children to school and rebuild their lives. As a social entrepreneur, human rights pioneer, and lawyer she has advocated for the rights of women, children, and other vulnerable individuals, both domestically and internationally.
Emily first became involved in refugee rights in 2002, when she represented refugees in United Nations proceedings in Cairo, Egypt. After working with a young Liberian refugee at risk in Cairo, Emily founded Asylum Access to advocate on behalf of refugees seeking to assert their rights. For her innovative approach to the global refugee crisis, Emily was honored by the Dalai Lama as one of 50 “Unsung Heroes of Compassion” from around the world (2009) and Waldzell Institute’s Architects of the Future Award (2012). She has also been recognized as Pomona College’s Inspirational Young Alumna (2006), awarded the prestigious Echoing Green fellowship (2007), and recognized as the New Leaders Council’s 40 Under 40 (2010), among others.
Emily’s groundbreaking work with Asylum Access has earned her international speaking invitations and widespread media attention, including the Rotary International Peace Symposium (2008, 2009), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ Annual Consultations (2008, 2009), a cover feature in the Christian Science Monitor (September 2009), and the San Francisco Examiner’s Credo column (July 2011).
Talk with the Two Founders of Six Foods
October 30th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Laura D’Asaro:
Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer, Six Foods
Laura D’Asaro:
Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer, Six Foods
Laura D’Asaro is the co-founder and chief operations officer of Six Foods, a company that works to normalize insect consumption as a sustainable source of protein. Laura’s journey in social entrepreneurship began at age fifteen, when she raised $14,000 through her lemonade stand to build a playground for her community. At nineteen, she co-founded Wema Inc., an education nonprofit in Kenya, and co-founded Six Foods at 23. Laura’s inspiration for Six Foods stemmed from the fact that she has been an off and on vegetarian her whole life, struggling with the moral and environmental aspects of eating meat. She first ate a caterpillar from a street vendor in Tanzania and realized that insects could be that sustainable protein she was looking for. Laura sent an article to her college roommate (now co-
founder), and a few escaped crickets in her dorm room later, Six Foods was born. In addition, Laura has broken multiple world records, including the longest book domino chain and
fastest time to crawl one mile. She is a 2013 Harvard college graduate.
Rose Wang
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Six Foods
October 30th, 6:30pm Kravis 321
Rose is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Six Foods, a company that works to normalize insect consumption as a sustainable source of protein. Rose has a background in strategy and marketing, having worked at Nutraclick and Microsoft. In college, Rose managed HSA Cleaners and The Harvard Shop through Harvard Student Agencies, managing an annual budget of $1.5M. She also has a passion for education and sits on the board of an education nonprofit, Wema Inc., in Kenya. She founded Six Foods at the age of 22 (after eating a scorpion in China). Business Insider named Six Foods as one of the top ten startups changing the future of food, and they have one of the most funded food Kickstarters to date. Rose is a graduate of Harvard College and plans to matriculate to Harvard Business School in 2018 as a part of the 2+2 program.