Chaula Gupta

Bio: As Managing Director of the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative at Teach For America, Chaula Gupta is creating an enabling platform to help alumni launch and grow their own social change ventures that target the systemic factors behind educational inequity. Prior to this role, Chaula worked for four years with Ashoka, where she supported the US Fellowship in screening social entrepreneurs, managed various projects in Ashoka India, launched and ran a new global staff recruitment program, and did due diligence on innovative ideas that employed technology for social change. Chaula has done research on small-arms disarmament at the Geneva-based UN Institute for Disarmament Research and co-authored a US government study on nuclear terrorism while working at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. She graduated from Mumbai University majoring in telecommunications engineering and has a graduate degree in international relations from Syracuse University. Chaula lives in New York City.

Heather Thompson Rivera

Bio: Heather is a Principal on Google’s New Business Development team, where she works closely with the product and engineering teams on strategic partnerships and licensing deals for YouTube, Google Docs, Google Web Fonts, and Google Offers. Since joining Google in 2007, she has held several positions within the company. Most recently, she ran Strategy and Operations for Google’s Creative Lab, an in-house advertising and branding group.

She has also had roles on Google Analytics and on Google Checkout. Prior to joining Google, Heather was an Analyst at JPMorgan. Heather serves on the board of the Caregiving Innovation Project, a nonprofit organization that provides the general public with information resources, education, and support to improve the holistic well-being of seniors, people with cognitive and physical impairments, and those who care for them. Heather holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a master’s degree in the humanities from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor’s degree with distinction in economics from the University of Virginia where she was an Echols Scholar.

Charlie O'Donnell

Bio: Charlie O\'Donnell has been an active member of the NYC venture capital and startup community for ten years in roles ranging from institutional fund investor to venture capitalist to entrepreneur--with a little product management in between. He has venture experience at two of the top venture capital firms in the country, Union Square Ventures and First Round Capital, and sourced First Round\'s Investment in GroupMe, which sold to Skype in 2011. The investments he sourced at First Round Capital also include Refinery29, chloe + isabel, Backupify, SinglePlatform, Salescrunch and Docracy. He also teaches entrepreneurship and the business of technology at Fordham University, his alma mater.

Sachin Jade

Bio: Sachin Jade is an entrepreneur and investor and has been a part of the start-up ecosystem for more than a decade. At Klifer Capital, he focuses on mentoring and investing in technology based start-ups in Healthcare, Education and Digital Media. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs build products and companies by leveraging his operational experience and business expertise. He earned a B.Tech in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Boston University and an MBA from The Wharton School.

Miranda Stamps

Bio: Miranda Stamps is Vice President of Product Development at Schoolnet, K-12 Technology at Pearson. In her role, she is responsible for the execution of all product development projects at Schoolnet. Miranda leads the teams responsible for project management, user experience and customer support for Schoolnet products. She has lead the team through rapid growth as the company grew from a start-up to a member of the Pearson family. Prior to joining Schoolnet, Miranda worked at Ernst & Young in the Global CIO group. At E&Y, she managed several large scale global technology infrastructure and software initiatives. She also worked on the 5 year global technology strategy and was also responsible for developing the project management methodology and training the global technology team on its use. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). Miranda graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Barnard College at Columbia University

Harold Levy

Bio: Harold Levy is managing director of Palm Ventures, a family office that makes early stage capital investments that have a positive and transformative impact on society. He leads the education practice. He is also on the board of Cambium Learning Group, a publicly-traded education company that focuses on at-risk and special student populations, board chair of FIRE Solutions, a leading compliance training company, and a director of AcrossWorld, a distance education company.

United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently appointed him to the Committee on Measures of Student Success. For almost three years (starting in 2000), Mr. Levy was New York schools chancellor. During his tenure, he started the much-emulated Teaching Fellows program for career changers and started a math initiative that resulted in the largest one-year gain in standardized test scores. He also started a number of small innovative schools, including New York’s first new specialized high schools in 35 years. In partnership with the United Federation of Teachers, he tripled the size of the Chancellor’s District, the highly successful program that rehabilitated failing schools without closing them. He led the system during the 9/11 attacks and in the aftermath found transitional space for displaced schools, secured counseling for students and staff, and returned affected schools to service.