Megan Smith

CEO and Founder shift7 and Former U.S. Chief Technology Officer

Award-winning entrepreneur, engineer, and tech evangelist, Megan Smith is CEO and founder of shift7, a company working collaboratively on systemic social, environmental and economic problems -- finding opportunities to scout and scale promising solutions and solution makers and engage proven tech-forward, open, shareable practices to drive direct impact, together. 

Smith served as the third U.S. Chief Technology Officer from 2014-2017 -- working on issues from AI, data science and open source, to inclusive economic growth, entrepreneurship, structural inequalities, government tech innovation capacity, STEM/STEAM engagement, workforce development, and criminal justice reform. Eleven years as vice president at Google for nine years leading new business development and Google.org engineering transition of Google.org and later in the leadership team at X founding SolveforX and WomenTechmakers. Led acquisitions of Google Earth, Maps, Picasa and engineering transition of Google.org. PlanetOut CEO, Apple Japan, General Magic innovating early smart phones. 

Smith is a board member of MIT, Vital Voices, LA Olympics 2028, Thinkof-Us, Earth Conservation Corp; Co-founder of the Malala Fund and UN Solutions Summit, advisor Silicon Valley Comes to the UK  and the Algorithmic Justice League. She holds a bachelors and masters degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT, master’s thesis at MIT Media Lab. Smith was a member of the MIT student team that designed, built, and raced a solar car 2,000 miles across the Australian outback in the first World Solar Challenge. Member, Council on Foreign Relations and National Academy of Engineering. 

Lauren Shum

Program Manager at Allegheny Science & Technology

Lauren Shum is an engineer passionate about leveraging technology in the service of society. She is currently a Program Manager at Allegheny Science & Technology supporting the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions, where she is helping to administer funding programs for energy hardtech incubators and entrepreneurs. She is also an executive board member of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Boston Hub and was formerly Vice President of Engineering at Sunforge, an early pioneer in MPPT charge controllers for off-grid solar applications. Previously at DEKA R&D, Ms. Shum led sensor development in a public-private partnership to scale manufacturing for engineered tissues. She received her B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Duke University.

Jenny Wang

Venture Investor, Co-Founder of re—inc, Co-Host of Techsetters

Jenny is a venture investor and helped found re—inc with 4 USWNT soccer players and World Cup champions. She volunteers with Kode With Klossy and is the co-host of the Techsetters podcast. She studied Computer Science at Harvard.

Cassidy Williams

Director of Developer Experience at Netlify

Cassidy is Director of Developer Experience at Netlify. She's worked for several other places, large and small, and she's had the honor of working with various non-profits, including cKeys and Hacker Fund as their Director of Outreach. She's active in the developer community, and one of Glamour Magazine's 35 Women Under 35 Changing the Tech Industry and LinkedIn's Top Professionals 35 & Under. As an avid speaker, Cassidy has participated in many events including the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing, TEDx, the United Nations, and hundreds of other technical events. She wants to inspire generations of STEM students to be the best they can be, and her favorite quote is from Helen Keller: "One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." She loves mechanical keyboards and karaoke.

Valerie Chen

Ph.D. Student at Carnegie Mellon University

Valerie is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Her research lies at the intersection of AI and society, focusing on principled algorithmic development of interpretable machine learning and issues of fairness and accountability of AI systems. Her work has been published in top machine learning and robotics conferences like ICLR, NeurIPS, and ICRA. Valerie is also passionate about supporting the causes that are most important to her, having previously been President of the Yale Women’s Leadership Initiative and co-founder of Yale’s Computation and Society Initiative. She is now working on developing a mandatory first-year course on bias and allyship at CMU. She graduated from Yale with a B.S. in Computer Science, distinction in the major, and was awarded the Henry Prentiss Becton Prize by the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences for outstanding research. 

Courtney Thurston-Del Buono

Software Engineer at Microsoft

Courtney Thurston-Del Buono lives and works in Seattle, WA as a software engineer on Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics. She’s interested in art; enjoys reading plays, and sometimes writes personal essays and criticism. In early 2013, she created and wrote the first version of the Wikipedia article on Simone Biles (her favorite funfact.) Before matriculating as a full-time employee, she interned at Microsoft in 2016, 2017, and 2018 (initially as an Explore Intern, then twice as a Software Engineer Intern) and previously worked on SpaceX's Landing Legs/COPVs team; Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk team; and at Carnegie Mellon University as a Robotics Intern for Near Earth Autonomy.

Patsy Mangas

Founder at She Rocks the World

Patsy has always believed in the strength of women. While working in television, she produced a documentary on the history of women’s right to vote. The resilience and courage of the women, who had to convince men to give women the right to vote, made a strong impact. Inspired by these strong, resilient women, Patsy set out to counter the message that television and social media sends to girls – that they are not smart enough, not thin enough and not pretty enough. She began by holding focus groups among teenage girls to find out what was really going on in their lives. Determined to empower girls and introduce them to strong, resilient women, Patsy created The Virginia Girls’ Summit. The Virginia Girls’ Summit quickly sold out two years in a row and their teenage ambassadors, who create each summit, asked for more than just a one day event. She now leads She Rocks The World (SRTW), an online platform for teenage girls to share their voices throughout the U.S. and the world.