HARVARD ALUMNI IN TECH

Our GDPR tech-in with Katherine Gardner from Gunderson Dettmer provided insights into the EU regulation affecting almost every company’s data privacy standards.

Our Women in Tech panel features

technologists such as: Jennifer Soffen: (Google East Inside Cloud Sales team), Katherine Prime (Chief Customer Officer at Spring), Sophia Dominguez (CEO & co-founder of SVRF), and  Margaret Martin, (Founder & CEO of CN2)

The panel discussed the benefits of smart contracts, the technology behind them, smart contract security and dispute resolution.

Chris Hughes was Mark Zuckerberg's roommate at Harvard, and a key collaborator building Facebook in its early years. In telling the story of FB's meteoric rise and his other key experiences in business, politics, and with charitable organizations, Hughes relates his insights as to how luck plays a disproportionately influential role in today’s economy. He argues that some of the same forces that made Facebook possible have made it harder for everyone else in America to make ends meet.

Hughes talks about what he learned about wealth creation in building a business, and what he's seen in leading companies about how the pie is shared, and how he came to support a national Guaranteed Minimum Income. After a lot of hard work in the trenches of battling and studying poverty and working-class financial hardship, Hughes believes that a guaranteed income is the most powerful tool we have to combat poverty and stabilize America’s middle class.

Harvard in Tech third event in our Crypto + Blockchain series:

As more institutional investors seek exposure in digital currencies, funds focusing on bridging the gap between technological prowess, fundamental token economy knowledge, and traditional investing have sprung up all over the world. At this month’s event we will discuss what makes these investment managers’ strategy unique, how their performance stacks up relative to just holding cryptos, how they control their risk exposure, and what their price outlook is for some of the most popular cryptocurrencies

On March 20, 2018, Harvard in Tech hosted its second Crypto + Blockchain event at R3’s offices on the topic of the future of crypto exchanges and the impact of increasing regulatory scrutiny.

Moderator Mitchell Dong from crypto arbitrage fund Pythagoras Investment Management discussed how the crypto industry is addressing new challenges with a financial services lawyer and representatives from three exchanges and a venture capital firm. The panelists included: Beatrice O’Carroll from over-the-counter trading desk Circle Trade; David Wells from cryptocurrency exchange ItBit; Harry Zhou from HBUS, an affiliate of a leading Chinese digital currency exchange; Andrew Schoen from venture capital firm NEA; and lawyer Beth Kramer from Winston and Strawn.

Harvard in Tech is bringing together a Crypto + Blockchain Circle, where we will provide an intimate forum for members of the New York City cryptocurrency and blockchain communities to share their knowledge and experience in the space.

The first event covered enterprise applications: discussion topics will include scalability, security, integration and costs of adoption.

A panel that discussed the legal challenges facing tech start-ups and will address the nuts and bolts of building a successful tech business with as few legal/regulatory issues as possible.

200+ Technologists came together to hear a panel moderated by

Chris Altcheck (CEO of Mic) that included Jeff Gleuck (CEO of Foursquare), Jonathan Stein (CEO of Betterment), Frida Poll (CEO of pymetrics), Kelly Peeler (CEO of NextGenVest).

 

 

Over 100 engineers, product managers and technologists came together to hear Leaders in Engineering Panel moderated by Andrew McLaughlin (betaworks) that included Maxwell Krohn (SparkNotes and OkCupid), Marcus Mitchell (Google), Stephanie Killian (Linkedin).

Aaron Rudenstein from Citymaps joined us for sharing his experience with Emerging Founders.

Derek Flanzraich from Greatist.com joined us for a conversation to discuss how to build a great content brand, the trials and tribulations of starting a business and the future of online advertising.

Harvard in Tech was excited to welcome and hear from leading design experts, including David Goligorsky (Head of Design, Yieldmo), Alex Wright (Senior Director of User Experience, Etsy), Heather Cassano (Director of User Experience, Google), Abigail Gray (VP, Head of Design, LearnVest-Northern Mutual), Lee-Sean Huang (Co-Founder/Creative Director, Foossa).

We hosted our Annual Welcome to NYC Tech panel and featured alumni founders Jean Brownhill Lauer (Founder and CEO, Sweeten, HGSD '12), Umang Dua (Co-Founder, Handy, HBS ‘13), Nitesh Banta (Co-Founder and CEO, B12, College '08); and Alex Konrad (Staff Writer, Forbes Magazine, College ‘11).

Our Fourth Annual Summer Social featured Ryan Williams (Cadre, CEO & Co-Founder; Harvard College), Mariah Chase (Eloquii, CEO; Harvard College), Chris Altchek (Mic, CEO & Co-Founder; Harvard College), Jean Brownhill Lauer (Sweeten, CEO & Founder; Harvard GSD), and Matt Salzberg (Blue Apron, CEO and Founder; HBS).

A fireside chat with cybersecurity expert Marc Goodman (HKS) who spent a career in law enforcement and technology. He has served as a street police officer, senior adviser to Interpol and futurist-in-residence with the FBI. As the founder of the Future Crimes Institute and the Chair for Policy, Law, and Ethics at Silicon Valley’s Singularity University, he continues to investigate the intriguing and often terrifying intersection of science and security, uncovering nascent threats and combating the darker sides of technology.

How is the blockchain changing finance and other industries? What are the most exciting future applications of the blockchain? How has Bitcoin already changed the payment system? Harvard in Tech heard from a panel of industry experts such as, Paul Chou (CEO & Co-Founder, LedgerX), Michael Casey (Senior Advisor on Blockchain at MIT Media Lab), Chris Lavery (VP of Operations, Blockchain), Patrick Murck (Fellow, Berkman Center at Harvard), and Nathaniel Popper, (moderator, NYTimes & Author of "Digital Gold").

The Welcome to Your City event at Grand Central Tech centered on meeting other alumni working in the NYC tech industry, catching up with old friends, and hearing from a panel of all-stars from the New York startup and venture capital community. Alums received advice on how to get started, get funded, and get more involved in the New York tech scene from Marcela Sapone, HBS (CEO Hello Alfred), Scott Crouch, C'13 (CEO of Mark43), and Alexa Buckley, C'13 (Co-Founder of Margaux).

Harvard in Tech & the Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association brought together a panel of industry experts and investors who discussed the current state of innovation in the Biotech industry. Guests included: Uwe Schoenbeck (Chief Scientific Officer, Pfizer’s Worldwide Research and Development (WRD) External R&D Innovation (ERDI) team), Bong Koh (Partner, Venrock), Joshua Schimmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst who joined Piper Jaffray), and John D. Carroll (Editor in Chief, Fierce Biotech).

Women in Tech Dinner featuring Guest of Honor, Jennifer Hyman (CEO & Co-Founder, Rent the Runway). Jennifer shared her journey and offered valuable insights to a group of 14 other Harvard female founders and technologists.

We were excited to welcome hundreds of Harvard Alumni Technologists to Harvard in Tech's 2015 Summer Social featuring Hayley Barna (Birchbox, Co-Founder; Harvard College & HBS), Vivek Ramaswamy (Roivant, CEO; Harvard College), Sarah Paiji (Launch, CMO; Snapette, Co-founder; Harvard College); David Haber (Bondstreet, Founder & CEO; Harvard College), Nathaniel Popper (NYTimes & Author of "Digital Gold"; Harvard College), and Adam Valkin (General Catalyst, Managing Director; Harvard College).

100+ Technologists participated in a discussion about Harvard Innovation with Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, C'99 (Glamsquad; Gilt; Perry Ellis; Bulgari), Jason Perri, C'98 (Glamsquad; Apollo Capital; Spectrum Group), David Goldweitz (Glamsquad; Garrison Square), Perry Hewitt (Harvard University Director of Digital Communications) and Beth Altringer (Harvard University Innovation & Design Lecturer)

We had an evening of lively discussion with 40 Harvard founders on raising a seed round, common pitfalls, and past experiences. Discussion was lead by Amy Kadomatsu (Co-Founder, ROKO Labs), Raphael Carty (Founder, Callida Energy), Zachary Hamed (Founder, Bowery), and Gillian Morris (Founder, Hitlist).

150 Harvard Alums came out to to hear Albert Wenger (Union Square Venture, C'90) speak about his experiences investing in some of NYC's top technology companies. Gillian Morris (Founder, Hitlist) and Vinay Trivedi (Author, "How To Speak Tech") also discussed the NY Tech 'scene' and how they went about navigating its waters.

300+ Technologists came together to hear a panel that included Scott Belsky (Behance, Founder), Olga Vidisheva (Shoptiques, Founder), Scott Crouch (Mark 43, Founder), Halle Tecco (Rock Health, Founder) and Adam Valkin (General Catalyst, Founder).

A fireside chat with Vanessa Liu (Chief Operating Officer, Trigger Media, '96, HLS '03) and Andy Russell (Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Trigger Media). Andy and Vanessa talked about their experiences with building Trigger Media, their portfolio companies InsideHook and Host Committee, and trends they are seeing in media and tech. This event was co-sponsored with Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs and HBS Alumni Angels.

The HBS TechMedia Club hosts an annual set of events in NYC that introduces HBS students to the NYC Technology scene. This year 100+ HBS students toured 30+ NYC tech companies, including eBay, AOL, Betaworks, Buzzfeed, Twitter, Google, Foursquare, Thrive Capital, and Warby Parker. Harvard in Tech co-hosted the HBS Tech Trek Mixer to bring together Alumni, HBS students, and host companies.

Andrew McLaughlin (CEO, Digg, and former Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States) shared his thoughts about NYC tech, the future of content, and the intersection of tech & politics.

200+ Technologists came together to hear a panel moderated by Thomas Eisenmann (HBS Professor) that included Adam Valkin (General Catalyst), David Teten (ff Ventures), Lucy Deland (Paperless Post), Dave Eisenberg (Floored), Amy Jain (BaubleBar) and Aaron Schildkrout (HowAboutWe).