2021 JUDGES
Commercial Judges
STEPHANIE KAPLAN LEWIS
Stephanie Kaplan is the CEO and Co-founder of Her Campus Media, the #1 media brand for college women and a 360-degree college marketing agency, with chapters at 350+ colleges worldwide. She has been named to Inc.’s 30 Under 30, Businessweek’s 25 Under 25, and EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women. Stephanie has a B.A. in psychology from Harvard with a minor in economics. Her Campus has been bootstrapped and profitable since its launch in 2009, when it was a winner in Harvard's i3 Innovation Challenge.
EMI GONZALEZ
Emi is a Senior Principal for Social Starts and Joyance Partners based in Boston. Our focus is to help catalyze innovation by investing in the emerging science and technology of health and happiness as well as delightful moments. Her main areas of investments include healthcare, life sciences, and biotechnology. She is an entrepreneur, running-enthusiast, investor, and world traveler. Prior to Joyance Partners and Social Starts, she founded a diabetes digital health company, consulted for Half Court Ventures, an early-stage VC firm, and was the Director for Harvard’s premier undergraduate competition, i3 Innovation Challenge. She holds a BA in Molecular Biology from Harvard College and is a co-author in two publications related to cardiovascular regeneration in Circulation Research and Nature Communications. Emi is passionate about health equity and helping founders accomplish their goals.
ALEX RUBALCAVA
Alex is the founder and managing partner of Stage Venture Partners, a firm established in 2015. Alex began his VC career as an analyst at Anthem Venture Partners in 2002. In 2021, a panel of local VCs named Alex one of the top VCs in Los Angeles. Alex has served on the boards of numerous Stage VP companies, including Balto, NotiSphere, SoundCommerce, WhiteFox, SPIDR Tech, Abett, and Dyania Health. Alex is also a leader in the civic community of Los Angeles, with past service on three nonprofit boards: KIPP LA Schools, Thrive Scholars, and Los Angeles Animal Services. Alex is a 2002 graduate of Harvard University.
social judges
DALMUZI MHLANGA
Dalumuzi Mhlanga is the Founder & CEO of Notto Inc., an African credit scoring fintech start-up that provides access to affordable residential mortgages. Prior to focusing on entrepreneurship full-time, he served as Group Chief of Staff at Econet, a pan-African telecommunications and technology company with investments and operations in 29 countries. Before joining the private sector, he managed a multi-million dollar impact investment portfolio of over 30 innovative education projects across 50 countries for the corporate Foundation of Vitol Group; taught leadership courses to Masters students at the Harvard Kennedy School while studying as an undergraduate; and founded a non-profit while that has developed the leadership and entrepreneurship capability of thousands of young people in Bhutan, Eswatini, USA, UAE and Zimbabwe. Dalumuzi has studied at Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
Nina Hooper
Nina is a Harvard (’16) and Stanford (’18) graduate with degrees in astrophysics and engineering. While in college and grad school, Nina was part of the entrepreneurship communities, participating in Startup RAD as a student and later as a TA, the Harvard iLab, the Threshold Venture Fellows, and the Lightspeed Venture Partners Summer Program. She has also worked at two early-stage, venture-backed startups in Silicon Valley. Originally from Australia, Nina is now living back in Sydney where she’s building a venture-backed startup with the mission of teaching all kids and teens essential life skills that aren’t covered in school through fun, real-world challenges.
Eric Ouyang
Eric is currently a Product Manager at Swiftly, helping build the first big data platform for transit to provide more accurate real-time and historical data. Prior to this, he worked on cloud collaboration at Microsoft. Eric graduated from Harvard in 2013, concentrating in Social Studies with a focus on technology in education. As an undergraduate, he was a former President of Harvard Ventures and a CS50/51 teaching fellow.
PREVIOUS JUDGES
ANUJ ADHIYA
Anuj Adhiya is the VP of Growth at Jamber. He's responsible for accelerating adoption of its life-changing products by creating a new Handware category. He's also the author of 'Growth Hacking for Dummies' (Wiley & Sons, April ’20). Additionally, he's a Growth Mentor at Seedstars and Marketing Specialist at Harvard Innovation Labs. At both places he coaches startups to help uncover their best growth opportunities and solve early growth challenges. Before this he was the Category Growth Lead at The Predictive Index where he owned the site that successfully launched the talent optimization category. He was also the Director of Engagement and Analytics at GrowthHackers where he grew the world's largest growth community working directly with Sean Ellis, the godfather of growth hacking.
OLIVIA LANDAU
Olivia Landau is the Founder and CEO of The Clear Cut, a direct to consumer diamond jewelry company. Landau is a 4th generation diamond expert and a G.I.A. Graduate Gemologist (GG). The Clear Cut has been averaging 300%+ year over year growth and has been featured in The New York Times, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Forbes and many others! Olivia was listed by Forbes' 30 Under 30 as part of their 2020 issue.
VISHAL
PUNWANI, MD
Vishal (‘Vish') is CEO of Sophya, a startup at Harvard that is using data science and cutting-edge artificial intelligence to create the ‘Spotify’ of learning in the Future of Work era. Vishal is an international leader in tech for learning. He became one of the highest-rated Teaching Fellows at Khan Academy after creating health and medicine content that has garnered over 10 million views, and has been an invited speaker at The Radcliffe Institute at Harvard, MIT, and Harvard Medical School. Harvard’s prestigious new Alumni Incubator Launch Lab X referred to Vishal as 'the heart and soul' of their program. Vishal is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs, and is a Startup Mentor at Oxford University’s Foundry. As a medical doctor, Vishal is a strong advocate of global health and education equity. He began training in emergency medicine after medical school, and has worked and consulted at the World Health Organization and International Telecommunications Union on digital health.
ROB MAY
Rob May is the CEO and Co-founder of Talla, which builds artificially intelligent, digital workers and created BotChain, a blockchain platform for identity and audit of AI bots and RPA software. He is the author of Inside AI, the most popular AI newsletter online, and an active angel investor in the AI space. Previously, Rob was the CEO and Co-founder of Backupify (acquired by Datto in 2014). Before that, he held engineering, business development and management positions at various startups. Rob has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Kentucky.
CAITLIN BRUMME
Caitlin Reimers Brumme is Managing Director at the startup accelerator MassChallenge. She oversees MC’s flagship program in Boston which accelerates over 100 start-ups a year. Prior to Mass Challenge, Caitlin led the Impact Collaboratory at HBS, an effort to develop world-class academic leadership, including sustainable, ESG and impact investing. Caitlin also worked at Social Finance US where she led the first state-issued social impact “bond;” in consulting at the Parthenon Group and as an analyst at Strategic Value Capital Management, a value-investing hedge fund. Caitlin has a B.A. from Princeton and an MBA HBS. Caitlin is also Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees for Excel Academy Charter Schools, a charter management organization serving East Boston and Chelsea.
JACK KLINCK
Jack Klinck is Managing Partner at Hyperplane Venture Capital, a fund manager focused on emerging technologies such as machine learning and IoT. Jack is also an active angel and seed stage fintech investor. Jack previously served as CEO of Ouisa/ShareNett, a marketplace for family offices to share and co-invest. He was also EVP and Head of Global Strategy and New Ventures at State Street, where he served on the management committee and founded two business lines. Before joining State Street, Jack was Vice Chairman and President of the Investment Manager Solutions Group at Mellon Financial Corporation. Before joining Mellon, he held various management positions at American Express. Jack has a B.A. from Middlebury and an MBA from Duke.
NATALYA BAILEY, Ph.D.
Dr. Natalya Bailey is the CEO and Co-Founder of Accion Systems, a company developing advanced in-space propulsion systems for spacecraft. She previously started another space propulsion company focused on micro-chemical rockets for launch. Natalya is on the board of the youth STEM entrepreneurship organization Youth CITIES and a partner at XFactor Ventures. Natalya has a B.S. in aerospace engineering from San Diego State University, a M.S. in mechanical engineering from Duke, and a Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT, where she developed the foundation for Accion’s technology.
ANTONIO OFTELIE, Ph.D.
Dr. Antonio M. Oftelie is Executive Director of Leadership for a Networked World and an Innovation Fellow at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University (TECH) within SEAS. Antonio conducts research and teaches at the intersection of leadership, technology, and organizational adaptation, leads the development of multiple summits and executive sessions, and since 2004, has developed and taught in more than sixty Harvard-affiliated executive education programs. Antonio has a B.S. in Management and Ethics from Crown College, an MPA with a Business and Government Policy concentration from Harvard, where he focused his studies on leadership, finance, and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and on strategic management, technology, and innovation at the Harvard Business School, and a Doctorate in Law and Policy from Northeastern University.