Philly Tech Week 2020

Rich has been an entrepreneur since age 15, when he started an electronics liquidation business out of his parents’ home. He is currently the Founder and Executive Director of Schoolyard Ventures (SV), a youth entrepreneurship program that partners with universities and high schools to deliver experiential learning opportunities for motivated high school students. SV has served nearly 3,000 students since its inception.

Rich has been a Social Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at University of Pennsylvania, as well as an investor in startup technology companies on both coasts that focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, talent development and logistics. Additionally, he serves as a Founding Board Member of the Human Advancement Project, a non-profit research group that studies human exceptionalism among world class leaders, Chairman of the Board of the Seybert Foundation, a 103 year old private charitable grant-making foundation, and Board Member of OHAAT, a non-profit dedicated to eliminating child bedlessness in Philadelphia by turning recycled materials into bedding for low income children. Rich also

serves on the Regional Strategy and Leadership Committee of the Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia.

Kareem is the Director of Outreach and Partnership at the Collective Success Network. This organization provides mentoring to First Gen and Low Income (FGLI) college students by matching them with mentors in their chosen professions.

He is also an IT Auditor at Chubb Limited and sits on the finance and audit committee for the Philadelphia Youth Network.

Kareem is a graduate of Drexel University with a BSBA in Management Information Systems and enjoys all things gaming in his off time.

Lisha is a venture builder and investor, startup advisor, and business strategist and operator who has served on all sides of the business table. She is the founder of Arable Ventures LLC., a boutique innovation consulting and advisory practice helping organizations develop full scale operating models to deliver innovative solutions. Prior to launching Arable Ventures, Lisha was the founder and head of Vanguard’s Innovation Studio, where she led the vision for enterprise innovation and owned the ongoing delivery of a venture portfolio focused on addressing white spaces with the potential to transform businesses and disrupt the financial services industry.

Throughout her work, alongside crafting effective strategy and operations enabled through technology and data wherever possible, Lisha has always placed high emphasis on growing the best functioning teams and company culture. She is an active investor with 37Angels, an early growth stage women's syndicate focused on increasing representation of diverse founders and funders, and serves as mentor and advisor to startups across the consumer, enterprise, and fintech sectors. She is also an adjunct professor @ Temple's Fox School of Business, teaching on open innovation & strategic partnerships. Lisha currently lives in Brooklyn and travels often in pursuit of new adventures.

Lisa is Seer’s Data Strategy Lead based in Philadelphia. She harnessed a passion for data and her tenure within digital marketing and business operations to focus on pushing Seer forward in utilizing data-driven strategies. Her favorite thing to do is dig deep into data to help clients solve complex business questions. Her second favorite thing to do is convince Wil of the virtues of bridge tables & ngrams.

Before Seer, Lisa worked in roles across the board in digital marketing and software with positions at TIG Global, MICROS Systems, and Oracle. Recently hitting ten years in the industry, Lisa started her career in PPC before branching into SEO, product management, program management, R&D, and finally Data Strategy. She has experience with clients at all levels and across most major industries. In her role as Data Strategy Lead, Lisa gets to touch a ton of Seer’s clients in one way or another, which is one reason she loves what she does.

Lisa is a graduate of the University of Delaware. In her free time, she enjoys eating at every new restaurant in the city and doing all things outdoors with her husband Bernard, kids George and Annie, and their too-energetic pup Deacon.

Michael Winslow picked up his love for programming when he was 10 years old writing GW-Basic code on his Tandy-1000. With his passion for designing simple solutions to complex problems, Michael has played key roles at companies like Aramark, Ortho-McNeil, Oracle and Xfinity Mobile. He is a seasoned, international public speaker who enjoys using his platform to uplift engineers and create powerfully diverse teams in technology. Michael is currently a DevOps advocate, Agile enthusiast, and dedicated people-leader for the Software Strategy and Transformation group at Comcast.

Ethan is the Data Engineer at Seer Interactive — finding new ways of automating and leveraging machine learning to move Seer into the future of digital marketing.

Some fun projects include changing PPC ad sentiment to increase click-through-rate and identifying low quality sites on paid placements to save clients money.

Previously, he was an SEO Team Lead, where he focused on providing team members with guidance on strategy and tactical implementation.

His passion lies in using the newest, latest tools to automate process and create net new business opportunities for clients.

Outside of work he loves cooking, biking, yoga, climbing, fine cocktails and Taco Tuesday.

Nick joined Seer in February 2019 as a Data Analyst within the Data Strategy division. He graduated from Colgate University in 2014 with an Economics degree and spent 3 years in NYC working in FinTech before moving back home to the Philadelphia area.

When he’s not at work, you can find Nick exploring a new local bar with friends, playing intramural sports, taking advantage of the unlimited PTO policy, or passionately rooting for one of the Philly sports teams.

Some individuals are going through life, just living the everyday ‘grind.’ Then you have those who live with a purpose, who honestly want to improve their surroundings in their community. Dr. Leslie Grace is one of these people in the city of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Professor Grace has always been self-driven and a little more mature than her peers in her thinking. Even as a young girl, she clearly knew what her life goals were going to be. A younger Leslie Grace was in newspaper articles at the age of 16/17 years old. She had well thought out opinions even then, wise beyond her years by today’s standards. She was a young lady with determination and big dreams to chase, which fueled her mind daily.

Professor Leslie Grace is an educator, social entrepreneur, philanthropist, and will be a new author this upcoming spring. This amazing single mom lives to empower the young people in her community. The Elements Of The Community Inc provides educational, media relations, financial literacy and entrepreneurship programming to communities around the United States. Dr. Grace has taught thousands of young children & adults how to open their own businesses and manage their finances. “Why do we teach our young people to be good workers, instead of teaching them to be good owners? We must stop limiting the potential of our youth.” Dr. Grace truly understands that real freedom comes from being financially free, because that is the only way that those from the inner cities will have a chance to live the “American Dream.”

The exposure that the young people are getting about today’s financial situation here in America, and how to avoid those landmines, will surely result in a financial behavior change, totally different from what their parents had experienced in their youth. Dr. Grace is truly dedicated to increasing the financial capabilities of young Americans and their immediate family members. She is so committed to teaching her young students about ownership over their lives, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Dr. Leslie Grace is well educated, but don’t be thrown off by how young this educator looks. She has definitely done her time in institutions of higher learning. She lives by the motto, “What Is The Point Of Having All The Degrees And You Are Not Helping Change Lives.” This young lady has more degrees than a thermometer and welcomes any information that will continue to educate her.

Dr. Grace has won numerous community and innovation awards from the business world locally in the city of Philadelphia. Dr. Grace was nominated to attend the United States Women Summit, hosted by the White House in 2016, because of her dedication to women and their families. The release of two books are on the horizon this spring for Dr. Leslie Grace, that will help change the landscape of children and their families globally. She is not afraid to step out in front and be the game changer in her community. She definitely won’t let grass grow under her feet (and that is just the way she likes it).