Philly Tech Week 2020

Philadelphia native, Charles “Charlie Mack” Alston, an entertainment giant has a long standing track record in the entertainment business, dating back to 1978 when he hosted his first house party for 250 youth in the basement of his mother’s home, subsequently becoming a concert promoter for well known Hip Hop Artists Doug E. Fresh, Roxanne Shante, Biz Markie, Big Daddy Kane and Stetsasonic. In 1979, Charlie Mack became a Record Promoter/A&R Director for the independent label, “April Records”. During the early 80’s, Mack began his professional career as security for Galaxy 5, road manager and security for and MC Breeze.

In 1987, Mack elevated from bodyguard to Executive Personal Assistant for his star friends Mega Star Will “Fresh Prince” Smith and Jeff “Jazzy Jeff” Townes. In 1997, Charlie Mack relocated to Los Angeles for several years and initially assisted Smith on the set of the blockbuster hit, “Enemy of The State” along with several of his subsequent major films. Known for unselfishly lending his professional relationships to aid aspiring talent and basically anyone in need, Charlie Mack played an integral role in discovering talent like Boyz II Men and others in the industry. Despite a lucrative and rewarding career working side by side with Will Smith, Charlie Mack chose to relocate back to his native Philadelphia in 2003 to be closer to his children and fulfill his dream of reigniting the entertainment and social vigor in the city of Philadelphia.

40 years in the entertainment industry, Charlie Mack has consulted with various companies such as Electric Factory Concerts, East Coast Express, Clear Channel and Live Nation; to name a few. He has provided both diverse and quality entertainment locally as well as nationally. Over the years, 215 Aphillyated and its subsidiaries have presented concerts featuring Gospel, Jazz, Hip-Hop, and R&B artists, such as: Beyoncé, Jamie Foxx, Gerald Levert, George Clinton and Hezekiah Walker; Comedians Chris Tucker, D.L.Hughley and Steve Harvey; Jazz Artists Najee and Larry Carlton; and Hip Hop Artists Notorious B.I.G., Jay Z, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott and DMX have headlined the billboards. Charlie Mack promoted and hosted Tupac Shakur’s very last concert in the city of Philadelphia and the only concert with Lil Kim and Foxy Brown on the same bill. Celebrity galas for Boyz II Men and N’SYNC are also part of his credentials. Mack added to his efforts, Film Producer, co-producing the block buster hit, “Atl,” starring Rapper T.I. Mack co-created and produced the VH1 Special – “Bridging The Gap”, which featured Queen Latifah, Eve, Snoop and The Game. Currently, Charlie Mack is lending his talents to produce the biopic of R&B Legend and Crooner Teddy Pendergrass.

Aisha Bowe is an aerospace engineer and the founder and CEO of STEMBoard.

STEMBoard creates smart systems and solutions for large-scale, U.S federal, and private sector clients. The company proactively identifies technical gaps and executes programs that lead to high-quality, cost-efficient solutions in data analytics, IT services and geospatial visualization.

STEMBoard also has an Education Directorate committed to closing the opportunity gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) among historically underrepresented youth worldwide. In June of 2020, STEMBoard officially launched LINGO, a STEM-based, teen coding kit designed by STEMBoard’s engineers. LINGO is a fun and engaging way for students to learn basic coding and engineering concepts at home or as part of a virtual camp or school program, junior high through the first two years of university.

Prior to founding STEMBoard, Aisha worked at NASA’s Ames Research Center where she focused on miniaturized satellites and aircraft trajectory optimization. Aisha holds a B.S.E in aerospace engineering and an M. Eng. in space systems engineering, from the University of Michigan. She has received numerous awards for her dedication to technical excellence and the principles of diversity and opportunity, including:

The 40 Under 40: Tech Diversity – Silicon Valley U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce Emerging Star Award NASA’s Engineering Honor Award

Gavin Roy is currently the Interim CTO at AWeber. With over 25 years of experience in the Internet industry, Gavin is responsible for the technical architecture and operational stability of several large-scale web properties. He is the author of “RabbitMQ in Depth,” and actively contributes to several open source projects and communities, including Erlang, Python, PostgreSQL, and RabbitMQ. Gavin is a member of several professional organizations, including the Erlang Ecosystem Foundation (EEF), Python Software Foundation (PSF), and the IEEE.

Veniece Newton, is a true entrepreneur of today who has been connecting people and products through her relationship building for more than a decade. In her early years, while working in promotions and marketing in the music industry for Arista Records in NYC she learned the importance of people and how they connect the dots. Eventually, she developed an entrepreneurial spirit that could not be denied. Her innovative and unparalleled ability to harness the power of relationship building has given her tremendous respect in the business community. Always ahead of the curve, 15 years ago she founded an online fashion/lifestyle television in which she oversaw a production team of 30 from Hong Kong, Alaska, Los Angeles, Miami and New York City. While travelling the world, she interviewed A list celebrities, cover red carpets for many high-profile events. The years of varied experiences, allowed her to eventually find her way to what she truly loved, and that is being involved in the community. As a natural connector, she is a member of several committees and enjoys consulting others with their business ventures. She serves as the Diversity Liaison for the Philadelphia International Airport in which she works specifically to improve workforce while pursuing an Executive MBA at the Fox Temple School of Business. However, one of her strong passions lies in working with youth. She not only has a flair for business and connecting people, but she also has a heart of gold. For the past 10 years, she has devoted her time to empowering the next generation of leaders. She is a panel member for the District Attorney’s Youth Aid Panel and the Founder of Community Angel Foundation; a nonprofit organization that gives back by encouraging, empowering and educating our youth to be future leaders through 4 pillars focusing on volunteerism, education, career and culture. Everything Veniece involves herself with, always includes giving back. It wasn’t no different when she made it to the "Final Four" during the Camden Catalyst startup competition for her innovative idea of ENGAGEathon! And it wasn't farfetched in knowing that her startup would involve community engagement. ENGAGEathon is a customizable software platform that tracks and promotes community engagement, outreach and social impact which will be used by corporations, school districts and organizations. Veniece has a mission to bring our communities together in a positive and effective way; and she will not stop until her mission is complete. Her latest project, Cypher City is a nationwide livestreaming cypher competition in which the public votes through all social media platforms. Cypher City is a very exciting because it allows Veniece to acknowledge the importance of diversity & inclusion and provides a platform for aspiring lyricists to express themselves through words. Veniece is a woman of today and an inspiration for many to believe in yourself and have hope for all.

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.

Josh is a founding Partner at First Round Capital, a seed-stage technology venture fund. Josh has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since its commercialization.

In 1992, while he was a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Josh co-founded Infonautics Corporation – and took it public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 1996. Josh founded Half.com in July of 1999, and led it to become one of the largest sellers of used books, movies and music in the world. Half.com was acquired by eBay in July 2000 — and Josh remained with eBay for three years, running the Half.com business unit and growing eBay’s Media marketplace to almost half a billion dollars in annual gross merchandise sales. In late 2003 Josh helped to found TurnTide, an anti-spam company that created the world's first anti-spam router. TurnTide was acquired by Symantec just six months later.

Josh founded First Round Capital in 2004 to reinvent seed-stage investing. Since that time the firm has invested in over 300 emerging technology startups – becoming one of the most active venture capital firms in the country. Josh has consistently ranked on the Forbes “Midas List” of the top 100 tech investors. He has been named as one of the top ten ‘angel investors’ in the United States by Newsweek magazine, one of "Tech's New Kingmakers" by Business 2.0 magazine and a "Rising VC Star" by Fortune magazine. Josh also is the proud winner of a second place ribbon in the 2011 Nantucket Watermelon Eating competition.

Josh is an inventor on thirteen U.S. Patents for his work in Internet technology. In June 2000, he was awarded Ernst and Young’s prestigious “Entrepreneur of the Year” award for the Greater Philadelphia region.

Josh earned a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude in Entrepreneurial Management and Marketing from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Three Times Dope was a hip hop/rap group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania consisting of EST (Robert Waller), Chuck Nice (Walter Griggs) and Woody Wood (Duerwood Beale). 3xD, as they were called for short, were a part of the Hilltop Hustlers Crew (which also included Steady B, Cool C, Da Youngsta's, Mentally Gifted, and others). At first, they recorded under the name 3-D.

Their debut LP, Original Stylin' was well-received, peaking at #122 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart and the group became well known for the terminology they created, such as “Acknickulous” and “The Giddy Up”.

EST would eventually go on to become an award-winning songwriter for top-tier acts, most notably a Grammy nomination in 2005 for Destiny's Child's "Cater 2 U".

Natalie W. Nixon, PhD is a design strategist and a hybrid thinker. She applies her diverse background in anthropology, fashion, service design and dance to change lives through ideas. In her consultancy, Figure 8 Thinking, LLC she helps organizations design smarter processes and systems, build strategy, and develop leaders by teaching and applying the strategic design process. Natalie is the Founding Director of the Strategic Design MBA program at Philadelphia University and is a published author: the editor of Strategic Design Thinking: Innovation in Products, Services, Experiences and Beyond and a regular contributor to INC.com online magazine on creativity and design thinking.

Her public speaking invitations have included the Business Innovation Factory, 360 Possibles (Saint Malo, France), Creative Mornings, TEDx Philadelphia, The Copenhagen Institute for Interactive Design, The European Innovation Academy (Nice, France), SEB Bank (Tallinn,Estonia), FUSE and the Mayo Clinic's Transform conference.

She serves on the boards of the Philadelphia Art Commission, the Arts & Business Council of Philadelphia, CultureWorks of Greater Philadelphia, and the Alumni Association of Vassar College.

Natalie earned her BA (Honors: Cum Laude) from Vassar College with a double major in Anthropology and Africana Studies; an MS in Global Textile Marketing from Philadelphia University (USA), Shenkar College (Israel) & Reutlingen University (Germany); and a PhD in Design Management from the University of Westminster, London.