Speaker List
Below is a list of speakers that will talk at the Summer Institute. Click on a name to view a short bio on the person.
Christopher GergenChristopher Gergen is a Founding Partner of New Mountain Ventures, an entrepreneurial consulting and leadership development firm, and co-author of the forthcoming book, Life Entrepreneurs: Mavericks in the Art of Leading and Living (Jossey-Bass).
New Mountain Ventures works with organizations at nearly all levels--from high schools and universities to executive education programs--to train participants in the art of entrepreneurial leadership and life entrepreneurship. NMV has created a leadership development program that builds entrepreneurial capacity in high-growth organizations and leadership teams.
Christopher Gergen's degrees include a B.A. from Duke University, a Master's in Public Policy from George Washington University, and an MBA from Georgetown University.
closeChristopher Kigongo is a Ugandan physician working as a clinical trial manager at Duke University. He was also the founder of the Millennium School, one of Nourish International's partner organizations. Christopher founded the Naama Millennium School to provide affordable education and basic nutrition and shelter for those most in need in Mityana, Uganda. As the Director of health education for Uganda, Dr. Christopher Kigongo was well aware of the AIDS statistics for his country. Not content to just script health education messages, he wanted to provide practical care for the children in his home village who were struggling because of the effects of AIDS on their families and the economy. Many children were leaving school to look for petty jobs to help feed themselves and their families, often putting themselves at risk of HIV infection, other sexually transmitted diseases, and teen pregnancy. Dr. Kigongo started Naama Millennium School to provide affordable education and basic nutrition and shelter for those most in need. The school began in 2001 with 77 children and 5 teachers. By 2006 it had 321 students, 10 teachers and 2 support staff. Participation of students who had lost one or both parents increased from 13 to 113.
closeJud Bowman is the chief technology officer and the general manager of media & entertainment for Motricity and is responsible for overseeing the company's technology and product strategy and managing Motricity's efforts serving the mobile businesses for global media and entertainment companies such as MTV, BET, Warner Music and Universal Music. Bowman is a founder and chief architect of one of the industry's leading mobile content delivery platforms, Fuel, that has delivered more than $750 million of mobile content to date, and has been named as one of the world's “Top 100 Young Innovators” by MIT's Technology Review and one of “Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs” by BusinessWeek in 2007.
Prior to being named chief technology officer for Motricity, Bowman was co-founder and chief executive officer of Pinpoint Networks, which merged with PowerByHand in 2004 to form Motricity. Bowman led Pinpoint to a leadership position in the mobile content market providing software and services to mobile operators and raised $20 million in venture capital. Bowman was instrumental in leading the integration of PowerByHand and Pinpoint Networks and raising over $200 million in venture capital for Motricity, and has helped grow Motricity to over 300 employees globally.
closeRyan is the Founder of iContact, an online marketing platform for companies and organizations around the world. Ryan launched iContact at the age of 19 and now serves as the company’s CEO. In its first four years, Ryan took the company from his dorm room to Research Triangle Park, where he now leads 65 employees. Ryan has authored a book, Zero to One Million, describing how to go from a blank slate to 1 million dollars in sales. At 23, Ryan continues to grow iContact in RTP.
closeIn March 2002, Sindhura founded Hunger Lunch, a student organization based in UNC Chapel Hill undergraduate campus from a model adopted from Kelly Folgeman, a UNC medical student, Class of 2003. Sindhura led a team of passionate Hunger Lunch members to participate and win 2nd place in the Carolina Challenge business competition that formed the expanded vision and a new name, Nourish International. She has won several awards and fellowships associated with her work associated with Nourish such as the Burch Fellowship, Robert E. Bryan Fellowship, Carolina Undergraduate Health Fellowship, Marion Dixon BSBA Scholarship, and recruited as a member into the Order of the Golden Fleece, UNC’s most prestigious honor society. Sindhura is also the recipient of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Outstanding Young Alumni of the Year Award (2007-2008).
Upon graduating with a B.S. in Business Administration from Kenan Flagler Business School in 2004 and started working as an Americorps Public Ally at Triangle Residential Option for Substance Abusers(TROSA) as an Interim Education Program Director. After her term at TROSA she worked as the first full time staff for Nourish International. Citineni is currently a dental student (class of 2010) at UNC Chapel Hill School of Dentistry and continues to actively serve on the Board of Directors of Nourish with the primarily role of fundraising.
closeJames H. Johnson Jr. is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of entrepreneurship and director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center.
His research interests include community and economic development, the effects of demographic changes on the U.S. workplace, interethnic minority conflict in advanced industrial societies, urban poverty and public policy in urban America, and workforce diversity issues. With support from the Russell Sage Foundation, he is researching the economic impact of Sept. 11 on U.S. metropolitan communities.
Dr. Johnson's research focuses on the causes and consequences of growing inequality in American society, particularly as it affects socially and economically disadvantaged youth; entrepreneurial approaches to poverty alleviation, job creation, and community development; interethnic minority conflict in advanced industrial societies; and business demography and workforce diversity issues. Fast Company profiled Dr. Johnson and his work in "Hopes and Dreams."
He has published more than 100 scholarly research articles and three research monographs and has co-edited four theme issues of scholarly journals on these and related topics. His latest book is "Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles".
He received his PhD from Michigan State University, his MS from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his BS from North Carolina Central University.
closeA 1971 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Virginia Carson came back to head the Campus Y after 25 years as a corporate lawyer and business owner. A student leader of the Campus Y during the turbulent years of civil rights, Vietnam War protests, and early feminist issues, Ms. Carson went on to law school at Columbia University. She practiced communications and corporate finance law in Washington, D. C. from 1974 until 1989, finishing her work in the Washington office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. After law practice, she organized Capital Kids' Radio Company to purchase and operate radio stations in Washington and Baltimore. The company inaugurated a music-based format for children and parents, combining news and features written for children with music that the family could enjoy together. The Radio Zone format won national and local awards for the quality of its programming.
closeJosh Lee is a Morehead Scholar, c/o 2004 at UNC-Chapel Hill. Josh now works as a self-employed financial manager with clients across the eastern seaboard and midwest. In his spare time, Josh sits on the board of directors for Nourish International. In January, 2008, Josh co-led an effort to take 3rd place in the Facebook Giving Challenge, a national competition with more than 1,000 non-profits, and raised more than $53,000 in the process. As an undergraduate, Josh played on the Varsity Wrestling Team all four years and served as the academic team captain his senior year.
closeThomas Thekkekandam is a founding member of Nourish since its inception as Hunger Lunch in 2003. Thomas worked extensively on the business plan and presented at the Carolina Challenge business competition winning 2nd prize. Thomas was a Morehead Scholarship recipient, Carolina’s most prestigious four-year merit scholarship, and the nationally renowned Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship recipient for his JD/MBA dual degree at Duke University (Class of 2010). Thomas worked as a Market Research Analyst for 1½ years at The Link Group, an international market research firm, and worked as an Assistant Director of NC Fund for Public Interest Research (NC PIRG). Thomas was part of the Varsity Wrestling Team and Crew Team., and was inducted into UNC’s Order of the Old Well.
closeLennon joined the Global Venture team in January, 2008, after graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill in May 2007, with a degree in International Studies and Political Science. Lennon co-founded SWEAT, Students Working in the Environment for Active Transformation, built on the idea that mountain-climbing could serve as both a source of empowerment and a tool for engaging students in environmental issues. In the group's first year, they traveled to East Africa, where they climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and partnered with the Nobel-prize winning Green Belt Movement on a tree-planting project in the Kenyan highlands. She later helped found the UNC-Duke-Bennett Millennium Village Project, the first student-led campaign to raise $1.5 million to sponsor a Millennium Village in Kenya. She engaged in a range of corporate and public outreach efforts, and helped create a student-led course on development ethics: part of her long-running interest in the change-making potential of students and universities. Lennon now works at Ashoka, Innovators for the Public, at their Global Headquarters in Arlington, VA.
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Event Organizers
Joel ThomasPrior to Nourish, Joel Thomas worked with Nourish's precursor, Hunger Lunch, at the University of North Carolina. In 2006, Joel led a team to conduct a development projects alongside Fundacion Los Robles in Argentina, where he helped to construct educational food plots which have educated more than 800 students how to construct their own gardens. He has co-authored two award winning business plans, one to launch Nourish International and one for the establishment of a manufacturing facility for appropriate technology in Uganda. He is a member of the Order of the Old Well, the 2006 recipient of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan award, as well as a frequent speaker on social entrepreneurship panels and international student conferences. He is a StartingBloc Fellow, an Eagle Scout, and a member of UNC-Chapel Hill's most prestigious honor society, the Order of the Golden Fleece. Joel has a BS in Biology and a minor in Entrepreneurship from the University of North Carolina.
closePrior to joining Nourish, James Dillard attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in Economics and minored in Entrepreneurship. During his career at UNC, he wrote for the award winning student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, as a columnist and a staff writer. During his summers, he worked with Plextronics, a printed electronics company and YBZG (now Localnoodles) as a marketing intern.
closePrior to Nourish, Bryon earned a BS from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill. Bryon is a co-founder of Hold'em for Hunger, North Carolina's largest charity poker tournament. He also co-led a team of students to Argentina in partnership with Fundacion Los Robles, an Argentine NGO that educates primary students how to produce their own food. Bryon is also a 2004 Burch Fellow and an Eagle Scout.
closeLogan served as the Co-Chair for Nourish's UNC chapter during the 2007-2008 academic year, and during this time, led the team to garner a record $28,000 to support sustainable development projects in Honduras, Mexico and Peru. Logan co-led a group of students to work towards food security in Yorito, Honduras by working with farmer cooperatives' computer education and seedbanking, as well as constructing greenhouses . Logan is now working as Nourish's first ever chapter coordinator. His role is to act as a coach and connector for chapters. Logan is a Startingbloc Fellow. He is also a b-boy who, in his spare time enjoys dance parties and can do a mean six step.
closeCarlyn is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, pursuing degrees in International Studies and Philosophy. She is currently writing her thesis on community-based international development projects in Africa. She has also studied international development at the Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica and simultaneously worked with orphanages in the country. She has worked with the Full Belly Project to develop a resource database of developing countries and will be working with them on an economic impact project in the Philippines this summer.
closeStephanie is a senior Economics major and Chinese and Social Entrepreneurship minor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A native of Chengdu, China, she is particularly interested in East Asian economies and sustainable development in rural China and Southeast Asia. Past experiences include working in Beijing with Dream Corps, a non-profit that specializes in educational equity and building libraries, and interning with a corporate law firm in Tennessee. She spent this past semester at the National University of Singapore studying economics and Thai classical music.
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