Jeudy is of Haitian descent, and was born and raised in Queens, New York. She appeared in a number of short films before she landed the recurring role of Janae Watson in the Netflix comedy-drama series, Orange Is the New Black. In 2014, she made her network television debut in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. 

Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and general partner of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and The New York Times bestselling author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things, which is now available in over 16 languages. The firms in which Andreessen Horowitz has invested include Facebook, Foursquare, GitHub, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Founder, Global Manager of Google Accelerator (Bangalore, Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Hanoi, Manila, Bogota, Bangkok). Global Manager of Google’s LaunchPad Accelerator Program. Previously Head of Campus TLV, Developer Relations lead Israel and Europe @Google, Director business development at LivePerson, Head of Business Development and Business Solutions @Microsoft Israel, Senior consultant @Deloitte and @HayGroup.

Tim Draper is the founding partner of Draper Associates and DFJ. He is one of Silicon Valley’s leading billionaire Venture Capitalists who founded Draper University to train the next generation of innovative entrepreneurs. He was listed as #46 of the most outstanding Harvard alumni, #7 on the Forbes Midas List, #1 of the Most Networked Venture Capitalists by Always On, and #98 in Worth Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful People in Finance. Tim also received the World Entrepreneurship Forum’s “Entrepreneur for the World” in 2015.

Multiplatform media executive and the former Editor-in-Chief at EBONY, where she ran content operations for the magazine’s print, digital and new dedicated special issue outlets. This award-winning multimedia journalist, TV personality, content producer and humor writer originally joined the iconic brand as a Senior Editor for JET magazine in 2011 before jet-setting over to run the site, its all-digital form as an app and eventually EBONY.com and the media mothership itself.

Head of Marketing Strategy for PayPal Latam, driving Acquisition and Lifecycle strategy for Consumers & SMBs in Latin America & the Caribbean.

Public Policy and Regulatory Lead for Airbnb in Central America and the Caribbean, representing the company before government leaders, regulatory agencies and other stakeholders.

Tech Editor @Black Enterprise; founder of 7AM, a personal development education platform guided by informed pop culture.

Nailah Ellis is the Founder of Ellis Island Tea, and is recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30.

John Biggs is an entrepreneur, consultant, writer, and maker. He spent fifteen years as an editor for Gizmodo, CrunchGear, and TechCrunch and has a deep background in hardware startups, 3D printing, and blockchain. His work has appeared in Men’s Health, Wired, and the New York Times.

Lisa Godwin is a passionate media professional with over 10 years of experience in producing immersive experiential products for strategic partnerships and opportunities to generate brand growth. Ms. Godwin currently is a Senior Consultant and Creative Technologist at The New York Times.

Rhonesha Byng is the founder and CEO of Her Agenda. Rhonesha is part of the 2017 class of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in both the media and dorm room founders categories. Previously she was named one of 28 Under 28 by NBCBLK and one of 29 People To Know by BET. She’s spoken at The White House and The United State of Women Summit.

Adam Lyons is Chief Executive Office at The Zebra, which has grown into the most visited car insurance comparison marketplace in the U.S. Adam was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List in 2017, was a 2016 EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, was named to Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list in 2015, and received the 2014 Empact100 Award at the United Nations.

John is a connector, innovator, and leader in the NYC tech scene.  Prior to co-founding the Studio Project, which builds accelerators inside the world’s largest public and private institutions, John co-founded the NYC Innovation Collective, a network of 70+ accelerators and incubators that work to advance the industry by sharing knowledge, resources, and relationships.

Sebastian Vidal is the Executive Director of Parallel18, the new global Startup Program of Puerto Rico that wants to transform the island in to a platform for startups to grow in bigger markets. He was the former Executive Director of Start-Up Chile, a government funded program aiming to attract global minded entrepreneurs to Chile. He has also worked alongside the World Bank developing tech hub strategies with countries like Jamaica, Peru, Brazil, Lebanon, Malaysia and South Korea.

Jessica Santana is one of the co-founders of New York On Tech (NYOT).  Their work has been featured in major media outlets such as Forbes, CNN, Wells Fargo, Sirius XM Radio, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, BET, Black Enterprise, AlleyWatch and The Network Journal. She has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, Ashoka Emerging Innovator, World Economic Forum Global Shaper, one of 50 Visionary Women Leaders to Watch in 2015 by Innov8t iv Magazine.

Founder & Managing Director of Base Venture Partners.. Business Insider named him “Top Ten” most influential blacks in tech (John Thompson-chairman of Microsoft was ranked #1). He was a seed investor in Zappos, Styleseat, Indinero, and Plangrid. His LP’s include Google Ventures, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, Shark Tank host Chris Sacca, and tennis legend Serena Williams. The Base portfolio includes Styleseat, 6sense, Olly and Luma.

Aaron is a motivational speaker, podcast host, community activist, and leader in the Austin tech scene. Prior to Aaron helping to build the Channel Program for Dropbox, Inc., he led the creation of ATX-Diversity, the governing body of all things diversity at Dropbox Austin.

Founder & CEO of Alter which matches the best ventures in frontier markets with Silicon Valley resources to help them scale. Alter finds the best entrepreneurs in the world’s toughest places – Haiti, Myanmar, Afghanistan- and matches them with Silicon Valley resources to scale and create jobs.

Global Startup Ecosystem: Europe Regional Director; a startup advisor within the Draper University network;  representative of LaunchPad Central’s unique Lean Innovation software founded by Steve Blank. She was chosen in the Forbes Estonia 30 Under 30 list in 2015 and presented as a TEDx speaker in the United Kingdom.

Managing Director of AngelHack HACKcelerator (3 exits to Google and BOX); VC at Base Ventures (Seed-stage fund investing in early stage tech startups); Dealflow Partner at Startup Chile; Advisory Board Member SXSW Accelerator; Judge/Mentor at 500 Startups, MassChallenge, Parallel18 and Gaza Sky Geeks.

Head of Strategy and Market Development at Pivotal. Michele is an angel investor, has spoken at SXSW, Mobile World Congress, ATech, and StartupGrind Global, and previously taught at Duke, UCLA and OCAD University.

Andrew Yakub is the founder and CEO of Rayton Solar Inc, which has developed a proprietary technology that allows the manufacture of solar panels that are 60% cheaper and 25% more efficient than the market standard. Andrew has been featured as one of the Forbes Top 30 Under 30 in 2016 for Energy.

Alan Ricardo Delmonte Bertran the Director of Startup Grind Santo Domingo. Delmonte is also the founder and CEO of Content is Good, a Latin American web-based marketplace where creatives and marketers connect with business owners.

COO of BlogHer, Inc., which bootstrapped for two years before successfully raising four rounds ($20M) of funding and achieving exit by acquisition.

Global Startup Ecosystem: America Regional Director; Advisory board member at SXSW; Former program director at Draper University and investor at Glassroots Ventures; Consulting at AngelHack HACKcelerator program.

A member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Haiti Technology Association, Cleve is a former Obama Presidential Appointee and senior staffer on Capitol Hill. Additionally, last year she organized the Haitian Women’s Weekend in Washington DC; chaired the 5th annual NAAHP national Haitian Diaspora conference; served as speaker during the Haitian Women’s Symposium at the United Nations; and spoke on the White House panel, Haitian Women Leading Social Change.

Kerry-Ann Reid-Brown is a Jamaican born New York City based Caribbean influencer and founder of Carry On Friends.The podcast has been featured as an editor’s choice in iTunes’ under the categories “Black Voices in Business” and the “Black Experience” collection. Kerry-Ann is the recipient of the ‘Young, Gifted & Black (YGB) Entrepreneurial’ Award.

Marie Dandie is the co-founder and founding principal of pilotED Schools, an emerging school network that will offer Indianapolis public school students a rigorous liberal arts curriculum focused on identity and sociology to interrupt cycles of generational poverty. Dandie was a fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and pilotED has been awarded fellowships with NewSchools Venture Fund, Echoing Green, Camelback Ventures, The Mind Trust and is a 2017 honoree of Forbes 30Under30.

SME Caribbean Business Consultant, Trinidad and Tobago One Young World Ambassador and seasoned serial entrepreneur, Melissa has a flair for identifying, leveraging and optimizing opportunities to achieve maximum results. She provides technical advisory on establishing businesses in the Caribbean, enhancing business processes, improving employee morale and productivity, and increasing revenue and profitability.

Director of Solar Head of State (SHOS), a nonprofit working to promote renewable energy in the Caribbean through high-profile rooftop solar installations and coordinated public education programs. SHOS will this year install solar on Jamaica House, the official residence of the Jamaican Prime Minister, and has a dozen similar projects planned worldwide. In 2017 he was awarded Forbes Magazine’s ’30 Under 30 in Energy’.

Jennifer Litorja runs Ecosystem Development at SendGrid, and has over a decade of experience in business development and strategic growth. Prior to SendGrid, Jennifer was managing SoftLayer’s Catalyst startup program for Americas East, helping grow the program’s partnerships across the region. She has helped startups raise angel and venture financing, facilitated business opportunities with Fortune 500 companies and is uniquely positioned to offer connections to startups.

Abiola Oke is the CEO and Publisher of OkayAfrica, the leading media company of its kind connecting a global audience to Africa. He is a member of the United Nations Association and a contributing writer for various online publications, including CNN and of course OkayAfrica. Prior to joining Okayafrica, Abiola spent over ten years in the financial services industry holding senior executive positions at Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, TD Ameritrade, and Barclays PLC.

Dawn Quaker the Founder of AUKERA Ventures.  She has spoken at and conducted workshops for various organizations, including Harvard University, UBS & Rent the Runway’s Project Entrepreneur, Smith College, Sarah Lawrence College, JPMorgan, and Columbia University, her alma mater. Dawn sits on the Global Board of the Columbia Venture Community as East Coast President and is a member of the New York City Department of Education’s Gender Equity Advisory Subcommittee.

Founder and CEO of Pinpoint Resource Group, LLC, a Technology Staffing and Executive Placement firm in Los Angeles, Felix has helped startups find key talent to help them succeed since 1998.  Felix is an international speaker on leadership and culture, helping entrepreneurs break through limiting stories to step into their greatness.  Felix is a Senior Trainer for Tony Robbins, the world’s foremost leadership coach.

A Haitian entrepreneur deeply involved in the economic, social, academic and associative life of his country. Returning to Haiti in 1998, Patrice joined the family business “Classic Apparel S.A.”. Soon after, he joined Allen Bayard to launch the communication company, AccessHaiti S.A.,  who’s mission is to promote, optimize and extend television services throughout Haiti. He is an active member of the Council of the Western Chamber of Commerce and Industry, CCIO.

Jack Saba co-founded Day One Investments and Day One Consulting to aid international economic development by bringing the Blockchain to emerging markets. At Draper University, he worked with over 200 entrepreneurs from more than 50 countries as they navigated business development, leadership, and fundraising challenges.

Mike is co-founder of The Underground, an invite-only membership community for entrepreneurs whose backgrounds are generally underrepresented in tech (including female, minority, LGBTQ, formerly incarcerated, and veteran entrepreneurs) and founder of Evertrue Ventures, the Brown University alumni investment group.

As Co-Founder of HBCUtoStartup and Career Developer at Dev Bootcamp, Bie‘s work with underrepresented populations (Black &Latinx) in tech and career changers ensures that they are equipped with skills.

Dan has been starting and building businesses for more than 20 years. He currently is Chairman of the Board of Elauwit, a telecommunications company with operations across the U.S

Sandy Sophia Laborde, is a Haitian-American On-Air Talk Show Host on both Afrotainment Network and Haiti HD Network; broadcasting shows in both English and Creole. She’s also President and Chair of the Greater Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce Orlando.

Laura Pincus Hartman co-founded and currently serves as Executive Director of– the School of Choice / l’Ecole de Choix – which partners with Haitians to educate and develop Haitian youth to lead their communities, Haiti and the world.   Hartman held chaired professorships in business ethics for almost 30 years at US universities including DePaul and Boston University.

Arlene Graham is an Entrepreneur and the Founder/CEO of Caribbean Returning Nationals Foundation (CRN) and Global Idea Synergy, (GIS) LLC. She has worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the World Bank, U.S. Department of Defense, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, Western Policy Center, and with The Honorable Ivan Kostov, Former Prime Minister of Bulgaria. VisitArlenecgraham.com.

Dr. Claire Nelson is Ideation Leader of The Futures Forum, and serves as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the World Future Review Journal.  Before establishing The Futures Forum, Dr. Nelson held a variety of positions at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and has spoken at Jamaica Stock Exchange, Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference, Harvard University Black MBA Conference, African Development Bank, World Bank African Diaspora Outreach Forum etc. She is the President and Founder of the Institute of Caribbean Studies.

Wanda Tima-Gilles is a Haitian-Turks Islander who in 2011 launched “L’union Suite”, a Haitian-American blog dedicated to highlighting positive and uplifting stories about Haitian living abroad from celebrities to every day heroes. By December 2011, Wanda co-founded “The Haitian-American” – the Facebook page with over 100k fans and reaching 5 Million people weekly.

A native of Cap-Haitian, Haiti, Samuel Dameus is a dynamic young professional in Social Communication and Photography, with a passion and dedication to offer his absolute best for his country. Dameus obtained a career as a Communications Director for the Ministry of Tourism of Haiti and Sunrise Airways. He was a key influencer in the development of a text message system named Tera, which was a crucial method of communicating with the population following the 2010 earthquake.

Guerlince is the founder Enfome LLC. He has consulted with Haiti Ventures, Yondernet Media Group, Roman Kreyol, Haitian-American Business Expo, EPECARE Inc., Somerville Haitian Coalition and Together For Better Future Inc. Guerlince wrote several magazine articles regarding the Haitian Diaspora community on Nosvoix Magazine and his been featured in many different news programs such as NPR, Voice of America, WGBH, Boston Haitian Reporter, WBZ News, FOX25 News and New England Cable News.

In 2013, Sandra started a movement to promote Haitian Owned Businesses in March 2014 called Haitian-Businesses.com is extensively popular in the Haitian Community as a bridge to connect, to promote and to support Haitian Businesses. With over 55,000 subscribers it attracted the attention of  well known friends of a Haiti such as Donna Karan, Petra Nemcova and Rohan Marley son of the great Bob Marley.  Sandra is featured in the Consulate of Haiti in Miami, Miami Caribbean Code, the Haitian Heritage Museum, Hope for Cities, Haiti Cultural Exchange, Womeneur.com and the MDC TV Show.

Michael is the current President of AHTIC-Haiti US Tech Association, a US-based non-profit trade organization promoting Haiti’s Tech and BPO sector. He has a degree in Industrial Engineering and a MS in Database and System Integration. Michael has spent 9 years at Unibank, Haiti’s largest financial institution. In 2007, Michael joined CompHaiti as Executive Vice-President in charge of Business Development.

Global Startup Ecosystem: Latin America Regional Director; board member of Liks.co, coding and robotics boot camp and home of the winners of Moonbots 2016, a competition part of Google Lunar X Prize. Angie also has a non-profit to teach girls to code and is the Regional Ambassador and Master Educator for Technovation, the largest competition for girls in tech entrepreneurship and was chosen as the 100 Best from Latin America by the ITESM.

Global Startup Ecosystem: Asia Regional Director; Director Entrepreneurial Programs – Draper University.  Asra heads up Draper University’s startup programs, where they grow startups solving the most intractable problems in the emerging markets.

An ecosystem architect, Shaina works with Government and private sector stakeholders in emerging markets to build capacity within their startup ecosystems. She is currently based in Lagos, Nigeria, where she has spent the past two years working on projects with the Lagos State Government to design and implement programs to train, fund, and provide access to global markets to promising young entrepreneurs. She is the founder of the first ever Africa Startup Academy, The Startup Studio, and the Workspace Collective. She has been awarded  “30 under 30, Emerging Leaders Award”; Babson College’s “Nan-Langowitz Women Who Make a Difference Award”; and is a recipient of “The Shelby Cullom Davis Entrepreneurship Prize”.

Founder and CEO of Haiti Tourism Inc.; current Director of Marketing and Corporate Relations of Parole et Action, a 28 years old organization providing quality education in Haiti; former Director of Marketing and Communications for the Greater Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce of Tampa and the Haitian Association Foundation of Tampa Bay.

Director of Pipeline at Techstars working with all 20+ Techstars accelerator programs worldwide on helping them find and recruit the best startups.

Well-known speaker covering topics from entrepreneurship to open innovation and technology trends; called a “prophet” by Germany’s main TV station ARD; featured in a primetime documentary about Silicon Valley; voted one of the top 100 internet influencers in the country by Wirtschaftswoche.

Founder and Director of Haiti’s top IT institute – Ecole Supérieure d’Infotronique d’Haiti (ESIH), a private Haitian Higher Education Institution, recognized by the Haitian Ministry of Education-a voting member of the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), which brought the first TEDx in Port au Prince and Jacmel and the first Hackathon in Haiti. Also the co-founder of the first Caribbean Virtual Reality laboratory.

Formerly the founder of Guelma’s International Art shop, which sold Haitian artwork, Guelma now inspires over 60,000 social media followers with cultural posts about Haiti, African culture and global citizen projects via her FaceBooks pages- Black Roots and Uplifted Exchange.