World Pitch 2019
August 15, 2019
Santa Clara, CA
Technovation World Pitch
World Pitch is a night of networking and connecting to support young women aspiring to change the world through tech.
Meet and cheer on the young women (ages 10-18) from around the world who will be previewing their business proposals and pitching their apps at the final event of the Technovation season.
Judges and Speakers
Speakers
Emcee
Kris Reyes
Journalist, ABC News
Kris Reyes is a multimedia journalist with more than 15 years experience in broadcast and digital newsrooms. In 2018, her short documentaries for San Francisco-based AJ+, focusing on the teacher crisis, race relations and migrant separation garnered nearly 20 million views on various social media platforms. Her team took home a prestigious Edward R. Murrow award in 2017. She is a storyteller, who believes in the power of a story to humanize build bridges and facilitate important conversations.
Keynote Speaker
Justine Sass
Chief, Section of Education for Inclusion and Gender Equality, UNESCO
Justine Sass is the Chief of the Section of Education for Inclusion and Gender Equality at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. Over the past 25 years, she has championed gender equality, girls’ and women’s empowerment, and the right to education and health. A fervent advocate for gender-responsive STEM education, Sass has spearheaded UNESCO’s programs to engage, inspire, and retain girls and women in these fields. Sass believes that girls can be a force for innovation, change, and leadership – and that we must invest in their talent.
Judges
Patricia Hansen
North America Investment Commissioner, Invest Chile
Patricia has over 7 years of experience working with international companies expanding to new markets. First by managing Operations and Acceleration at Start-Up Chile with a portfolio of 250 early stage startups a year from more than 80 countries, and later moving to San Francisco to lead promotion efforts to identify and guide companies in the United States and Mexico to expand their businesses to Chile.
Jonathan Berman
CEO of J.E. Berman Associates
Jonathan Berman is CEO of J.E. Berman Associates LLC, which invests in early-stage technology companies focused on emerging markets. He serves on the board of directors of Asoko Insight as well as Invest Africa. Jonathan is author of Success in Africa, and his views have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg and Harvard Business Review, where he writes a regular feature on leadership, uncertainty and growth markets.
Professor Heather Malin
Director of Research, Stanford
Heather Malin is a senior scientist at the Stanford University Center on Adolescence, where she directs research projects on youth purpose. She is the author of Teaching for Purpose: Preparing Students for Lives of Meaning and has published numerous research articles on purpose development in adolescence, young entrepreneurs, youth civic engagement, and artistic development. Previously, she was an art teacher and provided professional development and mentorship for teachers.
Brandon Trew
Director of Product Management, Uber
Brandon is a product management director at Uber, where he leads the global Shared Rides product line (aka UberPool). Before Uber Brandon helped build "Google Express" from scratch, as a retail delivery startup within Google, where got his first taste of the unique challenges at the intersection between tech and operations. At home Brandon is an adoring father of a beautiful toddler, a hack photographer, and a proud South African.
Bala Sahejpal
Head of Data & Insights, App Dynamics
An experienced technology executive, Bala Sahejpal brings more than 20 years of experience in the area of Data & Analytics. She is currently the Vice President and Head of Data & Insights at AppDynamics where she built the company’s analytics capabilities from the ground up and is instrumental in driving data driven decisions on how customers are using AppDynamics products as well as the company’s SaaS performance. Prior to Appdynamics, she was Sr. Director at Juniper Networks where she was responsible for developing the company’s Data and BI strategy, Big Data and Master Data management programs.
Olivier Suinat
Corporate Vice President, Global Commercial Sales, AMD
Suinat is responsible for driving profitable revenue growth of AMD’s global commercial segment. Previously, Suinat served as SVP of Global Sales for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He led HPE’s sales into the Enterprise segment consisting of the largest customers and strategic alliances worldwide across HPE’s portfolio of hardware, software and services. Olivier holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, a Master’s in Business from Ecole Superieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (ESSEC) in France and has participated in Executive development programs at INSEAD.
"My World Pitch experience has, in the most clichéd manner, changed my life. In the past two years, I've gone from zero coding experience to teaching a group of underprivileged girls in my community how to code, starting my own company, and developing my app Cappable."
- Soumya T.
2015 Technovation Finalist (India)
& Founder of Bookbite
"I am still very grateful to this project, because it has opened so many opportunities for us since that [World Pitch] summer.
Now I want to share my knowledge with future Technovation generations, want them to believe in themselves, and not to be afraid of new horizons!"
- Alina D.
2016 World Pitch Finalist (Kazakhstan)
& TEDx Speaker
"I think your cause is a great one, and has really made a difference already for the girls participating at my school this year. They went from "We can't do this, we're not good enough," to "Let's work every day so we can win!""
- Technovation Volunteer
Don't Miss Out – Join the Technovation World Pitch Livestream
Can’t make it to World Pitch?
Tune into our World Pitch livestream on Twitter! On August 16, visit twitter.com/technovation, where the livestream will automatically appear. You do not need to create a Twitter account to view it.
Spread the word!
Whether you are tuning into the World Pitch livestream or keeping up to date with our tweets before the event, be sure to retweet, comment, and mention @technovation and #WorldPitch19.
You can follow our other social media channels for updates, too:
Facebook: @TechChal
Instagram: @techchal
For press inquiries please contact [email protected]
