Howe Innovation Center

Claire Chang is Founder & General Partner of igniteXL Ventures. Claire’s career has spanned 20 years across the Silicon Valley and Korean startup ecosystems as a serial entrepreneur, advisor, and now investor. Through these experiences, she developed an addiction to, and appreciation for, innovation being driven by passionate founders. As a bilingual and bicultural individual, Claire brings a unique and holistic perspective to startups and founders. Prior to founding igniteXL Ventures, Claire launched a global accelerator in 2014 which helped over 200 Korean startups identify and connect with relevant parties in the US market – in support of global expansion. Claire leverages her global accelerator connections and broad relationship network in the US, Korea, and Europe. Claire is excited to work with passionate innovators and disruptors working at the intersection of technology, beauty, and wellness.

Vicky Wu Davis is an entrepreneur, educator, activist, angel investor, and mom. Through her various roles, Vicky works to bridge disparate communities, cultivating genuine appreciation for diversity, which in turn fosters innovation and promotes the proliferation of diversity in all areas of leadership.

Inspired by the birth of her older son 15 years ago, Vicky channeled her prior decade of tech (videogames, mobile tech) and social (orphans/foster care) entrepreneurship experiences to create yCITIES (Creating Impact Through Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainability). yCITIES cultivates entrepreneurial leaders, empowering them to think critically, and inspiring them to act innovatively, to improve the fabric of society. Vicky is also a member of Beacon Angels and TBD Angels, investing in early-stage companies primarily in the areas of tech and life sciences.

Vicky has been a mentor at MIT’s Venture Mentor Services for the past 19 years, which supports innovation and entrepreneurial activity throughout the MIT community, and is the Co-Founder of “A Seat at the Table”, aimed at redefining leadership representation when important conversations take place. She sits on the Cultural Climate Committee at a local elementary school, as well as the Advisory Council for Gordon College’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

Vicky often speaks about innovation, diversity, and education reform (such as Opening Keynote for the 2016 MA Annual STEM Summit, and Keynote for the 2016 Empower Schools Conference). Vicky’s entrepreneurial and educational leadership has been recognized numerous times over the course of her career, such as the Kauffman Foundation for “Entrepreneurs Giving Back”; 2004 Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” Honoree; Red Herring’s cover story “Young Moguls: 20 Outstanding Entrepreneurs Under 35” in 2005; 2015 WomenUp Honoree as a local woman of influence; 2015 Bostinno’s Fifty on Fire nominee; 2016 Boston Women of Influence Honoree; a 2016 GK25 Boston’s Most Influential People of Color Honoree; and 2016 Mass Technology Leadership Council’s Distinguished Leadership Awardee. She is often quoted in various founder how-to books, including the recent “LAUNCHING WHILE FEMALE: Smashing the System That Holds Women Entrepreneurs Back”.

Vicky is a mom of 3 kids and 3 dogs. She loves everything about baseball, including coaching Little League for her boys in the past, and Beep Baseball (baseball for the blind) for her daughter. Vicky is also an avid dancer and boxer.

Emmanuel (Manny) Duran is Dominican-American with a background in language acquisition, public policy, and all things early stage startups. Manny studied American Sign Language throughout high school, leading him to explore accessible technologies and policy. He holds a BA from Middlebury College in International Studies and French, where he also completed coursework in Arabic and Disability Studies. His research abroad includes residency at Yaoundé’s School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Cameroon and a Fulbright grant in Morocco. Here, he explored technologies and policies to support language acquisition for Deaf students in multilingual societies. As a Senior Associate at Silicon Valley Bank he worked with early stage startups with a niche interest in his portfolio for edtech, accessibility tech, and global tech companies. In 2023, Manny joined Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and UM6P Ventures.

Carina Ho is an independent music artist that performs under the moniker ONIKHO, as well as a program manager at Airbnb who specializes in disability inclusion. Formerly a company member with AXIS Dance Company, as well as a Fulbright Fellow in Montevideo, Uruguay, her work seeks to promote greater inclusion for people with disabilities through the arts and technology. She is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Keith Kirkland is Chief Haptic Officer (CHO) and Cofounder of WearWorks. He is a haptics enthusiast, accessories designer, engineer and impact-driven strategist that is deeply excited about reimagining the future role of touch in design and digital communications, while expanding the human ability to sense our environments. He has been recognized by the Rowena Reed Award, SXSW, The Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, EY, TED, Dropbox, The Yokohama Government, Beyond Bauhaus, and the MET Museum. Ultimately, he is inspired by the intersection of touch, creative business model development and nuanced customer insights to create sustainable impact-driven technologies and foster their adoption at scale.

Charles is currently the CEO of ARxVision, making the world more accessible with spatial audio. Charles has passion for inventing user-centric, multi-modal, technology-enabled products to empower human abilities and improve life. With expertise in problem-solving through design methodologies, cutting-edge technology, and magical user experiences he has built and lead diverse teams bringing products from 0 to 1: from ideation to proof of concept, MVP, and launch. Through experiences in startups and companies like the BBC and Ubisoft, Charles acquired the necessary versatility in design, engineering, and business to create successful innovations that challenge the status quo, inspire and impact.

Charlotte is the Founder and CEO of Parenthood Ventures, the platform for early stage ParentTech which is home to more than 400 startups serving parents and children. Charlotte is a graduate of Oxford University and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. She spent almost a decade in Strategy Consulting at The Boston Consulting group across the London, San Francisco and New York offices, where she specialised in Media, Tech, and M&A. She concluded her time there at BCG Digital Ventures, their in-house innovation lab. Following her consulting career, she joined the leadership team of YC-backed Fintech startup Arthena, before founding Parenthood to address the innovation gaps she saw across the sector after starting her family in San Francisco. She is a mother of two and now resides in the Miami area.

Brittany Palmer is the Founder and CEO of Beeyonder, a company that is redefining how people experience the world with a marketplace for accessible and inclusive, live and interactive virtual tours by local guides. Prior to starting Beeyonder, she was a Principal and In-House Counsel for an international consulting firm. Brittany has a BS in Management and a BS in Biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as well as a JD from Pace Law School. Her hobbies include traveling to exciting places around the world, eating good food and wine, and enjoying the outdoors. Brittany currently lives near Boston, Massachusetts with her husband, Rich, and their dog, Atlas.

Paul Ruvolo is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Olin College of Engineering. He works with his students and people who are blind from all around the world to co-design apps that help with exploring and navigating unfamiliar, indoor environments. This research requires a mixture of approaches from fields such as human-centered design, computer vision, and robotics. The current focus of this work is to leverage emerging technologies in mobile phones, such as augmented reality, to generate precise navigation instructions that are accessible regardless of one’s level of vision. As part of his appointment at Olin College, he also teaches courses on accessibility, user-centered design, and computer science.

Devon Sherman Daley is a FinTech, InsurTech and HealthTech leader who is passionate about building products, startup accelerators and innovation ecosystems that create positive impact.

Devon is currently advising stakeholders in Bermuda on how to attract global tech talent to the island and grow its innovation ecosystem. Formerly, Devon launched MassChallenge FinTech and led MassChallenge HealthTech, startup accelerators that drive intentional partnerships between early-stage technology startups and large enterprises in the financial services, healthcare and public sectors. In this role, she had the opportunity to tackle a range of challenges from increasing access to financial products to improving the patient experience. Prior to MassChallenge, she held strategy and corporate venture capital roles at a Fortune 500 financial services company.

Devon is a graduate of Harvard University where she studied Anthropology and Economics and Stanford Graduate School of Business’ Ignite Program where she studied Design Thinking.