Philly Tech Week 2018

Sylvester Mobley is the founder and CEO of the youth tech education nonprofit, Coded by Kids. Through Coded by Kids, Sylvester works to increase access to tech education opportunities for those who are underserved, especially children of color and children who come from underserved communities. Sylvester’s mission is to ensure that every child has the support, resources, and opportunity to build the next Google, Microsoft or Facebook, regardless of what they look like or where they come from.

Because of the dominant role technology plays in our society, Sylvester believes that building a tech industry that is diverse, inclusive and equitable is one of the most pressing issues we face today.

Under his leadership, Coded by Kids has grown from an organization that served fewer than 15 children in one Philadelphia recreation center to serving more than 200 students per week in schools and community centers in three states. Sylvester has received awards for his work from several organizations including Philadelphia City Council, the Philadelphia Business Journal, The Philadelphia 76ers, Billy Penn, and Philadelphia Academies.

Sylvester got his start in technology while serving in the United States Air Force. He is a veteran of the war in Iraq, who served in three branches of the United States military over 12 years. Sylvester is also a graduate of Temple University’s Fox School of Business.

As Amino’s VP of Engineering, Daniel leads the overarching strategy for the processing and infrastructure that deliver Amino’s products. With nearly two decades of experience managing and scaling internet startups, Daniel is thrilled to work with other leaders in their fields on a transformative product with boundless opportunities in the digital advertising and tech spaces.

Daniel began working professionally as a teenager when he engineered an ISP to bring connectivity to NJ public schools with T1s, frame relay, and BSD Unix. His early .com career was focused on high-volume direct marketing and ad tech. Later, he moved into engineering very large backend and data platforms, growing his consulting firm, DW3 LLC, to nearly $700K in annual revenue. His clients included dating, streaming, and large brands like Jango Radio (10M+ monthly users), SNAP Interactive (social and dating apps with 50M+ users), Livestream, howardstern.com, Spring Moves, and PetSmart.

As Chief Innovation Officer of Power Home Remodeling, Timothy is responsible for all aspects of technology for this high-growth-mode company that is transforming the home remodeling industry. This includes the company’s unique, state-of-the-art collaborative intelligence platform, which enables seamless, real-time communication across a network of thousands of employees, partners and customers in 21 states. Since joining Power as a consultant in 2007, Timothy’s counsel, vision and leadership have been instrumental to the company’s growth and aggressive expansion objectives. Understanding the need to better communicate with employees in the field, as well as provide the company with a way to seamlessly track, facilitate, engage with and support marketing and sales progress, customer experience, installation processes, and post-installation payment cycles, Timothy and his global business technology team developed NITRO. A radical and visionary departure from conventional solutions to these challenges, NITRO is now the most technologically innovative and advanced enterprise solution in the industry. As such, its capabilities were instrumental in the company’s rapid growth to its current state as the nation's 2nd largest exterior home remodeler with more than $520 million in revenue, and is viewed company-wide as the critical tool to Power’s continued success.

Timothy's educational background doesn't start in a top university. In spite of having a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, Timothy decided to tackle life first—going on the road with a band and financing the tour himself. After a year of truly experiencing life, Timothy returned home in debt and needed to figure out his next move. After a series of jobs in varying industries from aerospace to engineering, he found his home in computers, technology and innovation. In 1985 he founded Sintaks, a regional systems integrator working with clients such as ARAMARK, GMAC, SEI, etc. After growing the company for more than 10 years, Timothy sold Sintaks to Cannon in 1996 as Cannon viewed this acquisition as strategic to their goal of connected devices. The entrepreneur bug had taken hold of Timothy, so he went on to start, grow and sell multiple technology companies, laying the groundwork for the creation of Data In Motion, a systems innovation company. Power became a customer of the company in 2007 before finally integrating the company fully into the technology division of Power in 2012. Timothy currently resides in Collegeville, PA.

H. Adam Holt has been a financial advisor for 20 years helping to build and manage his wealth management firm to over $1B in assets under management. Adam is known for his early adoption of technology to build customer experiences that is trend-setting in the industry. He is the founder and CEO of Asset-Map, LLC, a fintech firm dedicated to creating engaging visual communication tools used throughout the customer and advisor journey.

Adam obtained his Bachelors of Science in Economics and Environmental Planning from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, an MBA from Drexel University, and a Certificate in Retirement Planning from Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Adam also attended the American College where he earned his Chartered Financial Consultant® designation.

Nicole Pumphrey has dedicated her career to fostering cultural understanding and promoting inclusion through education and workforce development. Nicole joined the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians as director of strategic partnerships in 2014, where she leads the organization’s external engagement strategy, building collaborations and advocating for the valuable contributions of immigrants to the region’s social stability and economic prosperity.

Caresse is the Director of Digital at ISL, a digital agency based in Washington, DC, that invents digital & physical experiences for the world’s biggest brands. With over a decade of managing innovation, design, and technology initiatives for organizations small and large, Caresse serves as a thought leader in aligning digital strategy with her client’s business goals through exemplary project and product management. Caresse plays an advisory role on client engagements and leads ISL's team of project and product managers. Caresse plays an advisory role on client engagements and leads ISL’s team of project and product managers. She is a strong advocate for user-centered design and agile methodologies and leads efforts to transform the traditional agency approach to technology projects by taking a product focused mindset to client engagements. She's an outdoor adventure enthusiast, eternal optimist, believer in continuous improvement and passionate about delivering early, honest, and productive feedback in her work and life.

Deesha Dyer is a speaker, writer, Creative Event and Strategy consultant, and most notably known as the former Obama Administration Social Secretary. The Philadelphia native became a White House intern at the age of 30 and completed a seven-year tenure there that honed her expertise in event coordination, logistics, protocol, and statecraft. Her storied career is unconventional at best, with themes of reinvention, drive, and a commitment to community service integrated throughout.

An award-winning event producer, Deesha has been featured in national media outlets including TIME, The New York Times, Marie Claire, Essence, Vogue, Refinery29, Forbes, The Root andWashington Post. A charismatic speaker with unbridled optimism, she now shares her message of hope, hard work and living life on your own terms with audiences across the country, while running her private consulting firm.

Alan Flake is an attending surgeon in the Division of General Thoracic & Fetal Surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where he is Vice Chair of Research, holds the Ruth and Tristram C. Colket, Jr. Endowed Chair in Pediatric Surgery and acts as Director of the Center for Fetal Research. He is also Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Dr. Flake has led a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded research laboratory directed toward surgical correction of fetal anomalies and fetal stem cell and gene therapy for over 20 years. Under Dr. Flake's leadership, the Center for Fetal Research is exploring innovations in prenatal treatment, particularly in the areas of gene and stem cell therapy, and for life-threatening anatomic malformations and diseases. Recently, the Center has developed new technology for physiologic support of the extreme premature infant, a development that could have major implications for the treatment of prematurity.

Dr. Flake has published extensively with authorship of over 350 peer-reviewed publications and over 100 review articles and book chapters. Clinically, Dr. Flake actively participates as a Fetal Surgeon in the Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment Program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with interests in fetal diagnosis and therapy, in utero stem cell and gene therapy, extracorporeal support of the extreme premature infant (the artificial placenta/uterus), hepatobiliary surgery, and minimally invasive neonatal and pediatric surgery.