Philly Tech Week 2018

Juliana Feliciano Reyes is a journalist covering work and labor for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. She was previously an editor and reporter for Technical.ly. She's the president of the Philly chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association and a three-time Philadelphia News Award winner.

Mike McCoy is part of ConsenSys' Ecosystem Development strategies where he helps build the teams involved in growing the Ethereum protocol around the world. Currently Mike has helped build the campus recruitment model, supports a number of ConsenSys teams such as uPort, Grid+, Linnia, Blockchain for Social Impact and D.C. Labs in their strategy to create efficient blockchain projects.

Before coming to ConsenSys, Mike helped start a software development bootcamp in Philadelphia, PA called Launch Academy, as well as working in technical sales and recruiting for a number of years before jumping into the blockchain space.

Dr. Sezgin Ayabakan is an assistant professor in the Management Information Systems Department at Temple University’s Fox School of Business.

He is currently teaching Data Science course at the Fox School of Business and previously taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Information Systems and Predictive Analytics at the University of Baltimore and UT-Dallas.

His research interests lie primarily in two areas. The first involves Business Analytics with a focus on healthcare analytics. The second involves the business value of information technologies. Both areas investigate the managerial implications of information technology implementation decisions at healthcare or manufacturing organizations and contain a major analytics or empirical component. He is currently working on a healthcare project that involves analysis of over 500K patient admission records from 68 hospitals in the North Texas region and another project on the state of Maryland’s entire inpatient and outpatient admission claims’ records for the fiscal years of 2013 – 2017 (~5.4M records). He has published papers in MIS Quarterly and won the best conference paper runner-up award at the 2014 International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Auckland, New Zealand.

Ayabakan graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas, where he earned a PhD in Management Science, with an emphasis on MIS. He received a Master of Science degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Florida, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Turkey’s Bilkent University.

Gillian manages Sisu’s products and technical strategy. She is an inventor of Hemafuse and has directed Hemafuse’s development from an idea to fully manufactured, injection-molded device. Gillian previously founded a medical device design firm for Ghana. She has been published in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, has presented at the Midwest Biomedical Engineering Career Conference and Appropriate Healthcare Technologies for Developing Countries Seminar in London, and was named Baltimore’s “2016 Technologist of the Year” at Baltimore’s 4th Annual Innovation award.

Thomas Jay Rush is the founder of QuickBlocks.io, a blockchain focused consultancy and software company delivering account-specific, articulated data from the Ethereum blockchain. Mr. Rush is also the founder of the Philadelphia Ethereum Meetup group. Prior to founding QuickBlocks.io, Mr. Rush served as President and CEO of Great Hill Corporation, an Internet-based software vendor first started in 1994. A practicing poet, Mr. Rush speaks and writes widely about the blockchain and its implications.

Sam graduated from Wingate University (she knows you’ve never heard of it) with a degree in Marketing and often refers to herself as “Cupid”, but for your career. She loves diet coke, coffee, and socializing. When she’s not on the quest to find Stitch’s next team member, you can find her spending her free time with her husband, which usually involves enjoying the Philly food scene, going to the movies, or training for some race (she’s completed two tough mudders).

Leslie Zacharkow is a designer/developer living in Berkeley, California. She studied Industrial Design at the University of the Arts and spent 8 years in Philadelphia before moving west. Her hobbies include leaving work early to spend time outside, planning her escape back east, and working on Tabby Cat (of course).