Philly Tech Week 2018

Aniyia is a creator, inventor and tech changemaker. She started a fashion hardware company, Tinsel, in 2014, in response to the lack of tech products developed with women in mind. After coming up with the idea of an audio accessory that doubles as a beautiful piece of jewelry, she left her role in marketing at the tech company Voxer to pursue it fully. Aniyia Williams has background in the arts and tech, as well as a decade of training as singer of classical music and opera. She has held roles in marketing, community management, business development and non-profit fundraising. Alongside building Tinsel, Aniyia is a co-founder of Zebras Unite and serves as Executive Director of Black & Brown Founders, which provides vital resources to Black and Latinx entrepreneurs building tech companies with limited capital.

As Director of Innovation at Independence Blue Cross, Michelle uses Design Thinking to help internal and external customers creatively solve challenging business issues. She is also an Assistant Professor at Temple University, where she teaches creativity and innovation in the Fox School of Business, and is the Associate Director of the Flinders project, leading an initiative to develop the innovation curriculum at Flinders University in South Australia. She loves helping people realize their creative potential and develop new ideas. She has her bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and her master’s in Writing Studies from St. Joseph’s University, and will begin her Ph.D. in Creativity & Innovation this summer at University of the Arts.

When she’s not drawing flip charts and ideating, Michelle spends her time in South Philadelphia with her husband and three amazing boys, who do their best to exhaust her tireless energy.

Mark Willis is a designer, strategist and entrepreneur. After a decade directing digital strategy at Harvard University, he recently moved the Philadelphia area to grow his design firm, Clean Sheet Co., and to consult with startups and digital projects at the intersection of art and technology. He’s a co-founder at the Philly-based Texel Foundation, a new consortium creating open-source infrastructure to power blockchain-driven artwork projects.

Paul McNeal is a connector, speaker, brand evangelist, and technologist at The Sturgeon Group, LLC and owns The Crypto Curator. Being exposed to Bitcoin since 2011, he has amassed a great deal of knowledge and wealth. He keeps his finger on the pulse of this industry by curating information daily. This information is shared with his rapidly growing community on Facebook and via a daily news summary. He aims to create awareness of this technology with everyday people and organizations. His network spans thousands of top notch folks in the Blockchain space: Programmers/Developers, Thought Leaders, Startups, Investors, Reporters, etc.

Ken Rimple is the Director of Training and Mentoring Services for Chariot Solutions. He and his team deliver instruction in a variety of subjects, including React and Redux, Angular w/TypeScript, AngularJS, Javascript and other frameworks and tools. He has written and delivered training in React, Angular with TypeScript, and AngularJS, in the form of two-to-three day courses. He mentors both employees and clients, delivers on-site private training and speaks at conferences and user groups about Single Page Application development techniques on a regular basis. Ken is also an author of Manning’s Spring Roo in Action, which was published in 2012. He blogs about React, Angular, AngularJS, Spring and other topics on Chariot's blog. He has co-chaired a number of Chariot conferences, including ETE 2009-2017, Cloud-Con East in 2008, and the Philly Grails Conference in 2009. He is responsible for curating content from ETE and other conferences in the form of screencasts and podcasts.

Hoon Oh(VP, Creative Director) is a maker who is interested in provoking how we think about existing things by combining layers of context and technology. He aims for design to inspire, challenge, but most importantly communicate thought objects, spaces and media.

He worked with clients like JetBlue, Verizon, Google and iRobot and is currently working with Comcast, PMA, Sunoco to bring more engaging communication with their audience through experiential marketing.

Wilhem is a self-described "well-rounded computer geek." Wilhem got their start in robotics as a young teen and continued to grow and excel in many areas of computer science and software development. While their main interests is in back end web technology, Wilhem revels in taking on challenges in any environment and continues to learn new technologies and stacks for the simple joy of programming and creating. Wilhem has been programming for the last 9 years of their life.

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.