2019 Summit session leaders and bios

Click here for the full schedule and session descriptions

Malkia Devich Cyril is the co-founder and executive director of MediaJustice — a national hub boldly advancing racial justice, rights and dignity in a digital age; and co-founder of the MediaJustice Network. Devich-Cyril is a communications strategist, a veteran in the movement for digital rights and freedom, and a leader in the movement for Black lives. For more than two decades, Devich-Cyril has organized communities of color and other under-represented groups against media bias and for an open and affordable internet, the abolition of discriminatory high-tech law enforcement, and accountable tech platforms and companies among other human rights safeguards in a digital age. In 2002, Devich-Cyril helped coin the term "Media Justice", and in 2019 declared that one significant goal of the Media Justice movement was to "fight for a future where we are all connected, represented and free". Malkia Devich Cyril is the widowed spouse of Alana Devich Cyril, and a regular spokesperson on issues of media, technology, and race.

Jocelyn Garibay is Code2040’s Interim Vice President of Programs. At Code2040, Jocelyn has worked across 70 tech companies delivering trainings and consulting around navigating bias, sitting in productive and hard conversations about race, and managing with a racial equity lens. As a member of Code2040’s Senior Team, Jocelyn drives organizational strategy and works to make Code2040 the most sustainable and equitable version of itself.

Prior to Code2040, Jocelyn has been an internal equity and inclusion champion in both the tech and non-profit sectors. Jocelyn has experience integrating equity into every aspect of the employee lifecycle - from unionizing staff for higher wages and comprehensive overtime policies to rolling out Employee Resource Group structures; every system that upholds our workplaces has space to become more equitable.

Jocelyn is a queer, feminist, Aquarian, Latina. When she’s not dreaming of a racially equitable tech industry where Black and Brown folks thrive, she’s probably off reading a book, dancing to house and soul tunes, doing some light community organizing, or watching cooking shows with her partner. Top Chef, anyone?

Sandra Cordero is the Director of the Families Belong Together Coalition. She is a political communications and engagement strategist with an extensive background in constituency outreach and international development. Prior to joining the coalition, Sandra worked with Planned Parenthood, Swing Left, and Access Democracy amongst other organizations, advising on fundraising and expansion strategies. During her service in the Obama Administration, Sandra served as a key advisor to the Office of the United States Executive Director at the Inter-American Development Bank where she oversaw the creation of nearly 5 billion dollars in public and private infrastructure investments in Central America. Previously, she led the charge for constituency outreach in the Northeast as the National Northeast Regional Operation Vote Director for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. Prior to joining the re-election campaign, she managed several California State Assembly and US Congressional races. In addition to her experience in domestic politics, Sandra led countrywide NGO efforts in Tanzania and Colombia working on issues related to children and mothers.

Juell Stewart is an urban strategist and researcher based in San Francisco. She is currently the Policy Research Manager at Race Forward, a nonprofit national racial justice organization. Juell has a Master’s degree in City Planning with a concentration in Community Economic Development from the University of Pennsylvania, and she is interested in the myriad ways technology shapes urban life, community engagement and political participation. Her work revolves around her passion for building and learning about vibrant communities, and introducing new ideas to catalyze meaningful dialogue and social change.

Elise Smith is the CEO of Praxis Labs, a new social impact focused venture that advances diversity and inclusion outcomes through Virtual Reality based learning experiences. Prior to this work, Elise invested in and coached entrepreneurs developing diversity and inclusion solutions and published diversity and inclusion research and resources at NewSchools Venture Fund. Elise began her career at IBM Watson where she developed early iterations of Watson for Education products, led B2B sales, as well as edtech partnerships with the Watson platform. Elise holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and is pursuing an MBA/ MA in Education at Stanford University.

Mutale Nkonde is the Founder/Executive Director of AI For the People a non profit that seeks to empower African American communities to advocate for their digital civil rights by education Black communities about the impact AI Technologies have on racialized communities. And fellow at the Berkman Klein Center of Internet and Society at Harvard University. Prior to this she acted as a tech policy expert for Congresswoman Yvette Clarke. During her tenure she was the legislative lead for the Algorithmic and Deep Fakes Accountability Acts. However she found it difficult to move the legislation and so decided to look for new ways to influence AI policy. Nkonde has been working as a public technologist for the past six years. Her work has been covered in MIT Tech Review, Venturebeat and Fast Company and she is a much sought after speaker.

Dr. Jamika Burge is a techprepreneur and co-founder of blackcomputeHER.org, a non-profit startup that is transforming computing+tech education & workforce development for black women and girls.

She is also part of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Design team that supports the conversational (and intelligent) agent, Eno, at Capital One. In this role, she serves as Dean of Eno University, Capital One's learning and co-development program for conversational AI, at-scale.

She received her PhD in Computer Science from Virginia Tech and her Bachelor of Science from Fisk University, an HBCU in Nashville, TN.

Dr. Rumman Chowdhury is the Global Lead for Responsible AI at Accenture and leader in the field of AI Ethics. She is a TedX speaker, a Forbes Tech contributing author and has been named by InformationWeek as one of 10 influential AI and machine learning experts to follow on Twitter. She was also named one of BBC’s 100 Women for 2017, recognized as one of the Bay Area’s top 40 under 40, and honoured to be inducted to the British Royal Society of the Arts (RSA).

She is a practicing data scientist and a quantitative social scientist, with a Bachelors Degree in Political Science and Management from MIT, a Masters Degree in Quantitative Methods from Columbia and a PhD in Political Science from University of California at San Diego.

Matt Cagle (@matt_cagle) is a Technology and Civil Liberties Attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, where he works on digital rights issues, including privacy, surveillance, and free speech. Matt focuses on ensuring modern digital systems — be they private platforms or public projects — are publicly debated and implemented with equality and justice in mind. This includes work on the use of surveillance technology by local police, and the promotion of best practices for online platforms. Prior to joining the ACLU full-time, Matt worked in private practice advising startups on privacy issues. He holds degrees from the University of Arizona and Stanford Law School, where he was a member editor of the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Ida Bezabeh is a healthcare consultant and community advocate with a passion for promoting health and wellness. She’s held various roles in the healthcare industry at Stanford Health Care, Sutter Health and currently as a consultant at Kaiser Permanente. Ida was recently named on the 2018 40 Under 40 list by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Ida is committed to changing the way we think about health and wellness. She is the Founder of We Flourish, a wellness community with a mission to create spaces for meaningful conversations that inspire women to prioritize wellness of the mind, body and spirit. She was recently appointed Assistant Clinical Professor (volunteer series) at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in the Department of Community Health Systems. She is also President-Elect for Women Health Care Executives (WHCE) and a member of the Diversity Committee of the California Association of Healthcare Leaders (CAHL).

She received her B.S. in Psychobiology from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and M.S. in Healthcare Administration & Interprofessional Leadership from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). In her free time she enjoys exploring Bay Area hiking trails, travel and being outdoors.

Diedra Barber is the founder and CEO of Filament Consulting Group, a social justice consulting firm in organization strategy development and leadership coaching. I specialize in the needs of women, people of color and queer leaders dedicated to social justice-induced systemic change and infiltration in their organizational culture, mission, vision, goals, product and/or service. Real time leadership coaching and customized trainings offer opportunities for systemic long-term culture change and growth.

My specialties and talents lie in co-creating, fostering and holding space and facilitating conversations for individuals of varied identities (race, gender, class, education, geography, ability, institutional power, etc.) to actively listen, be present and speak with, not at, each other.

My professional background is in education equity, training design and facilitation, program management, operations and business development, organizational behavior and change management. I attended and completed multiple higher education college/university programs. I completed my MBA at Mills College in Oakland, California in 2014.

Maureen Benson is a visionary leader with more than 20 years of experience in opening, leading and growing social impact organizations. As a proud product of New York City public schools and a teenage idealist, I moved to Atlanta in 1992 with the intention of pursuing law as a doorway to being a public servant in service of those that had not been served by our society and its systems. However, in my sophomore year of college, I read Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities and realized for the first time how dramatically different my educational experiences were, as a white person, from those less than 10 miles from me based on race and socio-economic status. While this outraged me, it also fueled me to engage in public service through education. After more than 20 years of work in education and private sector (non-profits and for-profits) focused on racial justice and intersectional leadership, I feel even more strongly that we must engage tirelessly in our governmental and educational systems with an emphasis on interrupting our personal and systemic perpetuation of historical disparities.

Julissa Vaccaro-Jansen is a Software Engineer at ActBlue Technical Services. She helps campaigns see their data through various user-friendly dashboards and reports. Julissa has been a software engineer for 5 years, and originally worked in nonprofit marketing before attending a software development bootcamp.

Daisy Ozim is the founder of Resilient Wellness, a public health startup designed to address intergenerational trauma within marginalized communities. As a commissioner for Alameda County Public Health Commission, she works towards health equity and decentralization of power for vulnerable communities. Her work is centered around decolonizing philanthropy, technology and public policy. In regards to the tech industry, Daisy is passionate about supporting folks of color in accessing the tools and frameworks necessary to thrive in difficult environments. She is an advocate for self-care and wellness for those experiencing burnout in the tech space and has presented on POC health in the tech industry at conferences such as Tech Intersections, Youth, Tech and Health and Google Tech Inclusion Conference.

Malaka Wilson-Greene is a Queer Black Femme, born and raised in Watts, California. She is the owner of Two Chicks in the Mix, a bakery based in both Los Angeles and Oakland. She holds a Masters degree in Sexuality Studies and a Bachelors degree in Ethnic Studies.

Antionette D. Carroll is the Founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, a nonprofit educating and deploying youth leadership to challenge racial inequities impacting Black and Latinx populations. Within this capacity, Antionette has pioneered a new, award-winning form of creative problem solving called Equity-Centered Community Design (named a Fast Company World Changing Idea Finalist in General Excellence and Urban Design) and has received several recognitions and awards including being named a 2018 Echoing Green Global Fellow, TED Fellow, and Camelback Ventures Fellow.

Additionally, in 2014, Antionette was named the Founding Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force of AIGA: The Professional Association of Design. Currently, she’s an AIGA National Board Director and Chair Emerita of the Task Force working on long-term strategic initiatives such as the Design Census Program with Google and national Design for Inclusivity Summit with Microsoft. She’s the co-founder of the Design + Diversity Conference and Fellowship.

Antionette is an international speaker and facilitator, previously speaking at TED, Capital One, Harvard, Stanford University, Microsoft, NASA, TEDxHerndon and TEDxGatewayArch, AIGA National Conference, The Ohio State University, and more.

Octavia Zahrt is a PhD candidate in Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she studies innovative ways to help people thrive by leveraging the psychology of mindsets and technology. Octavia loves to apply her expertise to promote diversity and inclusion, currently working on pay equity with Riva and previously doing people analytics at Google.

Originally from Germany, Octavia holds a BA in European Social and Political Studies from University College London. In her free time, she enjoys music, dancing, dabbling with art, and exploring nature.

Angelic Williams is the Founder and CEO of MyUmbrella: a social networking platform for the LGBTQ+ community rooted in Wellness, Inclusion, Social and Education. She is a third-generation entrepreneur and grew up in a family of small business owners and was intimately involved with the day to day operations. As a result, she’s well versed in the grit and perseverance required to start, sustain and grow a business.

Prior to founding her company, she was an architectural designer for various civic buildings and the lead developer manager for affordable and workforce housing projects in the Bay Area and New York City.

Francisco Izaguirre is the engineering/product lead for Riva, an emerging company that is tackling the pay equity problem by empowering candidates to successfully negotiate higher compensation.

After high school, Francisco worked at Qualcomm as a support engineer for four years while attending community college. He then transferred to Stanford University where, as a first-generation low-income student, he earned an undergraduate degree in Computer Science with a focus in cryptography. Upon graduation he turned down a return offer from Facebook to help build Riva and tackle pay equity.

Francisco is an early crypto evangelist and an OK guitar player with a passion for tacos.

For more than 20 years, Nicole Sanchez has served as a leading expert on workplace culture with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion. A proponent of living wage and worker rights, she examines issues of inequlity in Silicon Valley, and the divide between “knowledge workers” and the hourly wage earners. Nicole has transformed workplace culture for Fortune 500 corporations, tech startups, and mission-driven organizations. She consults globally, advising tech executives on best practices in diversity and inclusion. Previously, Nicole served as VP of Social Impact at GitHub and Managing Partner for the Kapor Center for Social Impact. Nicole earned a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business where she is a lecturer on workplace diversity. Nicole serves on the Board of CODE2040, and has received numerous awards for her work, including Spelman College’s Game Changer Award and was names Maker’s Game-Changing Hispanic Women. Nicole is a mother of two teenagers and lives with her family in the San Francisco East Bay, where she was born and raised.

Caille Millner is a deputy opinion editor and a weekly columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. Her column focuses on the culture of the Bay Area. She is also the author of a memoir, The Golden Road: Notes on my Gentrification, from Penguin Press, which won the Barnes and Noble Emerging Writers Award.

Edwin Lindo has embarked on the journey to ask and explore the hard questions of Race & Racism within the institutions of Medicine and Law. Professor Lindo brings the interdisciplinary study of Critical Race Theory, Lat Crit, and others to Medicine and Law so we can better learn how Racism detrimentally affects our health, our learning, our teaching, and justice. As a faculty member of the Department of Family Medicine, Professor Lindo works closely with the the Community Urban Scholars Program to develop future physicians interested in serving urban populations; has developed curriculum and teaches Critical Race Theory and Medicine; and provides student and faculty development around the issues of race and equity in medical education and patient care. Professor Lindo’s research and scholarship has focused on the history of racialized medicine, race & racism within medicine, social justice and social movements, and decolonized pedagogies for critical education.

Cary McClelland is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, lawyer, and human rights advocate whose work has taken him around the world. He has trained former child soldiers to be journalists in the Democratic Republic of Congo, engaged in conflict transformation programs in liberated East Timor, worked alongside opposition activists in Zimbabwe, and collaborated on advocacy campaigns in Egypt, Syria and Myanmar. His award-winning film, Without Shepherds, documented the lives of six people fighting against extremism in Pakistan, and his innovative new media work with WITNESS and Google was nominated for a Webby award. In his newly released book, Silicon City: San Francisco in the Long Shadow of the Valley published by W.W. Norton, Cary turns his lens back home to create a portrait of a city transformed by the tech industry, through the stories of its citizens, past and present. The book explores the challenges posed by the new American economy, serves as a clarion call for action on behalf of those underserved and displaced.