What IF Lightning Talks enables students, faculty and alumni to hear from entrepreneurs innovating in industries and fields that reflect the diversity of Temple University. Students and alumni will also have the opportunity to engage with these entrepreneurs in an hour of networking after the Lightning Talks are completed.
The Lightning Talks will feature six speakers:
1. Andrew Yang (Featured Speaker): Andrew Yang is the Founder and CEO of Venture for America, a fellowship program that places top college graduates in start-ups for 2 years in emerging U.S. cities to generate job growth and train the next generation of entrepreneurs. Andrew has worked in start-ups and early stage growth companies as a founder or executive for more than twelve years.
2. Michelle Histand: Michelle Histand is the Innovation Director at Independence Blue Cross. She designs innovation strategy and programming meant to move the needle on business results, including brand visibility, customer experience, product and service differentiators.
3. Melissa Alam: Melissa Alam is the CEO/Founder at The Hive, an all women co-working space, Femme & Fortune, an online community dedicated to women in the Philadelphia area and Melissa Alam Strategic Brand Development, a consulting, strategy and branding business. A pro-active, diligent and outgoing 2010 graduate of Temple University's Fox School of Business.
4. Brian McTear: Brian McTear has owned and run Miner Street Recordings, Philadelphia's premier high-end recording studio, since 1994. In that time the music industry has undergone dramatic changes, which most studios did not survive - but Miner Street has thrived. In 2009 Brian co-founded Weathervane Music, an innovative non-profit that facilitates learning about music and the creative process, ultimately creating resources for music lovers and creators to deepen their understanding of music.
5. Andrew Nakkache: Andrew Nakkache is the Founder and CEO of Habitat. Habitat is a mobile app that allows student to order pickup or delivery from all their favorite campus food trucks and restaurants. Think Postmates for college students! Andrew Nakkache is also a energetic 2015 graduate from Temple University's Fox School of Business.
6. Brock Weatherup: Brock Weatherup is a CEO, entrepreneur, angle investor, builder of enterprise value and passionate advocate about the consumer and their interactions with digital media & Ecommerce. He is currently managing partner of Atai Ventures angel investments, co-founder of ICONYC (www.iconyclabs.com) an accelerator focused on seed stage Israeli tech companies, an investor/advisor/board member for 7+ startups and the President of the Philly Startup Leaders, a massive professional network of Philadelphia's startup community.