The panel includes:

ESRA'A AL SHAFEI, Founder & Executive Director, MideastYouth.com (joining via Skype)

Esra'a Al Shafei is the founder and Executive Director of MideastYouth.com, a grassroots, indigenous digital network that leverages the power of new media to facilitate the struggle against oppression in the Middle East and North Africa. She is driven by her passion for civil engagement, freedom of speech, and employing innovative solutions to pervasive and persistent human problems. Her advocacy on the internet bridges seemingly impenetrable barriers of faith and geography to unite young people committed to fostering constructive discourse in the Middle East. She is also the director of a series of international campaigns for rights for ethnic, religious, and intellectual minorities. Among those she runs is the influential global campaign to free an imprisoned Egyptian blogger at FreeKareem.org. She is a recipient of the Berkman Award from Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society for "outstanding contributions to the internet and its impact on society," and is currently a TED Fellow and an Echoing Green Fellow. Most recently, her project won a ThinkSocial Award for serving as a "powerful model for how social media can be used to address global problems." She is 23 and living in Bahrain.

JERRI CHOU, Founder, TBD

The managing partner of Lovely day and founder of TBD, Jerri is a social innovation strategist passionate about the future of business and creativity. She is also the co-founder of alldaybuffet and The Feast Social Innovation Conference where she has gained extensive understanding of innovation, business strategy, new model research and integration, branding, communications and partnership development. Working in start ups means doing everything, so Jerri's experience spans everything from writing and art direction to strategy and web development. In a past life, she worked in advertising at Grey Worldwide and development at several New York startups. All said and done, she is a blend of LA style, NY work ethic and hippie values that's out to save the world.

CINDY GALLOP, Founder & CEO, IfWeRanTheWorld

Cindy is half English, half Chinese, grew up in Asia, in Brunei, and read English Literature at Somerville College, Oxford.  She began working in theater marketing and then moved to advertising, where she spent the majority of her career working for one agency, global creative network Bartle Bogle Hegarty.  She joined them in London in 1989 to run global accounts such as Coca-Cola, Polaroid and Ray-Ban;  moved to Singapore in 1996 to help start up and run BBH Asia Pacific;  and moved to New York in 1998 to start up BBH US, which began as Cindy in a room with a phone, and four years later was named Adweek’s Eastern Agency of the Year, winning clients such as Levi’s, Johnnie Walker and Axe.  In 2003 Advertising Women of New York voted Cindy Advertising Woman of the Year.

In 2005 Cindy resigned as chairman of BBH to do something different.  She consults for clients who want to change the game in their particular sector, and who are looking for radical reinvention, and for groundbreaking, innovative, forward-thinking strategic and executional approaches – including a specific focus on the integration of social responsibility with business. She is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, an extremely simple crowdsourced web platform designed to turn good intentions into action, which will launch with a demo at TED in February 2010.  She launched another side venture, MakeLoveNotPorn, at TED 2009, and acts as board advisor to a number of technology and media startups.  She has a reputation as a highly compelling speaker at conferences such as TED, ad:tech for whom she hosted the inaugural ad:tech Tokyo in September 2009, The Feast which she hosted in October 2009, The Next Big Idea, MIPTV and iMedia Summits, and writes opinion pieces for online publications (Adotas) and magazines (Marie Claire, V-Marketing China). 

Moderator: JALAK JOBANPUTRA, Senior Vice President, New York City Investment Fund

Jalak is Senior Vice President at the New York City Investment Fund and manages the Fund's investments in the information technology, media and cleantech sectors. Prior to joining the Fund, Jalak was a Principal at New Venture Partners, a $300M early stage venture fund where she was a director of Procelerate Technologies and Real Time Content. Previously, Ms. Jobanputra worked at Intel Capital where she led and managed strategic investments in software, digital media and services companies.

Prior to receiving her MBA, Jalak worked as a Product Manager at an online financial services start-up, and as a media and tech investment banker at Lehman Brothers and Broadview Associates in NYC and London. She has also consulted for the United Nations Development Programme in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as well as several education nonprofits, including The Big Picture School (Providence, RI), Jobs for the Future (Boston), and the Fenway Institute (Boston).

Jalak holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, a BS in Economics magna cum laude from the Wharton School, and a BA in Communications magna cum laude from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently a Trustee of the Achievement First Bushwick Charter School in Brooklyn and a member of Echoing Green's junior board.

The event starts at 7:30 P.M. with half an hour reserved for networking in the beginning.  The program will run from 8 P.M. until 9:30 P.M. with a Q&A portion at the end.  NYWSE & Echoing Green's Social Investment Counctil look forward to seeing you at Green Spaces!  Snacks & refreshments will be provided.

EVENT PARTNER

EVENT SPONSOR

Green Spaces is a community of fellow NYC entrepreneurs committed to sustainability. Work space includes own desk with wireless internet, interns for project work, conference room for meetings and lounge space.

ABOUT NYWSE

Green Spaces
394 Broadway, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10013

Monday, April 19, 2010 from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM (ET)

New York Women Social Entrepreneurs (NYWSE)

NYWSE’s mission is to provide a community and the resources that women need to succeed as business leaders while becoming sustainability experts, and our vision is to empower women to effect change in society at all levels, as an individual, community member, professional, student, and entrepreneur.

For more information, go to: www.ywse.org/nywse