2015 Gratitude Awards
The Gratitude Awards at SOCAP15 brings this unique opportunity to the winning social Fellows selected in the categories of education, community development and environment/sustainability.
We are very proud to present our 2015 Gratitude Fellows.
We previously announced our 2015 Finalists for 2015 – who presented at SOCAP15 on the Main Stage. Finalists will receive a year of intense Mentorship from the Gratitude Network as well as donations from a variety of partners supporting our program.
Selected from our Finalists were four 2015 Gratitude Fellows. Each company honored in the closing plenary (October 9, 2015) at SOCAP15. In addition to a year of Mentorship, our Fellows will be brought back to the Silicon Valley for a week-long “strategic session” and will be paired with a Super Mentor.
Our four Gratitude Award winners for 2015 are:
- The Reset Foundation – in the category of Education
- Cassa Inc. – People’s Choice award (Environmental/Sustainability)
- Vendedy Inc. – in the category of Community Development
- Carbon Analytics – in the category of Environmental/Sustainability
Our 2015 Process
- 550 applicants from around the world…
- Areas of Education, Community Development & environment/sustainability
- 9 Finalists will present on-stage at SOCAP15
- Each receives awards & in-kind donations from Gratitude partners
- Each receives a year of Gratitude Network facilitation and mentoring
- 4 overall winners: 3 chosen by Judges, 1 chosen by audience
- Each wins a trip to the Silicon Valley
- Each meets face-to-face with a Super Mentor
- Each receives a year of Gratitude Network facilitation and mentoring
Meet Our 2015 Judges
Kevin Berenbladt
Kevin is an experienced software entrepreneur with a passion for applying technology for good. The inspiration for Fast Forward stems from Kevin’s hope that talented people can leverage software to create scalable solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems. Prior to founding Fast Forward, Kevin was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Matrix Partners, an early stage venture capital firm. Prior to Matrix he was a Senior Director in Adobe’s Strategy and Business Development group after the social marketing company he founded, Context Optional, was acquired by the firm. Barenblat holds a Bachelor’s degree in engineering from Stanford and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Penelope Douglas
Penelope has served as Executive Chair of Mission Hub LLC – the parent organization of Impact Hubs in San Francisco, Berkeley, Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington DC, and the annual SOCAP event. Penelope accepted an Artist in Residency for 2015-2016 with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in California, where her topic of inquiry is Labor and the Value of our Work.
Penelope is also on the Boards of New Resource Bank and the Opportunity Finance Network, and is an Advisor to Halloran Philanthropies and Fund Good Jobs in Oakland, California. She is on the Advisory Board for Wells Fargo Bank’s New Markets Tax Credit Group and a Field Builder at RSF Social Finance. She is also a founding member of the Heritas Group, where she provides advisory services related to social finance. She currently serves as a Director of Startgrid, a young company which has built a powerful software platform for building enterprise-driven entrepreneurial communities.
Previously Penelope co-founded and served twelve years as CEO of Pacific Community Ventures with a mission to invest human, intellectual, and financial capital in small businesses for the benefit of economically underserved communities. During her tenure Pacific Community Ventures advised and invested in small businesses which provided thousands of good jobs and wealth building opportunities for lower-income workers. Penelope led investment funds totaling $60 million.
Randy Haykin
Randy is founder of The Gratitude Network (http://gratitudefund.org) and spends his time working on all things “entrepreneurial” and “mentor-like”. He is a well-known Silicon Valley angel, serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He established and ran an early-stage venture fund (www.outlookventures.com) in 1997. Forming his career at Apple Computer in the late 90’s, Randy later became the founding Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Yahoo; he has mentored 70 + startups since. He is also a Professor at UC Berkeley and U. Cambridge, teaching courses on New Venture Finance and Innovation/Creativity. Randy holds a BA in Organizational Management from Brown University, and MBA from Harvard. Randy also runs winery called Entrepreneur Wines (http://entrepreneurwines.com) which uniquely combines philanthropy with fine wine.
Paul Miller
Paul is a serial entrepreneur who has also been a corporate venture capitalist in Silicon Valley for over 25 years. Hoping to leverage lessons from the startup world, he joined the Gratitude Network to pursue a dream of helping social Fellows make a bigger impact. Paul led the 2015 Gratitude Awards process and found great inspiration in reviewing hundreds of applicants.
Beginning a career in product marketing for enterprise software companies, Paul also served in a variety of executive roles including business development, finance, corporate development, and general management for both venture backed startups and Fortune 500 companies. The common theme in all of his endeavors has been creating, funding and managing new businesses and products. As one example, Paul founded an innovative semiconductor material recycling business and built it to become a top supplier to the world’s largest computer chip companies.
Paul earned degrees from Claremont McKenna College (B.A.), Stanford (B.S., M.S) and Harvard (MBA).
Rick Moss
Rick is Managing Director and Founder of Better Ventures. He thrives on solving customer development challenges for startups and spends most of his waking hours at the whiteboard. He has 18 years of technology, Fellowship and corporate venture capital experience with Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Computer Sciences Corporation, The Modem Shop (which he founded) and Kleiner Perkins-backed WineShopper.com (acquired by Wine.com). He holds a BA from Trinity College and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College. Rick believes passionately that technology should be used to address the world’s most important problems. Rick lives in Oakland, CA with his wife and two kids, is an avid cyclist and a craft beer enthusiast.
Julie Trell
Julie believes that play and making a positive impact in the world is fundamental to authentic personal and community happiness. She applies her 14 years of experience in corporate philanthropy with those eager to create change and solve social challenges locally and globally. She works with emerging companies to design innovative integrated philanthropy programs where their product, services and people can provide resources that create lasting positive change.
As one of the founding members of the Salesforce.com Foundation in 2000 she inspired, but was more inspired by, the people who experienced their “aha” moments while “doing good”. As part of the Salesforce Foundation 1/1/1 model of integrated philanthropy, Julie launched the award winning employee volunteer program, designed the grant programs, managed the marketing, produced emotional videos, launched the Foundation in Asia, and developed and led the signature youth entrepreneur program, BizAcademy. In 2012 Julie was hired as the Executive Director of the Workday Foundation responsible for designing, developing and growing the corporate philanthropy programs at Workday.com.
Julie has a BA from Emory University and an M.Ed in early childhood education from Georgia State. She was a participant in THNK, International School of Creative Leadership in the inaugural Vancouver cohort of 2015.
Cory Trenda
Cory serves as Senior Director for World Vision, a global humanitarian agency, and leads the World Vision Innovation Fund. The Fund’s goal is to underwrite potential game-changing improvements in poverty programs in the nearly 100 countries where World Vision operates. Cory previously held senior roles at Opportunity International and trained in sales as a Marketing Rep at IBM. Cory received a BSBA in Business Administration from the University of Kansas.
Shikha Uberoi
Shikha is a former top 100 WTA Tour tennis player and Indian Icon 2015. Today, she is the co-founder of Indi.com India and a social entrepreneur using the mediums of sport/fitness and media to incite change.
She launched her media and lifestyle company, SDU Seva, Inc. in 2013 and is currently creating and producing international social issue television shows. She speaks internationally at various diplomatic conferences on female empowerment through sport and is becoming a face and force for female empowerment and women’s leadership in India. She sat on the board of directors of the World Economic Forum’s “Global Shapers Initiative” for Bhopal and serves as a trustee and advisor to various NGOs and social enterprises.
Shikha earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University majoring in Anthropology and minoring in South Asian Studies. She graduated with high academic standing while winning Princeton’s prestigious Kit Harris Memorial Award for Leadership and Ethics.
Special thanks to our 2015 Application Readers:
- Munmun Baishya
- Betsy Densmore
- Ellie Erickson
- Sil Garaventa
- Briana Harney
- Ashley Kleckner
- Sthir Malkapur
- Paul Miller
- Dan Ostermueller
- Ashley Pandya
- Fabiola Salman
- Lindsay Siegel
- Meg Watkins
