2014 Gratitude Awards
What would happen if you had a 90 minute meeting with an extraordinary innovator who could influence the trajectory of your venture?
See our 2014 Award Finalists here!
2014 Gratitude “Super Mentors”
Our 2014 Process
- 500 applicants from around the world…
- Areas of Education, Community Development & environment/sustainability
- 9 Finalists will present on-stage
- Each receives awards & in-kind donations from Gratitude partners
- 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 mentoring
Meet Our 2014 Judges
Randy Haykin
Founder
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.
Kevin Jones
Co-founder & Convener of Social Capital Market
Kevin Jones creates information businesses inside emerging markets. He believes that markets emerge in conversation, as people try to explain and understand value. But this market is not like others he’s been in, and that’s what makes it more interesting and more important. The social capital market adds the dimension of impact, what your money actually does in the world before it comes back to you as a gain or loss, to the traditional risk and reward investment equation. “Looking at impact is what has enabled SOCAP to be at the vital intersection of money and meaning”, Kevin said.
Besides SOCAP, Kevin is founder of Good Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in social enterprises. He is also part of the team launching the first U.S. node of the Hub, a network of more than a dozen work spaces for social entrepreneurs in cities across the world from Cairo to London.
His previous six businesses all achieved market dominance before he left or sold them. As a journalist, he has been a columnist for Forbes and Business 2.0 magazines. Early in his career as a journalist his reporting sent a sheriff to prison on 53 counts of fraud. He has been on the boards of Social Enterprise Alliance, the association of non-profit social enterprises, and Social Venture Partners International, a network of engaged philanthropy circles. Kevin also led a malaria project in Zwaziland and Mozambique, working with Jeff Sachs of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. Finally, during his 20 year business career in Mississippi he was heavily involved in public school advocacy. He twitters @kevindoylejones.
Christopher Nyren
Founder of Educated Ventures
Christopher is the founder of Educated Ventures, an education industry advisory and seed investment firm that has successfully raised and invested nearly $50 million across a dozen separate client capital raises and direct investments since its founding at the end of 2011. Christopher has also founded Educelerate, a education innovation network of over 1,000 members in its core markets of Chicago and the Twin Cities.
Prior to founding Educated Ventures, Christopher spent four years helping to build the Corporate Development & Global Strategy team for Apollo Group, the owner of the University of Phoenix and largest for-profit educational company in the world. During this time, he was involved in the creation of Apollo Global, a $1 billion joint venture private equity fund with the Carlyle Group.
Christopher has also worked in private equity, including the education and services focused investors LLR Partners, and started his career with the education and services coverage team at investment bank Credit Suisse. Mr. Nyren graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Lake Forest College and received his MBA from the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.
Julie Trell
Executive Director of Workday Foundation
Julie Trell is responsible for designing, developing and growing the corporate philanthropy programs at Workday.com. Overseeing the Workday Foundation, she works closely with the amazing employees and executives to support, volunteer with and invest in innovative programs that advance health and education initiatives.
Prior to Workday, Julie was VP of All Things Fun, Meaningful & Rewarding at the Salesforce.com Foundation. As an original employee of the Foundation, she spent 12 years building a myriad of successful programs including; overall foundation strategy, marketing, global employee volunteer initiatives, social and tech innovation grants, and Volunteerforce. Leveraging her experienced education background, she created the signature Salesforce youth entrepreneur program, BizAcademy. It offers a hands-on opportunities for at-risk youth to experience the business world, network with employees and partners, and participate in life-changing internships. She spent a year in Asia as interim Foundation Director developing programs and furthering integrated philanthropy model into the extended salesforce.com offices in Asia Pacific.
Before jumping into the corporate philanthropy world, Julie was a middle school technology specialist developing curriculum and coaching teachers how to integrate technology effectively into their classrooms. She has a BA from Emory University and an M.Ed in early childhood education from Georgia State. She was named an Apple Distinguished Educator.
Kimberley Tripp
Founder & Principle, Strategy for Scale
Kimberly Dasher Tripp is an advisor to high-impact organizations and foundations. She works on issues related to scaling: strategic plans that drive measurable outcomes and can be operationalized; governance; leadership and talent; development strategy and growth plans; and impact measurement. She was most recently a Principal on the Portfolio Team of the Skoll Foundation, where her work focused on developing funding opportunities to drive large-scale change, managing relationships with funded social entrepreneurs and the networks that surround and support them, and providing strategic advice to the leaders of scaling organizations. Kimberly partnered with twenty-six of Skoll’s grantees over her five-year tenure. Prior to Skoll, her experience included nonprofit, international work and for-profit marketing. Kimberly holds a MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley where she serves on the alumni board of the Center for Responsible Business. Kimberly graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a BA in Politics.
Dan Crisafulli
Managing Director, Potrero Impact Advisors
Dan Crisafulli is managing director of Potrero Impact Advisors, which he founded in late 2010 to advise clients on impact investing and social entrepreneurship. Building on a long career in investing in the US and emerging markets, he previously served as the Skoll Foundation’s director of investments for four years
A leader in “new philanthropy” and social investing, the Skoll Foundation aims to drive large-scale change through entrepreneurial approaches. Dan cofounded the technology venture capital group at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), where he invested in emerging markets technology companies with social impact. His investments included a pioneering Indian digital animation company now listed on London’s AIM. Dan began his career with the London-based L|E|K Partnership. He earned a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a Kennedy Scholar. He serves as director of Root Capital.
Kevin Berenbladt
Founder & President of Fast Forward
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
Co-Founder & Partner at the Heritas Group & Chair at Mission Hub LLC
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.
Matt Flannery
Co-Founder, Kiva
Matt began developing Kiva in late 2004 as a side-project while working as a computer programmer at TiVo, Inc. In December 2005 Matt left his job to devote himself to Kiva full-time. As CEO, Matt led Kiva’s growth from a pilot project to an established online service with partnerships across the globe and hundreds of millions in dollars loaned to low income entrepreneurs. Matt was a Skoll Awardee and Ashoka Fellow and was selected to FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 40 under 40” list in 2009. In 2011, Matt was chosen for the The Economist “No Boundaries” Innovation Award. He graduated with a BS in Symbolic Systems and a Masters in Philosophy from Stanford University.
Tim Brown
CEO and President of IDEO
Tim Brown is CEO and president of IDEO. He frequently speaks about the value of design thinking and innovation to business people and designers around the world. He participates in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and his talks Serious Play and Change by Design appear on TED.com.
An industrial designer by training, Tim has earned numerous design awards and has exhibited work at the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, the Design Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He takes special interest in the convergence of technology and the arts, as well as the ways in which design can be used to promote the well-being of people living in emerging economies.
Tim advises senior executives and boards of Fortune 100 companies and has led strategic client relationships with such organizations as the Mayo Clinic, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Steelcase. He is a board member of the Mayo Innovation Advisory Council and the Advisory Council of Acumen Fund, a nonprofit global venture fund focused on improving the lives of the poor. Additionally, he writes for the Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and other prominent publications. His book on how design thinking transforms organizations, Change by Design, was released by HarperBusiness in September 2009.
Tim maintains a blog on the subject of design thinking at designthinking.ideo.com.
Ed Catmull
President, Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios and Disneytoon Studios
Dr. Ed Catmull is co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and President of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios. Previously, Dr. Catmull was vice President of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm Ltd., where he managed development in the areas of computer graphics, video editing, video games and digital audio.
Dr. Catmull founded three of the leading centers of computer graphics research – the computer graphics laboratory at the New York Institute of Technology, the computer division of Lucasfilm Ltd. and Pixar Animation Studios. These organizations have been home to many of the most academically respected researchers in the field and have produced some of the most fundamental advances in computer graphics, including image compositing, motion blur, subdivision surfaces, cloth simulation and rendering techniques, texture mapping and the z-buffer. Dr. Catmull is one of the architects of the RenderMan rendering software, which has been used in 44 of the last 47 films nominated for an Academy Award® in the Visual Effects category.
In addition to being a member of IEEE’s Computer Society since 1978, Dr. Catmull is active in several professional organizations. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM), the Computer History Museum, and a dedicated participant in the ACM SIGGRAPH conference for nearly 30 years. Dr. Catmull also is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Visual Effects Society. In 2012, Dr. Catmull was inducted as a Visual Effects Society Fellow, in recognition of his pivotal leadership in the art and science of computer graphics and visual effects.
Dr. Catmull has been honored with five Academy Awards, and one Academy Award of Merit for his work; in addition to the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for his lifetime of technical contributions and leadership in the field of computer graphics for the motion picture industry.
Dr. Catmull also received the ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award for his lifetime contributions in the computer graphics field, the Progress Medal and the Fuji Gold Medal awards from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and the animation industry’s Ub Iwerks Award for technical advancements in the art or industry of animation. Additionally, he was the recipient of the IEEE’s John von Neumann Medal for fundamental contributions to computer graphics and a pioneering use of computer animation in motion pictures. In 2011, Dr. Catmull received the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineer’s Progress Medal for his life-long pioneering contributions and visionary leadership in the field of computer generated imagery for the motion picture industry.
Catmull’s book, the New York Times bestseller, “CREATIVITY, INC.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration,” and which Fast Company described as “what just might be the most thoughtful management book ever,” was published by Random House in 2014.
Dr. Catmull earned B.S. degrees in computer science and physics and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah. In 2005, the University of Utah presented him with an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Engineering.
William H. Draper, III
Managing Director of Draper Richards L.P and Draper International
Having begun his venture capital career in 1959, William H. Draper III is one of America’s first venture capitalists. Today, he is Managing Director of Draper Richards L.P and Draper International, and he serves as Co-Chairman of The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation. Mr. Draper is also author of the book, The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs.
In 1965, Mr. Draper founded Sutter Hill Ventures, which organized and financed several hundred high-technology manufacturing companies. From 1981 to 1986, he was President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, under President Reagan. Thereafter, Mr. Draper was the head of the United Nations Development Program from 1986 to 1993 and oversaw nearly 10,000 international aid projects.
He is on the boards of the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies at Stanford University, World Affairs Council of Northern California, and the Harvard Business School California Research Center Advisory Board. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the President’s Council on International Activities at Yale University.
Mr. Draper formerly served as the Chairman of the World Affairs Council of Northern California, Chairman of the Institute of International Education, Trustee of Yale University and as Chairman of the Board of the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. He is a former Board member of the Atlantic Council, Hoover Institution, Population Action International, George Bush Library Foundation, the Advisory Council of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the United Nations Association-USA, and the World Rehabilitation Fund in New York.
Mr. Draper received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1950 and a Master of Business degree, with distinction, from the Harvard Business School in 1954.
Special thanks to our 2014 Application Readers:
- Ben Bayat
- Betsy Densmore
- Sil Garaventa
- Briana Harney
- Robby Klaber
- Maria Milefchik
- Paul Miller
- Eric Quan
- Lynley Sides
- Elizabeth Weber