Speakers & Judges

Y-Vonne Hutchinson, Founder at Ready Set

Y-Vonne Hutchinson, former international labor rights lawyer and the founder of ReadySet, a diversity solutions firm based in Oakland, CA. ReadySet works in the areas of employment policy, strategy consulting, training, and recruiting to help startups attract, retain, and grow diverse talent. As a lawyer and advocate, she has worked with foreign governments, the U.S. Department of State, and the UN. She is a member of Harvard Law’s Institute for Global Law and Policy network and is an expert on labor relations and diversity in the workplace.

Dorothy Gloves

Dorothy is a former Commercial Bank Officer of the Everett Co-operative bank. While working in it for seven years, Dorothy found out a lot about how imperfect and unfair the credit system works for the vulnerable population. And that’s how her financial blog was created. Dorothy writes multiple articles on financial literacy and shares helpful tips for people who strive to improve their financial situation. She also talks about how to access financial assistance when it seems that nobody can help. Dorothy is the founder of a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people who get into a difficult financial situations. Dorothy is great at explaining complicated things in a simple way to make her blog understandable to ordinary people. However, she does not stop there and plans to create a perfect system that will help people support each other financially, excluding traditional lenders and private financial companies from the chain.

C.A. Webb, Co-Founder and Community Partner at Underscore.VC

C.A. Webb has spent her career working at the intersection of technology and social change building ground-up products, programs and brands at emerging companies including Fast Company, Whole Foods Market, and Care.com. Most recently, she co-founded _Underscore.VC, an early stage venture capital firm and is widely recognized for her work reinventing the New England Venture Capital Association to make it a powerful force in shaping the region’s startup community and broader innovation agenda. 

C.A. serves on the boards of the Alliance for Business Leadership, Mass Robotics, New England Venture Capital Association, Room to Grow and Resilient Coders. In 2015, C.A. was recognized as an “Innovation All Star” by the Boston Business Journal and in 2016 was named one of the 30 most disruptive people in Boston tech by Boston Magazine.

Patricia Won, Senior Human Resources Executive at LHH + DBM

Patricia Won is a senior Human Resources executive with more than a decade of talent management experience in global technology and consumer goods companies including Microsoft and Unilever. She has ample experience working with leadership teams on the implementation of talent development strategies in Latin America, including strategies related to increasing gender diversity. 

Juan Luis Leung Li, Senior Associate at General Catalyst

As someone who grew up in a basement when first moving to the U.S. and whose family comes from a small village, Juan is deeply passionate about diversity.

Juan is part of the early stage investment team at General Catalyst, a venture capital firm that makes early-stage and transformational investments. The firm backs exceptional entrepreneurs who are building innovative technology companies and market leading businesses, including Airbnb, BigCommerce, ClassPass, Datalogix, Datto, Demandware, Gusto (fka ZenPayroll), The Honest Company, HubSpot, KAYAK, Oscar, Snap, Stripe, and Warby Parker. Juan works closely with companies like Catalant (fka HourlyNerd), Feedvisor and B12.io.

Juan’s experience in technology covers a wide spectrum – prior to joining General Catalyst, he worked at Javelin Venture Partners, Primary Venture Partners, McGraw-Hill Education and J.P. Morgan and was also the co-founder of Ripple Concerts, a marketplace for live music. He graduated from Boston University with a B.S., summa cum laude, in Business and from Harvard Business School with an MBA where he was a National Society of Hispanic MBAs Scholar and was awarded the Rock Entrepreneurship, Toigo and InSITE Fellowships. Follow Juan on Twitter via @juanleungli.

Ed Bertschinger, Institute Community and Equity Officer and Professor of Physics at MIT

Ed Bertschinger is the Institute Community and Equity Officer and a professor of Physics at MIT. He is a researcher in theoretical astrophysics, gravitation and cosmology. He enjoys teaching and mentoring students at all levels. As Physics Department Head from 2007-2013, Ed set a goal to make MIT not only the top-ranked university for science and engineering, but also to make it one of the best places to work and study for everyone. He feels strongly that more must be done to increase diversity and inclusion within the university and the profession. Excellence demands searching from the widest possible sources to draw talent; that talent must then be nurtured with effective mentoring and research support to achieve its full potential. He is co-chair of both the MIT Committee on Race and Diversity and the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Office of Minority Education and is recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award. In 2011 he chaired the organizing committee of the MIT150 Symposium “Leaders in Science and Engineering: The Women of MIT”.

Sarah Judd, Senior Curriculum Developer at Girls Who Code

Sarah Judd is a Senior Curriculum Developer at Girls Who Code. She is passionate about computers, education, and where the two meet. Sarah has been doing her best to increase access to computer science since falling in love with programming in high school. She’s done this through developing curriculum for Google CS First and Girls Who Code as well as working with Girl Scouts, FIRST robotics, Bootstrap and Citizen Schools, teaching 4th-8th graders and 7th-10th graders.