Innovate for Impact:Siemens Design Challenge

Akshay is a design researcher and strategist, and has worked in the areas of renewable energy, sanitation, maternal health and education amongst others. He prefers working on projects which lie at the intersection of technology, operations, and design within the realm of social impact. He previously started up Amrutdhara, a social enterprise focused on building IoT based water ATMs to tackle the issue of access to safe drinking water in urban India. He is currently working on systems for involving grassroots workers in development planning using ICT and researching how organisations working in development planning build and share knowledge with his team at Ooloi Labs.

Specialist in agribusiness, project design, management, and evaluation with over 30 years of experience managing and implementing complex USAID and multilateral development bank projects in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Danielle Nierenberg is a world-renowned researcher, speaker, and advocate, on all issues relating to our food system and agriculture. She is the co-founder and president of Food Tank, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters. Danielle has an M.S. in Agriculture, Food, and Environment from the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and spent two years volunteering for the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.

Iana阿兰达工程主任开云全站app登录官网入口下载Global Development Department at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) where she sets the business strategy of a portfolio of programs and platforms that advance knowledge, workforce and hardware-led social innovation to improve the quality of life of underserved communities. Iana also serves as the President of Engineering for Change, LLC (E4C) - a knowledge organization and global community of over 1 million individuals dedicated to design and delivery of essential technologies advancing sustainable development. In both roles, Iana is driving an agenda for a multidisciplinary and human-centered approach to international development enabled by technology, cross-sector partnerships, innovation ecosystems and engineering workforce development. Iana has 15 years of experience in academic, research and nonprofit sectors focusing on the intersection of engineering design, business strategy and social impact.

Julie Korak is an assistant professor of the Environmental Engineering Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. She has an interdisciplinary background in Chemical and Environmental Engineering and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Colorado. Prior to joining CU, she worked in the Water Treatment Group at the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Department of the Interior in Denver, CO. Dr. Korak’s research interests are broadly focused on water treatment engineering and her recent projects include developing holistic water treatment and waste brine management processes.

劳拉·麦克唐纳博士是th的董事总经理e Mortensen Center in Global Engineering. She has a PhD and MSE in Geography and Environmental Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University. In her role as Managing Director, Laura provides administrative and financial oversight of the Center's graduate certificate and Professional Master's programs. Additionally, she manages several research projects in Rwanda and provides support to the Mortenson Center's broader research portfolio in sub-Saharan Africa.

Prior to joining the Mortenson Center, Laura was Knowledge and Research Advisor at the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST). There, she worked to build CAWST's reputation and credibility as a global leader in capacity development and technical support for non-networked water and sanitation. During her time at CAWST, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern, Laura's research spanned a range of topics, including household water treatment and water-vending kiosks in Ghana, capacity development of sanitation practitioners, and the geochemistry of arsenic in the Atacama Desert. This work has taken her to Panama, Colombia, Chile, Ghana, Kenya and Nepal. Throughout her studies, Laura was engaged with student groups focused on engineering and environmental education and outreach, including leadership roles in the Society of Women Engineers and Engineers for a Sustainable World.

Mark Burhop is a research engineer and project manager at Siemens Corporate Technology. He has made a career of bringing scientifically advanced software technologies in simulation, CAD, and manufacturing to a useable point for scientists, engineers, and designers. A mechanical engineer from the University of Florida, he holds current or upcoming patents in additive manufacturing, generative design, and robotics. At home, he maintains a serious “maker” lab with multiple 3D printers, a wide variety of Raspberry Pi and Arduino electronics, robot named Andy, and a PC rig perfect for running both Solid Edge and compiling hi-performance C++ code.

Natasha Wright is an incoming Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering (ME) at the University of Minnesota. She received her PhD in the Global Engineering and Research Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her research and teaching is focused at the intersection of the technical and socioeconomic sides of design, as relevant to designing solutions in developing and emerging markets. Natasha is passionate about helping students contextualize problems in the complex social, economic, and political landscape in which they exist, working together in multi-disciplinary teams, and utilizing design theory to develop potential solutions to those problems.

Natasha’s experience in India includes implementing the use of electrodialysis (ED) desalination as a means of treating salty groundwater in rural areas. Her research has shown how to reduce capital and lifetime cost of village-scale ED systems by up to 40%. She has since installed pilot systems currently operating in India, Gaza, and New Mexico. Natasha’s work in water-energy systems led her inclusion inForbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” in 2016. She has served as an instructor at Tufts University and first led Acara’sDesign for Sustainable Development – Indiacourse in May 2019.

Dan Bena is a multi-award-winning executive who most recently served as Corporate Water Steward and led the Sustainable Development agenda for PepsiCo's Global Operations, using the power of the private sector as a force for good to help both business and society flourish. He is Founder and CEO of Dan Bena, LLC, a passion-fueled consultancy, and serves/ has served in various boards or other capacities for multiple organizations: Safe Water Network; World Business Council for Sustainable Development (#WBCSD); Steering Board of the World Bank 2030 Water Resources Group (#2030WRG); United Nations CEO Mandate; World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Water Security; US Water Alliance; Creative Visions Foundation; the documentary, Water Pressures; the Environmental Leader publications group; Advisor to Keela.co; Advisor to SuperYouFun.org; Honorary Professor and Trustee at Glasgow Caledonian University; Editorial Advisor to Elsevier's new Journal of Water Security (2017).

Christian Homma is senior innovation manager at Siemens Corporate Technology responsible for the Siemens Innovation Ecosystem platform, Open Innovation, the Siemens corporate crowdfunding program Quickstarter and coordinating the 100m EUR Siemens Innovation Fund. Prior to that he was leading the technology and trend scouting activities at CT, while also having 12 years background in R&D. He holds a masters degree in physics from the Technical University Munich and a PhD in material sciences from University of Saarbrücken, is certified coach and Scrum master/product owner.

Jason Sydow is a Partner with the investment team in Palo Alto. He focuses on application software, infrastructure software, additive manufacturing, and robotics. He has led investments in Bonsai.ai (acquired by MSFT), Identify3D, Riffyn, Falkonry, and Citrine.

Prior to joining, Jason was a Partner with QuestMark Partners, an expansion stage Venture Capital firm focused on enterprise software. Jason led investments in Enpirion (acquired by Altera), NComputing, and Guavus (acquired by Thales). He also served on the board of RF Code (holding acquired by Yet2 Ventures). Previously, Jason led licensing and new company formation for engineering and physical sciences in the tech transfer office of Arizona State University. Jason was the general manager for medical batteries at EaglePicher Technologies, an energy storage company. Initially, he worked 4 years at The Boston Consulting Group as a consultant and project leader.

Jason received his Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University, an MPhil from the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom as a Marshall Scholar, and a B.S. from the University of Virginia.

In the limited free time that work and a family of six allows, Jason enjoys cycling, reading science fiction, and walking with the family Great Dane.

是一个美国国际开发署外国服务官英杰华Kutnickwho has served in both domestic and overseas postings. She most recently led the Market Systems and Finance division in the Center for Agriculture Led Growth at USAID headquarters in Washington, DC. The division supports USAID country programs to facilitate agriculture finance, investment promotion, agriculture technology commercialization, and market systems approaches to agriculture led growth and food security. Aviva has also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer and has a masters degree in Economics and International Relations from Johns Hopkins's School for Advanced International Studies. Aviva will embark on her next USAID overseas assignment to Colombia in the coming months.

马里卡portf新兴金融性质olio which aims to create innovative nature-aligned investment opportunities that deliver climate smart impact. She previously served as the Global Fund Manager for the UNDP Innovation Facility: a multi-million dollar portfolio across 165 investments in 95 countries—raising an additional 213% in local resources. Serving as an Advisory Board member of the GSMA’s AI for Good Accelerator, and the Measuring Impact Working Group of the International Development Innovation Alliance—a consortium of big players on innovation that include DFID, USAID and Rockefeller Foundation: Malika’s UN assignments have centered around innovation, accountability and advocacy, be it post-disaster relief, sustainable development or gender-responsive crisis recovery. Each instance has involved developing new service lines and global tools, which are scalable and sustainable.

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