Team Category: New York

Atin is the co-founder of Ellie, a virtual breastfeeding assistant for new moms. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. Before co-founding Ellie, Atin worked in education where he designed curriculum and services focused on financial education, entrepreneurship, and human-centered design. When not working, Atin volunteers with the non-profit, Impact NYC and sits on the board of The Creativity Foundation. For fun, Atin likes to play drums, shoot photography, and write

What causes are you most passionate about?

Healthcare, education, equitable economic opportunity, and criminal justice reform.

If you could make an improvement in the world, what would it be?

Equal access in the pursuit of knowledge. Education really is the silver bullet to many of the systemic challenges we face. The pursuit of knowledge is something that binds all humans together and we are blessed to live in a time when technology can empower us to reach new heights, individually and together. By ensuring that every person in the world has the access to knowledge, I believe we can develop solutions to the wicked problems that are mounted against us by uncovering untapped and underestimated human potential.

An article or Impact event I would recommend is…

Criminal Justice Reform. It was one of the first events I participated in as a member of Impact and it was a transformative experience for me. I was looking to join a community of people who valued objective, fact-based, and civil dialogue about difficult issues and was blown away by the perspectives we were able to bring together for an incredible conversation.  As a member of Impact, I was able to meet inspiring community leaders like Tommy Safian from Refoundry and represent Impact in a collaborative effort to “ban the box”, which entailed removing the question about previous convictions on job applications. This event made clear that I had joined the right community of empathetic and thoughtful people who were resolutely determined on making our society better.

Kimberly is an operations executive in the technology industry specializing in remote workforces, change management and business operations. From 2015-2017 she was the President/COO of the World Future Society, the leading global authority in future studies since 1966. For the past decade, Kimberly has worked as an advisor, mentor & judge to startup incubators, companies and entrepreneurship community programs including Techstars’ Startup Weekend, Startup Health, Startup Chile, Parallel 18, the Central American Entrepreneurship Forum and Chicago Innovation. Kimberly spent from 2007-2014 in Latin America where she worked with private equity and family offices to manage investments and partnership identification. She also co-founded Kalu Yala, a community development in the Panamanian rainforest pursuing the mission of world’s most sustainable town. Kimberly graduated Cum Laude from Vanderbilt University in Economics.

What do you think some of the most pressing problems we face are?

There is a deeply engrossing book by historian Yuval Noah Harai entitled 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. I could never summarize the challenges humanity faces better than Harai does (and if you have not read his book, it is an absolute must), but I will highlight two of the problems I am most passionate about and I hope to bring to my work over the next several decades:

1. Truth – Harari shares the idea that truth has become “defined by the top results of the Google search.” At Impact, the core of our work seeks to actively understand issues and systems, past the hype and media headlines, from a 360-degree view.
2. Healthcare – While Harai champions the ideas of free and universal healthcare, and that is certainly one possible option, I am interested in exploring the roots of our challenges in optimizing public health and creating resilient systems to respond to health crises.

An impact event/article I recommend is…

Impact has tackled so many important topics over the years – education, immigration, elections, climate – and there is so much more to explore in these arenas. We are thrilled to be able to build new knowledge platforms to do just that such as the Impact Podcast, Save the World in the 30 Minutes. We hope the stories and conversations with our Impact Experts inspire those who do want to make their mark on the world. While marking our mark may take longer than 30 minutes, we are all in this together.

If you could make one improvement in the world what would it be?

An idea I find fascinating is understanding what it would really take for the human species to be at peace with itself. We teach our children history, math, science, literature. Some children are even lucky enough to study art, music, and creativity, but we often miss a piece of training so valuable, it would fundamentally change the world as we know it, and that is teaching emotional intelligence in our schools. Individually, EQ training can lead to increased personal well-being, decreased stress responses and stronger leadership. Collectively, children armed with the tools of empathy, thoughtfulness, and self-awareness can become wise citizens. Citizens who vote conscientiously. Citizens who know when emotion and passion serves their cause and when it can hinder progress. Citizens who know how to manage conflict with others whom they do not agree with and work together towards resolution.

Nic is a Partner at Bowery Capital based in New York. He focuses on investments in enterprise cloud software, with particular experience in machine learning, supply chain & logistics, healthcare IT, and vertical SaaS. Prior to forming Bowery Capital, Nic worked as an Associate at AOL Ventures, where he helped drive investment in and support of over 20 early-stage technology companies.

Before AOL Ventures, he served in a strategy role in AOL, leading various business development initiatives for the company’s ad tech and video properties. Nic began his career in technology Investment Banking at GCA Global (fka GCA Savvian), where he supported M&A and private financing advisory as an Analyst in the firm’s Internet group. Nic holds an A.B. from Princeton University.

What causes are you most passionate about?

Democracy & Elections, Healthcare, Climate, Jobs & Wealth Inequality, Human & Animal Rights, AI Safety

If you could make one improvement in the world what would it be?

Universal Political Self-Determination

What ideas or efforts do you think will or have changed the world the most?

General Artificial Intelligence

What causes are you most passionate about?

Education has been an overriding passion of mine. Not only has it profoundly changed my life and my opportunities set, network, and friends but it continues to drive me to improve everyday. In that same way I believe one of the best things we can do for the next generation and the less fortunate is to provide them with the tools and encouragement to learn and pursue self improvement.

If you could make one improvement in the world what would it be?

I would encourage us to seek understanding and perspective instead of moving into opinions. I feel we come to conclusions too quickly without adequate openness to alternative views and methods. This would enable a more learning oriented vs opinion driven populous and would help us tackle hard issues calmly and collaboratively.

What ideas or efforts do you think will or have changed the world the most?

The separation of church from the state and then the creation of free enterprise with distinct rights within states has led to the greatest velocity of human progress and growth. There is no better time than today to be a creator, builder, entrepreneur, leader, and philanthropist.