Announcing our strongest line-up of judges and speakers to-date.
StartupBus is growing up. This time it’s serious.
Since 2010, prominent investors, founders, and top tech talents across the continent had graced the stage at our finals competition.
For years until 2017, StartupBus would travel to a tech conference as a final destination. For our 10th anniversary, we are taking another bold step forward to become the tech conference itself: We are aiming to deliver the ultimate experience to transform top tech talents across the continent into founders, and inspire everyone to make waves in the startup world. Go face-to-face with real investors. GAME-ON! Show us your serious hacks.
Join us for our Entrepreneur Summit in New Orleans on July 27th and 28th consisting of pitches and demos of our freshly formed startups and valuable wisdom from esteemed speakers and judges in keynotes, talks, and panels.
We’re excited to announce our all-star line-up of judges and speakers hailing from across the continent to our finals competition, and also our most diverse to-date! Let’s take a look, shall we?
Melinda Briana Epler
Founder & CEO, Change Catalyst
Melinda is a TED speaker, diversity and inclusion advocate and leader building inclusive innovation economies around the world.
She has more than 20 years of experience elevating brands and developing business innovation strategies for entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 companies and global NGOs. As CEO of Change Catalyst, Melinda works with the tech industry to solve diversity and inclusion together. She is a strategic advisor for startups, tech companies, tech hubs and venture capital firms around the world. She co-leads a series of global solutions-focused conferences called Tech Inclusion, and is Director at Backstage Capital, where she develops startup programs and builds inclusive entrepreneur ecosystems for underrepresented founders.
Melinda is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker and speaks, mentors and writes about diversity and inclusion in tech, social entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurs and investing.
Wayne Sutton
Co-Founder & CTO, Change Catalyst
Wayne Sutton is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Change Catalyst and its Tech Inclusion programs with passion to inspire entrepreneurs to use technology to change the world.
Alicia Syrett
Founder & CEO, Pantegrion Capital
Alicia Syrett is the Founder and CEO of Pantegrion Capital, an angel investment vehicle focused on seed and early stage investments, and The Point 25 Initiative which helps women-led companies build robust Advisory Boards.
She was named as one of LinkedIn’s 2018 “Top Voices in Startups and Entrepreneurship,” one of the “30 Women in Venture Capital to Watch in 2018” by Business Insider, and one of the “25 Angel Investors in New York You Need to Know” by AlleyWatch. She has been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, Inc., The Huffington Post, Mashable, Entrepreneur, NPR’s Marketplace, and USA Today. She has appeared on CNBC and MSNBC 100+ times, and her TED talk on “Why VCs and Angel Investors Say ‘No’ to Entrepreneurs” has been viewed over 85,000 times.
She is a 2019 Fellow at the Economic Club of New York, a Board Member of the NY Tech Alliance, and Contributor for Inc. Prior to founding Pantegrion, she was the first employee and CAO of a multi-billion dollar private equity firm.
Uriridiakoghene “Ulili” Onovakpuri
Partner, Kapor Capital
Uriridiakoghene “Ulili” Onovakpuri returned to the Kapor Capital team in 2016. She is focused on sourcing investment opportunities, conducting diligence and supporting Kapor Capital’s portfolio companies particularly those in the digital health and medical technology industries.
Previously, Uriridiakoghene served as Director of Global Programs at Village Capital, a global accelerator program and venture capital firm which supports healthcare, education, agriculture, energy and FinTech businesses. At Village Capital she worked side by side with entrepreneurs from around the world helping them grow their ideas into marketable businesses.
Uriridiakoghene received her MBA with a concentration in Health Sector Management from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is a native San Franciscan and a proud UC Berkeley Alum.
In her free time, you will likely find Uriridiakoghene watching Bollywood movies or playing with her niece Maya.
More to be announced!
That’s right — there are more! Check out our complete line-up on our website. We even have a few more serious surprises yet to be announced that will make you want to jump on the bus right now.
With that said, there’s only a little less than 4 weeks to apply for your ride on the StartupBus! Our conductors are revving up our interview pipeline — it’s time to sign up now or never!
To get on the bus, use the invite code “TheStrongest” on https://startupbus.com/apply.
See y’all soon,
Madelena Mak + Colleen Wong
