Meet The Unshackled Fellows
Welcome Class of 2020/1!
There can be no doubt: the impact of COVID-19 on student expectations and experiences has been extensive. According to a November 2020 study, 13% of students delayed graduation, 40% lost a job, internship, or offer, and 29% expect to earn less at 35 (years old) due to the pandemic. Understanding the current complex and uncertain state of education and work experience, we wanted to offer a program for trailblazing students (regardless of their location) that provides deep insights into venture capital and hands-on operator experience to contribute to their career development post-school. The Unshackled Fellowship 3.0 edition was born.
We are excited to welcome our 21 newest members of the team, the largest and most diverse group of Fellows we’ve ever had; the majority are BIPOC, and 57% of our cohort identify as female. Since starting the Unshackled Fellowship our cohorts have seen growth with every new edition: 8 Fellows in 2019, 11 Fellows in 2020, and now 21 Fellows in 2020/1, equating to Unshackled representation across 25 U.S. schools from Miami Dade in Florida to Pomona College in California. It is our belief that the visionary people you’ll meet today will be the builders, operators and venture capitalists of tomorrow — you can quote us on that.
Introducing our Fellows aka the ‘Ones to Watch in 2020/1’:
Jarrod Barnes
A native of Columbus, Ohio, Jarrod is a former student-athlete and college football coach at The Ohio State University. From launching his own startup to now as an NFL front office employee, Jarrod has continually looked to challenge the status quo. Jarrod is a current Doctoral Student at the University of Illinois with a research focus in Learning Design and Leadership. His interests in tech and venture capital consist of educational technology, the future of work, and sports tech ventures.
Diane Huang
Diane is a social entrepreneur with a passion for tech and the performing arts. After founding 2 non-profits in high school, she pursued a Bachelor of Commerce at Queen’s University while completing internships at Deloitte, Tesla and Mozilla Firefox.
Diane recently published her first novel on Amazon, and runs a Substack newsletter called Snapshots, where she profiles startups and emerging technologies with some spicy hot takes. Born in Fuzhou (the most beautiful place in the world), and as a first-gen immigrant herself, Diane is excited to be a part of Unshackled’s unparalleled fellowship and contribute with exciting content on trends and investments!
Jessika Agyepong
Jessika Agyepong is a senior at Howard University, studying biology with a focus in bioinformatics. On campus, she is the VC team lead at Mecca Capital, the on campus arm of Black Venture Capital Consortium’s HBCU Curriculum. In addition, she performs protein modeling research with the Howard School of Medicine. As an avid trivia buff, she also heads the quiz bowl team.
Jessika is specifically interested in the biotech and cleantech industries, but is open to learning about all aspects of startups and VC. By being a University Fellow, she hopes to gain the skills and knowledge to support underrepresented founders and investors. Her previous experience includes founding a skincare startup, Dermovont, and participating in a fellowship at Ripple Ventures. In her free time, she enjoys teaching herself guitar, skateboarding, and going down Wikipedia rabbit holes.
Kiana Afshar
Kiana Afshar is a senior at U.C. Berkeley studying data science and human-computer interaction. In addition to her role at Unshackled, she works in research and business development at deep tech startup Veracity Protocol. She loves all things hardware, having designed assistive robots to be used in K-12 classrooms for differently-abled students, comfort devices for premature infants in the NICU, and sensory augmentation wearables.
Her passion for creating beautiful and functional product experiences stems from her training as a fine art apprentice. She also serves as a mathematics undergraduate student instructor and as a mentor for Girls Who Code.
Luis Clague
Luis Clague is a Senior at Rice University studying Computer Science. He is passionate about mobile development and accessibility, reflected in his involvement on campus. At Rice, he serves as President of the Computer Science Club, promoting the club’s mission to create a community for professional, social, and academic development at Rice.
Luis’ interest in the venture space lies in the heart of consumer audio consumption and its cross section with the social sector. With this in mind, Luis has taken a liking to Android development, working on the Slack app for his latest internship. Luis enjoys deep conversations, coffee shop conversations, and anything remotely active. Outside of professional related work, Luis plays soccer for the Rice club team and likes to skydive in his free time.
Christian McKenzie
Christian has over 6 years of experience in fashion and technology and she is passionate about helping early-stage consumer businesses scale. Her first professional role was as a Computer Programming Intern at IBM. In her future roles, she used technology to enrich her work in retail. She’s worked for Macy’s, Inc., Kmart and Facebook, Inc.
Christian is currently pursuing her Master of Business Administration at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. While at Stern, she’s been an MBA Associate at a consumer-focused fund called The Ember Company, a Cleo Capital Fellow, and a Georgetown Fellow. In her free time, she writes about startup and consumer news. She’s the child of an immigrant who doesn’t go a week without eating Jamaican ackee and salt fish with a glass of sorrel.
Riya Gilja
Riya Gilja is a senior from New York majoring in economics and psychology with a minor in computer science. She is passionate about behavioral economics and its intersection with technology. During her sophomore summer, Riya was a product intern at a technology startup in South Africa. During her freshman summer, she interned as a data analyst at an e-learning consulting company in NYC.
This summer, she is working at BlackRock in their technology division. Outside of leading technology for Business-Oriented-Womxn, Riya is a behavioral economics researcher at the Center for Advanced Hindsight and heads the Transfer Students Union on campus. In her free time, Riya enjoys nature, art, and finding good music.
Thomas Chen
Thomas Chen is a dual degree candidate at NYU School of Law and NYU Stern School of Business. At NYU, he spends his time in the startup community as a leader of the Social Enterprise and Startup Law Group as well as the Entrepreneurship and Startup Association. An optimist at heart, Thomas is passionate about helping entrepreneurs develop and scale their business. Thomas loves anything on two wheels and spares no expense to work on his bike.
He is a former management consultant at Accenture with a background in the finance and high-tech industries. Thomas also has experience doing product management for a venture-backed LegalTech startup and as a venture associate for Cyber NYC, a public-private partnership to build the New York cybersecurity industry. This past summer, he advised investors and entrepreneurs on their legal problems at Cooley LLP.
Afua Asantewaa
Afua Asantewaa is an MBA candidate at Cornell’s Johnson School of Management. Prior to Cornell, she worked as a consultant and has experience in trade operations, human capital management, and performance improvement financial strategy. As an undergraduate student, she studied business with a concentration in accounting and finance and a minor in African and Black Diaspora studies. Afua is proficient in French and is very passionate about diversity and the intersection of race and gender.
Post-MBA, Afua plans focus on products and companies that specialize in economic development in Africa. A former resident of Ghana, Afua is motivated to return to the continent where she plans to establish an incubator and advise government ministries on how to support founders as a strategy for economic development.
Alex Ker
Alex is a junior at Pomona College exploring cross-functional interests in philosophy, computer science and cognitive science. At the Claremont College Consortium, he founded P-ai — the modern incubator for AI projects and ideas — to build a diverse & accessible community to solve interdisciplinary problems, while supporting student entrepreneurs with technical recruiting and fundraising.
Alex currently works on the ML team at Neurable, a series-A Brain Computer Interface startup in decoding and modelling neural signals. In investing, he served as a Venture Partner for Nodes Advisor and most recently as a scout for Loup Ventures. In his free time, Alex loves to dive into fiction from the New Yorker and occasionally freestyles in a virtual cypher. As a fellow, Alex is excited to leverage the Unshackled network and resources to empower and democratize his college entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Amil Naik
Amil Naik is a junior at The University of Texas at Austin studying Finance, Computer Science, and UI/UX Design. He is passionate about the intersection of design and technology and how they can serve everyday people. He has worked as both a freelancer and intern at startups in roles ranging from development, marketing, design, and sales, as well as founded his own venture in the future of work space. In his most recent summer, he interned at StartX — a Stanford-affiliated, Palo Alto based accelerator — where he decided that the startup and venture capital world was where he needed to be. He aspires to solve the social problems of everyday people in his community through entrepreneurship.
On campus, Amil is involved with the University Management and Business Research Association — a student-run management consulting organization — as a project lead for clients. In his spare time, he can be found hiking and camping around Austin, playing guitar, drinking boba and trying new restaurants, playing videogames with friends, exploring brave frontiers in cooking, and creating pyrography art. He is excited to continue his passion of helping great ideas get built and out into the world with Unshackled Ventures!
Gabi D’Agosto
Gabi D’Agosto is an MBA candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is interested in exploring VC and entrepreneurship while at Stanford. She previously supported Lucid Lane as a product management pre-MBA intern. Before her internship, she was a Senior Consultant with Deloitte. Her 6 years of Deloitte consulting experience focused on product management, technology strategy, and strategy & analytics. Her roles included product management at Facebook, technology scouting at the Department of Homeland Security, and contributing to the Deloitte Consulting Innovation government offering.
Jathan Caldwell
Jathan Caldwell is a junior at the Georgia Institute of Technology studying Industrial Engineering and International Business. Of proud Ecuadorian heritage, he is passionate about progress that bridges a community-centered focus with audacious consumer technology & media, and hopes to ultimately accelerate innovation in the startup scene in LATAM.
Having spent his past two summers with McKinsey & Company, Jathan has both led growth strategy towards breakthrough technology with a leading global company and built the firm’s pilot cross-operations playbook. He currently serves as EVP for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and is building a student-run VC that backs underrepresented students at Georgia Tech. In his spare time, he enjoys singing with the band Passion, capturing moments with his film camera, volunteering with a refugee relief organization and making infinite variations of ceviche. He looks forward to working with the Unshackled team in their mission of backing exceptional entrepreneurs shaping the future!
Linda Ye
Linda is a junior at Stanford University studying Economics and Creative Writing. She is deeply interested in solving problems at the crossroads of business and technology, and loves to help bridge gaps in communication between businesses and their target audiences. Having worked at startups in areas ranging from software to entertainment tech, she is excited to explore investing in innovative teams and products.
On campus, Linda helps lead organizations connecting students to resources in business, entrepreneurship, and the arts. Whether it’s through designing new curriculum or hosting a startup pitch competition, she aims to build inclusive communities and to drive impact in her work. She’s also done topical deep-dives and data-digging in past experiences conducting economics research. In her free time, she enjoys reading literary fiction, going on road trips, and writing everything from poetry to half-baked novels.
Xinru Li
Xinru is a junior at Brown University studying Computer Science — Economics and Music. On campus, Xinru is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Brown RISD Innovation Community, and led the planning of WE@Brown, a conference for women in entrepreneurship. Before COVID-19, Xinru was an active musical theater producer and music director, and now Xinru combines her technological and artistic backgrounds to make music using AI (or pretends to).
Having experienced various non profits, government entities, social justice organizations, and even founded a volunteer organization around literacy, Xinru is passionate about using technology and entrepreneurship to create sustainable social change. As an Unshackled Fellow, Xinru is excited to work with the team and founders to learn, build, and equitably solve societal problems.
Akshat Dheeraj Talreja
Akshat is a sophomore at The Wharton School from India and Singapore. At Penn, he is the Founder and President of AI@Penn and is also involved on the boards of the Wharton Data Analytics Club and Penn’s collegiate Model United Nations Conference. Presently, he is also a Fellow @ Ripple Ventures and is working as a senior analyst with Wharton Analytics Fellows on a data consulting project at a SaaS healthcare technology and analytics startup.
Akshat is very interested in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and has previously worked at venture backed startups in areas ranging from Natural Language Processing to Fraud Detection. In his spare time, he loves meeting new people, playing pool, and trying new restaurants.
Cynthia Gong
Cynthia is a student at UCLA studying Statistics with a minor in Digital Humanities. She’s passionate about exploring the intersection of business, design, and innovation. In the past, Cynthia has interned in a variety of industries, including healthcare and municipal government, but found her time working at two growth-stage startups to be the most enjoyable. On campus, she’s the Director of Marketing for TAMID Consulting Group, the Chief Research Officer for Smart Woman Securities, and spends her afternoons as a Team Manager with the UCLA Track & Field Team.
In her spare time, Cynthia is a lover of all things arts and outdoors. She enjoys snorkeling, rock climbing, running and hiking and occupies the rest of her time by painting and blogging about bad music.
Jasman Singh
Jasman studies China, international relations, and policy at Princeton. He’s a rising junior (on a gap year), currently working on the product team of a cannabis startup. The son of two tireless Indian immigrants, he feels privileged to come from a diverse background. While in high school, he helped write a federal civil rights bill, which was signed into law in 2019. With a passion for policy and tech as a force for good, Jasman hopes to use technology as a means to accelerate the progress that impactful policy aims to deliver.
He has previously interned on the product team at Landed (YC W19), the policy team on Cory Booker’s presidential campaign, the constituent services team for his congresswoman, and as a research assistant to a Nobel Laureate of Economics.
Kelsey Wu
Kelsey Wu is a sophomore at Harvard University studying Government and Data Science, passionate about leveraging data analytics to drive social impact and business intelligence. Currently, she interns as a data scientist & product manager at World Data Lab and assists case team work at A.T. Kearney. On campus, she helps lead Harvard Data Analytics Group and Harvard Open Data Project. In her free time, you can find her singing a cappella with the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones or sampling various noodles.
Born in Hong Kong to immigrant parents who were entrepreneurs themselves, Kelsey is inspired by the collaborative, audacious, and energetic culture of the startup community. Having moved from Shanghai to the U.S. in 5th grade, she understands the drastic cultural shift that immigrant founders face. At Unshackled, she’s excited about empowering immigrant founders and generating social impact.
Rishik Lad
Rishik is a second-year transfer student studying computer science & history at Dartmouth College. He has a passion for all things entrepreneurial: he founded his first social-impact, senior living services startup in high-school to help reduce the barrier for tech-adverse senior citizens to interface with technology. He later spent two Summers working at early-stage startups and served as a Campus Partner for Ground Up Ventures this past spring. Excited about supporting college entrepreneurship, he also created a Startup Grind chapter at his previous university to foster an on-campus culture of innovation.
Hearing stories and exploring interesting topics (especially those out of his comfort zone!) with new people is one of his favorite pastimes. Outside of tech, startups, and venture, Rishik enjoys listening to podcasts, late-night drives, and card games. An immigrant himself, he’s excited to join Unshackled and work with immigrant entrepreneurs to build and scale impactful ideas.
Mary Fangyuan Liu
Mary Liu is a Schwarzman Scholar studying Global Affairs at Tsinghua University. She recently graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Mathematics. As a Schwarzman Scholar, she is involved with Student Government and the StartUp Institute. Mary is passionate about developing innovative tools at the intersection of technology and social impact.
Mary is particularly interested in consumer privacy, cybersecurity, and food science startups. As an intern with the DNC’s data science team, Mary had the opportunity to work with consumer data in modeling voter partisanship and participation. She enjoys daily runs, excessive cups of coffee, and politics podcasts.
Please join us in welcoming these fellows to Unshackled Ventures. If you are interested in learning more or getting involved at your school, please fill out this form here!
