Today I’m so excited to talk with Mio Yamamoto. Mio is the co-founder and Executive Director of World in Tohoku. Mio has more than twelve years of experience in providing high-impact social entrepreneurs with management, capacity building, and funding support. Along with her experience in marketing, sales, and strategy consulting in the private sector, she is building a platform where leaders from private, public, and civic sectors promote cross-sector, cross-border collaborations to...

Today I’m so excited to talk with Lucy Svoboda, Ali Lauer, and Soha Yasrebi, three of the four co-founders of Galvanizer. Galvanizer is a start-up community tackling the female founder gap with the mission to encourage more women to take the leap into entrepreneurship. Lucy, Ali, and Soha are all Stanford GSB Class of 2021. Previously Lucy was Chief of Staff at Nearpod, Ali was a VC at Adam Street Partners, and Soha was a VC at OMERS Ventures. Episode Mentions: Galvanizer Manifesto for...

Today I’m so excited to talk with Risa Ishii. Risa is a Senior Partnerships Manager at Plug and Play Tech Center, the world’s largest early stage investor, accelerator and corporate innovation platform.  They have close to 40 locations around the world, making over 250 investments a year. Bridging startups and corporations in Japan with the rest of the world, Risa focuses on Smart Cities which includes mobility, real estate, energy industries, and more.  She oversees corporations' strategies...

Today I’m very excited to talk with Nana Britwum and Jannice Newson, co-founders of Lillian Augusta. Nana and Jannice are social entrepreneurs creating hair solutions for Black women. Frustrated with their own experiences of irritation in wearing braiding hair, they decided to innovate and make a high quality and sustainable alternative to the traditional plastic braiding hair found in beauty supply stores across the country. Their plant-based braiding hair is just the beginning to becoming...

Today I’m so excited to talk with Aishwarya Vardhana. Aishwarya is a product designer, visual artist, and writer interested in developing and practicing decolonial design thinking. Aishwarya published an incredible article on the Decolonial Design Thinking framework she is developing. Today, we discuss her experience with design, Decolonial Design Thinking, expanding what it means to be a designer (hint: It’s you!), and more. This is an awesome and ongoing conversation. If you’re energized...

Today I’m excited to talk with Bob Mason! Bob is a Managing Partner at Argon Ventures, leading pre-seed stage investments in Boston with a mission to amplify founder energy to launch cutting-edge software products and build impactful, global businesses. He has been a Managing Partner at Project 11 Ventures and was previously part of the Techstars Boston investment committee. His portfolio includes over 50 startups and access to a network of hundreds of founders. Before his career as an...

Today I am so excited to talk with Rafid Sikder and Farhan Kathawala of Passed Plates. Rafid is one of the cofounders of Passed Plates - an app where you can rescue delicious surplus food from restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, and cafe’s nearby at 50% off or more. They’re relatively new and just launched in SF this year. Their goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions emitted into the atmosphere from food waste. Rafid holds a BS in applied mathematics and environmental science from UC...

Today I am so excited to talk with Stephane E. Fouche. Born in Montreal, Canada but raised in Haiti, Stephane graduated from Harvard University. At the age of 12, he moved to New York, USA due to Haiti's political instability.   Utilizing the Japanese Education Ministry's sponsored study-abroad scholarship - MEXT, Stephane studied for one year at Kyushu University.   During his time in Japan, he interned/worked at Tokyo Gas, Active Learning, Rakuten, and Monex Securities, and became the...

Today I’m excited to talk with Lia Camargo! Lia is a bilingual project manager and translator with experience supporting the global expansion of early stage startups. She graduated from Wellesley College (Massachusetts, USA) with a B.A. in Women's and Gender Studies. At the Cambridge Innovation Center, she facilitated R&D collaboration between Boston-based startups and multinational corporations focusing on biotechnological innovation. Lia is passionate about making emerging femtech...

Our guest today is Ilse Calderon. Ilse is a senior associate at OVO Fund. She has been at OVO for the past 2.5 years and was previously at Silicon Valley Bank doing venture debt. OVO Fund is a pre-seed fund ($35MM) based in the Bay Area where they like to invest ($250k to $500k) in the earliest of founders (pre-product, pre-rev, pre-product market fit, etc) across capital efficient sectors. Ilse would love for founders targeting the U.S. Hispanic youth audience as well as underrepresented...

Our guest today is Miles Dotson. Miles is Managing Partner at Devland, a startup studio that focuses on building new innovative ventures with brilliant technologists and wildly underestimated entrepreneurs. He also serves as the Director of Investment at CG Capital and as a Partner to StartupPilot Global. Throughout his career Miles has led technology development as a software engineer and product manager creating frameworks for repeatable innovation within Private Equity managed companies....

VCedia is normalizing inclusive dialogue and relationship building on funding and creating a better future. This weekly audio and visual podcast features Schyler talking with investors, entrepreneurs, and area experts on tech, business financing, and ways to create better investment and innovation ecosystems. VCedia aims to make it help guests and listeners better connect and collaborate. If you're building the future, you're in the right place.  Find VCedia on your audio podcast of choice...