SISA & SIIA Presents

The Social Innovation Symposium 2024

Down to Earth: Making Moonshot Solutions a Reality

Friday, April 5th 2024 | 12:00PM to 6:00PM

In Person at NYU Stern Campus

Keynote Speaker

David Hardy
CEO, Ørsted Americas

David Hardy is the Chief Executive Officer of the Americas Region for Ørsted, overseeing integrated clean energy solutions that include offshore wind, land-based wind, solar projects, battery storage, and other initiatives. Under Hardy’s leadership, Ørsted’s portfolio in the Region has grown to include approximately 8 gigawatts of clean energy projects in operation and under development.

Prior to joining Ørsted, Hardy held senior executive roles with GE, Senvion and Vestas, working both in the U.S. and abroad. He is a proud U.S. Navy veteran, having served for more than eight years in the submarine community.

Hardy received an MBA in Finance and Management from the NYU Stern School of Business.

Panels

Advancing Sustainable and Social Finance:
Delineating ESG from Impact Investing

  • Executive Director, Finance Leaders Fellowship, Aspen Institute

  • Senior Associate, Insights & Strategy, Acumen

  • Adjunct Assistant Professor, NYU Wagner School of Public Service

  • Moderator; Director of Social Impact Innovation and Investment Specialization, NYU Wagner Director of Social Impact Innovation and Investment Specialization, NYU Wagner

From Farm to City: The Journey of NYC’s Food

  • VP Merchandising, Baldor Speciality Foods, Inc.

    Scott Crawford comes most recently from Fresh Direct where he was Chief Merchandising Officer. He previously led the prepared foods division at Whole Foods Market across several regions and has an extensive background in kitchens across America.

    At Baldor, Crawford will ensure Baldor is evolving its catalogue by bringing to market new and emerging producers and farms that match our values and the needs of our customers, as well as building stronger relationships with our core and legacy partners and suppliers. His team also supports our vendors in their growth trajectories.

  • Founder and CEO, Agritecture

    Henry is an acknowledged global thought leader in the accelerating vertical and urban agriculture industry and has facilitated, moderated and spoken at sustainability-driven forums and events worldwide. He helps clients identify and focus their goals, prepares consulting proposals, and develops winning urban agriculture concepts and strategies.

    Henry holds a BA in Political Science, coursework in Food Security and Urban Agriculture, and an MSc in Sustainability Management from Columbia University. Henry serves as an advisor to multiple AgTech startups and is on the board of the non-profit organization Teens for Food Justice.

  • Moderator; Editor-in-Chief, Bon Appétit and Epicurious

    Jamila Robinson is the editor in chief of Bon Appétit and Epicurious. She leads an award-winning team that shapes the culinary world and the way global audiences think about food through ambitious recipes and storytelling about culture, cooking, and restaurants.

    She serves as the North American East Academy Chair for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, selecting the voting panel for one of the highest honors in the restaurant industry.

  • Owner, Hunky Dory

Smart Solutions, Sustainable Future:
Revolutionizing Social Impact Through AI and ML

  • Founder and CEO, Artificial Intelligence Risk

  • Strategic Partnerships, M&A, AI for Social Good, IBM Data and AI

    Becky is deeply passionate about harnessing data and technology for social impact with nearly two decades of experience in both the private and social sectors. At IBM, she drives M&A and Data and AI for Social Impact initiative for the Data and AI business. She is an Adjunct Professor at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

    Since 2017, she has been a board member of The i.HUG Foundation and recently joined the board of Libraries Without Borders, contributing to global education and empowerment initiatives. She is currently a doctoral student at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

  • Executive Director, Climate Change AI

    Maria João Sousa is a PiTech Startup Postdoc at Cornell Tech and Executive Director at Climate Change AI (CCAI), which is a global non-profit that catalyzes impactful work at the intersection of climate change and machine learning.

    She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Universidade de Lisboa. Her doctoral thesis focused on cooperative aerial robotics and artificial intelligence for wildfire detection and monitoring systems and was developed as a research fellow at both IDMEC in the Center of Intelligent Systems and at ADAI in the Forest Fire Research Center.

    She was nominated for the UN Environment Young Champions of the Earth 2018 Prize for her project on decentralized intelligent sensor networks for fire detection and monitoring. Her research was funded by a Ph.D. Scholarship by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), and received seed funding awards from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Humanitarian Grant (RAS-SIGHT) and from NVIDIA Corporation, through the GPU Grants Program.

    She collaborated on the NeurIPS 2020 workshop side-event “Monitoring the Climate Crisis with AI, Satellites and Drones” and was on the organizing team of the “Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning” workshop at ICML 2021, NeurIPS 2021 (lead organizer), and NeurIPS 2022.

    She also contributes and collaborates on the ITU/WMO/UNEP Focus Group on AI for Natural Disaster Management (FG-AI4NDM), namely in the Topic Group on AI for Wildfire Monitoring and Detection.

  • President and CEO, Emerging Tech Exchange

  • Moderator; Adjunct Associate Professor of Management and Organizations, NYU Stern

Urban Decarbonization:
Challenges of Change in the Built Environment

  • Deputy Director, Resilient & Efficient Buildings, NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice

  • CEO, Solar One

    Stephen grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey and after graduating from Brown University in 2003, came to Brooklyn to work as a Community Organizer. He worked in the Housing office of Riseboro Community Partnerships (formerly Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council) in Bushwick, Brooklyn from 2004-2006, running a Lead Safe House Program which relocated lead-poisoned children and their families and an Anti-Predatory Lending Program which worked with distressed neighborhood property owners to address the proliferation of predatory lending practices. From 2006-2009, Stephen worked with the New York State Assembly, where he worked on affordable housing legislation that affected thousands of New York State residents. Stephen was elected to the New York City Council in 2009 and served as Councilmember for the 33rd District in Brooklyn from 2010-2021. As Councilmember, Stephen negotiated dozens of land use projects and prioritized expanding affordable housing and open space including ensuring the City acquire and build the long-promised 27-acre Bushwick Inlet Park in Williamsburg. He sponsored legislation to remove PCBs from NYC schools and cosponsored the Climate Mobilization Act. From 2014-2021, Stephen served as Chair of the Council’s General Welfare Committee, overseeing the budgets and programming of the New York City Department of Social Services, Department of Homeless Services, and the Administration of Children’s Services. In this role, he focused on ensuring homeless individuals and families have access to permanent housing and that youth in foster care have long term support systems. He currently lives In Greenpoint, Brooklyn with his wife Ann and their two children.

Closing Keynote:
10 Minutes to Change the World

  • Senior Advisor, Geothermal Commercialization, LPO

    Charles Gertler works on commercialization of emerging energy technologies in the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, where he is lead on the Pathways to Commercial Liftoff reports on next-generation geothermal energy. Prior to joining DOE, Charles worked in the Climate & Sustainability practice at the Boston Consulting Group and as an aide to US Senator Edward J. Markey, where he led on multiple pieces of climate legislation, including the Civilian Climate Corps and the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Charles holds a PhD in Climate Physics and Chemistry from MIT, and his ongoing academic work focuses on the physics of extreme climate impacts and climate interventions.

  • Co-Founder, President, and CEO, New Disabled South

    Dom Kelly is the Co-Founder, President & CEO of New Disabled South, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and New Disabled South Rising, its 501(c)(4) arm. He previously served as both the Georgia Fundraising Director and the Senior Advisor for Disability for Stacey Abrams’ campaign for governor of Georgia. Prior to that, he was Senior Fundraising Manager and a Strategic Advisor for Disability at Fair Fight Action, the voting rights organization founded by Stacey Abrams, where he also created and led the organization’s Disability Council composed of prominent disability advocates and policy experts from across the country.

    He is retired from music, but with a decade of additional experience in digital and editorial strategy, nonprofit development, and community building, he has devoted his life to disability justice advocacy, progressive policy, and nonprofit leadership.

    He received a Master of Science in Nonprofit Leadership degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice where he also received the Excellence in Social Impact award. Additionally, he holds a bachelor’s degree in music production, a master’s degree in journalism, an executive certificate in social impact strategy, and a graduate certificate in interdisciplinary disability studies

  • Executive Director, Empowerment Avenue

    Rahsaan Thomas is the Executive Director of Empowerment Avenue, a program he created while incarcerated to meet the pre-entry needs of incarcerated writers and artists, helping them to get their voices in mainstream spaces for prevailing wages. He built the organization based on his experiences as an incarcerataed writer, filmmaker, and social justice advocate. He is most known for co-hosting and co-producing the Pulitzer Prize finalist and Dupont Award winning podcast, Ear Hustle, as well as appearances in United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell and the documentary What These Walls Won't Hold. He’s also the director, writer, and producer of Friendly Signs and a producer of What These Walls Won’t Hold and More Than Basketball. As a freelance writer, Rahsaan has dozens of bylines in publication including Business Insider, The Boston Globe, Current, NBC Universal Academy, High Country News, Slate, Apogee Journal, and The Marshall Project. Initiate Justice credits Rahsaan with sparking the successful restoration of voting rights for people on parole in California. Rahsaan is a 2024 Right of Return USA and Emerson Collective Fellow. Rahsaan uses proximity, economic empowerment, and inclusion to break cycles of gun violence, inter-generational incarceration, and poverty.