Super Mentors

Chris Quintero
Chris Quintero is an associate at Bolt, an early stage venture capital firm that invests at the intersection of hardware and software. He also organizes the Boston Hardware Startup Meetup, Hardware Workshop, and a number of other events for hardware startup founders. Prior to Bolt Chris led engineering projects in Chile, Vietnam, and Cameroon.

Kristen Smith
Kristen Smith is with 4+ years of experience in the international maker community and a background in public engagement experience from the Denver Art Museum and MoMA in New York. She is currently Store Leader for the littleBits popup in Soho where she is developing customer experiences and new sales strategies for littleBits product. Previously, Kristen led a team of designers to develop and launch the Kohl’s Design It! Lab in partnership with Kohl’s Cares. Over the past year, Kristen Smith has expanded her network across the globe specifically in the startup, maker, and manufacturing industries through her work in bringing FabCafe to New York City.

Leah Gilliam
Leah Gilliam is the director of Hive NYC Learning Network, a key part of Mozilla’s global strategy to advance reading, writing and participation in the digital world. Through innovation funds, technical assistance, and leadership development, Hive Learning Networks invest in educators’ ability to create digitally-rich programs for youth, acting as an intermediary to facilitate the partnerships to embed these innovations citywide. A graduate of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, Gilliam is the former director of informal learning at New York’s Institute of Play, where she worked with city officials, educators and designers to launch the game-based-learning public school Quest to Learn. Gilliam also maintains her creative practice and premiered a new card game as part of NYU Game Center’s No Quarter exhibition this Fall.

Quilian Riano

Raj Jeyakumar
Raj Jeyakumar was born in Sri Lanka and moved to England when he was three. Raj received a joint Bachelors and Masters from Oxford in Physics, before ditching oscilloscopes for PowerPoint and getting an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent most of his career in consulting at at Marakon, focused on Corporate Strategy and New Market Entry for Fortune 500 Companies. He then went on to launch Skillbridge a platform that matches freelance top-tier freelance consultants with companies. Raj has also worked for social impact startups in Kenya with Technoserve.
Sumeet Shah
Sumeet Shah has been with Brand Foundry Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on consumer investments, since its inception in March 2014. Prior to Brand Foundry, he worked in the startup world as Director of Client Relationships at Gist Digital, a full-scale development shop based in New York, handling new business and long-term contracts. Prior to Gist Digital, Sumeet spent 5 years in the private equity space at Gotham Consulting Partners, a middle-market focused private equity consulting firm, doing project work for 2 years and running business development for 3 years. He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Biomedical Engineering, specializing in Biomechanics.