MIT Startup Exchange September Demo Day

Ariadna joined MIT Startup Exchange in a new role as Events Leader in September 2019. She has responsibility for the development and execution of events featuring startups, and for helping to promote collaboration and partnerships between MIT-connected startups and industry. She works closely with the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP), also within Corporate Relations, and with other areas around the MIT innovation ecosystem and beyond. Prior to this, Ariadna worked for over a decade at Credit Suisse Group in New York City and London in a few different roles in event management and later became a Director for client strategy. She has combined her experience in the private sector with work in non-profits as a Consultant and Development Director at the New York Immigration Coalition, Immigrant Defense Project and Americas Society/Council of the Americas. Ariadna also served on the Board of the Riverside Clay Tennis Association in NY for several years. She earned her B.A. in Political Science and Communications from New York University (NYU), also doing coursework at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico City, and her M.A. in Sociology from the City University of New York (CUNY).

Katia is the Founder and CEO of Centrly, a graph-analytics AI powered platform for corporate innovation teams to systematically find market opportunities, featured in Forbes 30 under 30 2021. Prior to Centrly, Katia was the first Director of Deployment at Vecna Robotics, a Series B company leading logistics automation with autonomous robots. Katia previously founded Young leaders in Energy and Sustainability (YES-Europe) and worked at Skoltech, a new innovation-focused university in Moscow established in partnership with MIT.

Katia graduated from MIT in 2013, earning a BS in Nuclear Engineering and an advanced certificate in engineering leadership from the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program. Katia also received an MS in Energy Management from EPFL in Switzerland, researching the same industry networks she is building now with Centrly. Katia lives in Berkeley, CA. In her free time, Katia enjoys solving jigsaw puzzles, doing improv comedy, and cycling.

Jacob is an entrepreneur and engineer with a mechanical engineering degree from Harvard University and PhD in civil engineering from MIT. At graduate school he joined a team of 3 professors to work on an academic project, which shaped the foundations for what several years later allowed them to form Carbin AI. Jacob now combines his passion for data, road transportation and climate to lead Carbin AI to revolutionize connected mobility in the future of EV and autonomous vehicles and reduce CO2 emissions. 

Lars Erik's first encounter with startups was at the age of 21 when his first startup, Gobi, raised a round from American investors, and he dropped out of college to continue the pursuit in Palo Alto, California. The startup is currently valued at 20 $million, but Lars Erik sold his shares to pursue more advanced technology. After two internships at Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto and one internship at Palantir in London, he met the co-founders of Aviant while studying at MIT. Since then, his sole focus is with the company, which has grown very quickly and currently operates three commercial contracts for hospitals in Scandinavia.

Sebastian is the CEO of Ubicept which provides new imaging solutions in challenging environments such as seeing motion in the dark at unprecedented quality. He has spent his career exploring new kinds of imaging with a focus on signal processing and information extraction. He holds BS/MS/PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany.

Andrea has been working with FDA regulated startups and investors for over 20 years in a variety of roles from managing technical teams to serving as an interim CEO.  She has a BS and an MS in Biomedical Engineering and an MBA, all from Boston University.

Thang Vo-Ta is the CEO & co-founded Callaly with a leading British gynaecologist, who invented the company’s first product, the Tampliner®. Thang manages the Callaly team and its strategic direction, including its commitment to the environment, people and communities as a B Corp. Thang started his career in investment banking & private equity at Goldman Sachs. He then spent a decade in property development and angel investment.  He has a S.B. in management from MIT.

Money Experience was founded and is run by noted Boston tech entrepreneur Jeet Singh. An MIT alumnus, Singh’s expertise and deep experience in online systems, customer engagement, education and skills training and other fields, come thanks to a 30-year successful history of founding businesses that have been innovative in a wide range of industry areas, including one of the first e-commerce firms (ATG, Inc.) in the industry. Other firms of note started by Singh include ThirdChannel, Inc. (data analytics in retail), Kinto, Inc. (health tech helping Alzheimer’s families, which recently was awarded an NIH grant), and Winterline Global Education, a skills-oriented gap-year educational program. Singh has lectured, spoken and taught at MIT Sloan School, MIT Entrepreneur Forum, Harvard Business School, various TED Conferences, World Economic Forum, Doors of Perception (Netherlands) and gap-year program Winterline Global Education.