Speakers

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  Karina Sotnik

  Karina Sotnik is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, adviser and an educator. She spent over a decade in Silicon Valley in senior positions helping companies grow globally. She also launched three ventures of her own. In the last five years her concentration has been on growing WorldUpStart, a consulting practice focused on providing mentorship, consulting and advice to academic incubators, including UPstart at University of Pennsylvania, Accelerlife (Scandinavia) and ITMO QD (Russia). In addition, Karina recently conceived and launched AppITUP, an accelerator program for Mobile Apps at the University of Pennsylvania.

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  Will Crowder

  William Crowder is Managing Director at DreamIt Ventures where he works closely with DreamIt’s NYC and Philadelphia cycles, overseeing the DreamIt Access track. He is responsible for the operation of DreamIt Access; a partnership between DreamIt Ventures and Comcast to increase the number of minority-led startups. Outside of DreamIt, William leads the investing activities of the Comcast Ventures Opportunity Fund, a $20M seed stage venture fund; and is the Founder and Managing Director of Growth Strategy Advisors, a boutique strategic advisory and business development company that launched in 2008.

  @williamcrowder
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  Lucinda Duncalfe

  Lucinda Duncalfe is Founder/CEO of Real Food, a start-up supporting people eating plant strong. She is a serial entrepreneur, having founded and run a number of venture capital-backed technology companies. Most recently she was CEO of ClickEquations, an enterprise paid search management software-as-a-service company acquired by Channel Intelligence in 2011. Prior to leading ClickEquations, Lucinda co-founded and led TurnTide, an anti-spam technology company. TurnTide was acquired by Symantec for $28 million only six months after founding.

  @LucindaD
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  Jeff Bodle

  Jeffrey P. Bodle is a partner in Morgan Lewis's Business and Finance Practice and its Emerging Business and Technology Practice. Mr. Bodle is a corporate and securities lawyer whose practice focuses on representing emerging businesses and other high-growth private and public companies throughout every stage of their lifecycle.

  He also represents seed and venture capital investors, private equity investors, institutional investors, and strategic investors in investment and portfolio company transactions.

  He also concentrates his practice on a variety of complex transactional matters, including IPOs and other public and private offerings of equity and debt securities, mergers and acquisitions and corporate partnering, joint venture, and other strategic transactions.

  @jeffbodle
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  Karen Gryga

  Karen Griffith Gryga is a Managing Partner at DreamIt Ventures where she oversees the Philadelphia cycles and leads fundraising efforts for DreamIt Fund II. She is the co-founder of Liberty Venture Partners, a Philadelphia based venture fund established in 1997 with $150M under management; FashInvest, a media and events initiative known internationally, focused on emerging growth entrepreneurs within Branded Goods, Fashion, Fashion Tech and Retail; and co-founder and CEO of Lipstick Wisdom, a community website for mothers of children with neurological differences.