BUILDING NEXT GEN DATA INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE SOCIAL SECTOR

Asim Ijaz Khwaja is the Director of the Center for International Development and the Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, and co-founder of the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP). His areas of interest include economic development, finance, education, political economy, institutions, and contract theory/mechanism design. His research combines extensive fieldwork, rigorous empirical analysis, and microeconomic theory to answer questions that are motivated by and engage with policy.

His recent work ranges from understanding market failures in emerging financial markets to examining the private education market in low-income countries. He was selected as a Carnegie Scholar in 2009 to pursue research on how religious institutions impact individual beliefs.

Khwaja received BS degrees in economics and in mathematics with computer science from MIT and a PhDin economics from Harvard. He was born in London, U.K. and lived in Kano, Nigeria and Lahore, Pakistan before moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He continues to enjoy interacting with people around the globe.

Tony Bowen partners with the Fidelity Charitable Board of Trustees to oversee and manage a strategic grantmaking program dedicated to strengthening the social sector. The Fidelity Charitable Trustees’ Initiative ensures nonprofits across the country have the resources they need to run thriving organizations and improve their communities. Prior to joining Fidelity Charitable, Tony was a Lead Consultant at BDO FMA, a national consulting firm dedicated to building the confidence of nonprofit leaders, where he launched FMA's DC office and led FMA's pandemic relief efforts to get support for thousands of nonprofits. Before that, Tony was a Managing Director at Democracy Fund, a national private foundation. He has also previously worked at Annie E. Casey Foundation, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations,GuideStar, and numerous family and community foundations.

Tony is passionate about improving the ability of foundations and nonprofits to better meet their visions and build more equitable and empowered futures for those with less access to power and resources. He serves as the Board Treasurer for Kid Power, a youth development organization empowering low-income youth in Washington, DC. He also cofounded an LGBTQ youth center in Kansas City, MO and served as vice president and steering committee member of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy DC Chapter from 2013-2015. He is the author of Forty Years of LGBTQ Philanthropy and his writing on foundations has appeared in Chronicle of Philanthropy. He received his B.A. in Nonprofit Leadership & Business Administration from William Jewel College and M.A. in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University's Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Phil Chow is a Canadian entrepreneur, humanitarian, and futurist. Philip is the CEO of Humanitas Technologies, a Palo Alto-based startup building the Internet's impact data infrastructure. Philip’s mission is to unlock socioeconomic data to counteract an increasingly sexist and racist internet.Outside of Humanitas, Philip supports venture philanthropy opportunities focused on climate change, disaster relief, and global health inequities. As a leading advocate for the digital transformation of the nonprofit sector, Philip has shared his ideas and experiences with public, private, and civic leaders at high-profile convenings including the World Economic Forum, WorldBank, and Stockholm Philanthropy Symposium. Philip serves as an advisor for Fathom Radiant, Develop for Good, and JustFund and has worked in more than 14 countries.

Oktay’s areas of responsibility at PayPal include tools for non-profits processing payments, offerings for individuals supporting their favorite causes on PayPal, and supporting partners offering giving opportunities for their customers on their sites. Before PayPal he was a co-founder and CTO of MissionFish, eBay’s nonprofit partner powering cause-marketing and donation programs built into eBay properties since 2003 – until MissionFish was acquired by eBay Inc. in 2011.

Prior to DonorsChoose, Alix co-founded an educational technology company, LearnZillion(acquired in 2019) and served as CEO of the philanthropic platform GlobalGiving. His previous work experience includes consulting in McKinsey & Company’s education practice, teaching middle school and high school mathematics, and working in the public finance department at Citigroup. His awards include the NewSchools Venture Fund Entrepreneur of the Year, FastCompany’s Most Innovative Education Company, DC’s Top 40 Entrepreneurs Under 40, Washington Post top workplaces, and Nonprofit Times Power & Influence Top 50.

Alix has a Masters in Education from the Stanford University School of Education and an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He graduated from Harvard University with an AB in physics and is a proud product of New Haven Public Schools. A first-generation American and child of parents from Haiti and rural Brazil, he lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two daughters.

As Justice Funders’ Senior Innovation Director, and the founder of the movement-building technology platform, Giving Side, Mario partners with philanthropy and field practitioners to design, pilot and scale both innovation and collective action that advances social movements through our Movement Commons Lab. Mario comes to the organization via Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school), where he served as a 2016-2017 Civic Innovation Fellow, as well as Guidestar, where he held the position of Entrepreneur-in-Residence.

In 2010, Mario co-founded the New American Leaders Project, the country’s first and only organization dedicated to training first- and second- generation immigrants to run for elected office. He has held leadership positions at the Kapor Center for Social Impact, as well as the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation, providing leadership around new and unprecedented philanthropic investments in both integrated voter engagement strategies and for a fair and accurate 2010 census count. He built significant community organizing experience as the National Coordinator of Racial Justice 911 and at CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities in the NorthwestBronx.

Mario is a long-time philanthropic and nonprofit consultant, speaker, board member, and facilitator. He is a graduate of Columbia University.

Tyesha Maddox is an Assistant Professor at Fordham University in the Department of African andAfrican American Studies. She received her PhD in History from New York University in 2016. Sher eceived a BA in History and Africana Studies and a MPS in Africana Studies both from CornellUniversity. Her current manuscript, "A Home Away from Home: Mutual Aid, Political Activism, and theConstruction of Caribbean American Identity, 1890-1940," examines the significance of early twentieth century Anglophone Caribbean immigrant mutual aid societies and benevolent associations in NewYork City. In 2020, she co-edited a comprehensive resource guide and website titled "This is Not a Riot!"(www.notariot.com) to help contextualize the Black Lives Matter Uprisings of 2020 by placing them in the historical radical tradition of black protest in the US. She also serves as a key organizer for MutualAid NYC's Organizing Archive and Library.

Her research and teaching interests include the African Diaspora, Caribbean, Black Atlantic, Women and Gender, African American History, Race, Transnational Communities, Migrational Movements, Immigration, Black Identity Formation, Social and Cultural History.

Junueth Mejía is a digital philanthropy trailblazer in Mexico and Latin America. As head of strategy and operations in HIPGive, Hispanic in Philanthropy’s digital platform, she leverages investment and develops innovative technology to help hundreds of nonprofits from across the Americas to advance their work through crowdfunding campaigns. Having spearheaded the recent integrations of peer-to-peer giving and digital giving circles, Junueth is leading the way in creating the largest digital community for social good and 21st century philanthropy.

Before her transition to digital, Junueth honed her fundraising skills in both World Vision and Habitat forHumanity, where she was in charge of international corporate fundraising, major donors and grantmaking. With a Masters in Social Entrepreneurship and Administration and a specialization in Innovation, she is a passionate advocate for leveraging the amazing work that nonprofits are developing in their focus areas, connecting them locally and across countries.

Aarti is a co-founder and Partner at Sattva Consulting and she heads the Research, Advisory &Programmes Practice at Sattva, that works closely with Foundations, Multi-laterals, and their ecosystems to deliver impact.

Aarti has over 12+ years of experience spanning consulting, research, content creation and business leadership at Sattva. As part of her earlier role leading Research Advisory, Aarti has led the creation of several flagship research and knowledge reports and multiple engagements curating knowledge exchanges in the sector bringing together funders, philanthropists, foundations, and non-profits; she has also spoken and curated discussions at leading conferences. Aarti supports the government advisory engagements that Sattva executes in multiple states in India on critical programmes. Aarti has led several research, programmes and ecosystem engagements looking particularly at women’s economic empowerment.

Aarti has a degree in computer engineering from BITS, Pilani and is an alumnus of theManagement Programme for Women Entrepreneurs (MPWE) at IIM-Bangalore.

A global expert on philanthropy and social innovation, Dr. Una Osili has more than two decades of experience in leadership, economic policy and research across the public and private sectors. She holds the Efroymson Chair in Philanthropy, and she serves as the associate dean for research and international programs and Dean’s Fellow for the Mays Family Institute on Diverse Philanthropy at Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, the world’s first school on philanthropy. At the school she leads the research and publication of the Global PhilanthropyEnvironment Index and the Global Philanthropy Tracker, as well as the research and publication of Giving USA, the annual report on American philanthropy published by Giving USA Foundation. Dr. Osili is the founder of Generosity for Life, a digital platform that provides new data tools in the area of philanthropy and social impact.

Osili has served as a member of several national and international advisory groups, including the AfricanDevelopment Bank, Social Science Research Council, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and theUnited Nations Development Program. She has been an associate editor for the Journal of African Economies and guest editor of the Journal of African Development.

Osili received her bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University and her master’s and Ph.D. fromNorthwestern University.

Benjamin Soskis is a senior research associate in the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the UrbanInstitute. His work explores the ways historical inquiry can inform contemporary philanthropic practice. He is especially interested in the relationship between philanthropy and democratic norms and institutions.

Ben is the coeditor of HistPhil, a web publication devoted to the history of the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Previously, he was a fellow at the Center for Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy, and Policy atGeorge Mason University. He is also a consultant for the Open Philanthropy Project and a frequent contributor to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. He is coauthor of The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song that Marches On, which was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, coauthor of Looking Back at 50 Years of US Philanthropy (Hewlett Foundation 2016), and “A History of AssociationalLife and the Nonprofit Sector in the United States,” in The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook (StanfordUniversity Press, forthcoming). Soskis has taught at the George Washington University and the University ofCalifornia, Washington Center. He received his PhD in American history from Columbia University.

Joel Straker leads impact and learning at Google.org. In that role he supports understanding the social impact of Google's philanthropic work as well as sharing learnings with the world. Joel brings deep knowledge of social impact metrics, data, and evaluation to the role, having previously advised US government, nonprofit, and philanthropic clients on how to achieve better, more equitable impact with their program resources. Before that, Joel was a policy and strategy adviser to governments in the Caribbean—where he also built and ran a youth development nonprofit organization. Joel has a Master of Public Policy from Oxford where he studied as a Chevening Scholar.

Asha Curran is CEO of GivingTuesday, and co-founder of the global generosity movement. She was formerly Chief Innovation Officer and director of the Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact at92nd Street Y, where GivingTuesday was founded. She is the recipient of the 2015 Social CapitalHero Award, and was named a 2016 Woman of Influence by New York Business Journals and a 40Over 40 Women to Watch honoree. Asha serves as Chair of the board of directors of Guardian.org, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing civil discourse and issues-driven journalism at The Guardian and elsewhere; and on the board of directors of the Scout Film Festival, which amplifies the work of teen filmmakers. She is a Fellow at Stanford University’s Digital Civil Society Lab within the Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society. She was named to the Nonprofit Times’ Top Fifty Power and Influence list in 2019.

As Chief Data Officer for GivingTuesday, Woodrow has been instrumental in shaping the global generosity movement and has led ground-breaking research and analysis of individual giving behaviors. He leads the GivingTuesday Data Commons, bringing together a coalition of more than100 collaborators coordinated through eight working groups as well as data teams in 50 countries to understand the drivers and impacts of generosity to inspire more giving of all types. Woodrow brings expertise in moving markets and transforming audiences from passive participants to active and vocal ambassadors. Woodrow is also the Founder of With Intent Strategies, an international agency specializing in brand reimagination. Woodrow is a member of the Generosity CommissionResearch Task Force, serves as a Co-Chair for Global Impact Canada's Board of Directors, and was recently named a Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School with the Technology and Public Purpose project.