HealthLab Venture Board
Now in its second year, HealthLab provides student teams with $2500 in seed funding, 1:1 mentoring, specialized workshops, and networking opportunities. This year we are thrilled to announce the creation of a new venture board to help guide the H2L HQ student teams and distribute additional seed funding (between $2500-$7500 per team) to teams that have shown significant progress.
We could not be more pleased to introduce our venture board members. They are at the top of their fields from a wide variety of industries, including entrepreneurship, technology, healthcare, investing, pharmacology, engineering, data science, and social impact strategy. In addition to determining funding for the teams, their collective wisdom, questions and feedback for the student teams, will challenge the students to advance their thinking and provide invaluable feedback for students on their entrepreneurial journeys. Each team will have the chance to present one time to the venture board during the span of the program, but throughout the academic year, there will be formal and informal opportunities for students to better get to know the venture board members.
Doll Avant is an award-winning inventor, data scientist, graduate of Harvard University, & TEDx speaker. An internationally recognized expert on water quality, climate change, and environmental justice, Doll is Founder & CEO of Aquagenuity, the “Google Search for water quality," and has raised millions of dollars for clean water from Softbank, Google and Amazon. Doll was honored by Google with the global designation of “Google's Woman of Water” and featured on Google's homepage for building the “world’s largest water database.” Aquagenuity recently opened its first European office in Summer 2023 to expand the database internationally.
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Rebekah Emanuel
Rebekah Emanuel is the senior advisor for social impact at Harvard Innovation Labs. A McKinsey alum and HBS grad, Rebekah has started flagship organizations across the private, public, and social sectors. For the City of Boston she ran Imagine Boston 2030, the first citywide plan in 50 years. Rebekah founded and serves as Chair of the Harvard Climate Circle, and also teaches How to Create a Climate Venture across 42 universities. She has hosted HBS’s Climate Rising podcast.
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Paul Hayre
As the Inaugural Executive Director of Harvard Grid, Paul Hayre leads the creation of new programs providing educational outreach, innovation development, and physical space for emerging ventures. He has founded tech/medical device start-ups with two exits and designed/founded high-growth divisions in multinationals. Paul spent a decade in strategic advisory firms Accenture, EY-Parthenon and Eastwing Group. His expertise spans global strategy, M & A, long-term value creation, data analytics and executive development.
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Josh Lerner is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor at Harvard Business School and Co-Director of the HBS Private Capital Project. Much of his research focuses on venture capital and private equity organizations. He also has extensively examined innovation policy. He co-directs the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program and serves as co-editor of their publication, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy. He founded and runs the Private Capital Research Institute, and teaches, among other classes, Eng Sci 94, "Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
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Thais Rezende
Thais Rezende is the President of BUILD, a non-profit organization teaching the next generation the entrepreneurial mindset and skills that will lead to college, career and life success. Previously she was BizWorld’s CEO, where she grew the organization to become the largest teacher-led entrepreneurship education non-profit in the world and launched BizWorld’s innovative YES! Program to support young entrepreneurs to gain access to tools, mentorship, and capital needed to make their entrepreneurial dreams a reality. She also the led the growth of programming and expansion at Women’s Initiative for Self Employment.
Farah M Shroff
Dr. Farah M Shroff, Takemi Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health 2021-22, is a public health educator and researcher who is passionate about Health for All. She founded Maternal and Infant Health Canada, leads Darya Consulting, teaches yoga, dance, meditation and more.
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Isa Watson is the founder and CEO of Squad, the next gen, interactive social experience for sports fans that centers your friends. Named top 100 MIT Alumni in Tech in 2021, Isa is a physical scientist turned social scientist, building the next generation's social connection tool.
Dr. Sangu Delle is an Entrepreneur, Investor and Author. Sangu is CEO of CarePoint (formerly Africa Health Holdings), a tech forward healthcare system operating across the continent, focused on "building Africa's healthcare future. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Golden Palm Investments Corporation ("GPI"); an investment holding company focused on building world class technology companies in Africa.
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Professor Fábio Hauagge do Prado is owner of the Educational Group UDC University Center, a private family-owned institution. . He has a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering and a Masters in Production Engineering and is the General Director of Schools (and of the UDC University Center and Colleges. With 25 years of experience as an education and investment entrepreneur, he brings extensive creativity and entrepreneurship ideologies to his team of more than1,200 employees.
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Rym Jarou
Lead on the African startups and innovation ecosystem development program, Rym coordinates the various initiatives led and supported by Smart Africa in this area covering the support for the development of public policies, strengthening of the support ecosystem for startups and investment mobilization. She was the CEO of Smart Tunisia, a national initiative to promote Tunisia as a high-tech hub in the Africa, Europe and Middle East region. Rym also held the position of Head of the International Cooperation Office within the Tunisian Ministry of Communication Technologies. She has more than ten years of experience in the field of development and implementation of public strategies and policies.
Tom Mahoney
Tom Mahoney is currently a Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Partner and brings his expertise in corporate finance, investment management and technology. He has served as Managing Director in leading global capital markets roles at Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Painewebber. Previously, he was Chief Operating Officer at Gabelli Asset Management; and Chief Financial Officer of Molecular OptoElectronics Corporation. Tom serves as a member of the Advisory Boards of StratiFi Technologies, a fintech software firm, and EdJen Biotech, a viral vaccine developer, and is a founding member of Alpha Partners Technology Merger Corp. Tom is also a member of the Board of Advisors of Beth Israel Lahey Health Mount Auburn Hospital, and of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr. Thomas Schneider is the President, CEO and Founder of Restructuring Associates Inc. and former Partner with the law firm of O’Connor & Hannan, has acted as a management consultant and legal advisor for many of the largest companies, unions and organizations across all sectors of the economy, government, and not-for-profits In the USA, Australia and New Zealand. He has also served as the Science and Technology Advisor for two Presidential campaigns, as a member of the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board, and was centrally involved in the sequencing of the human genome and the creation of the first synthetic genome.
Alain Viel
Dr. Alain Viel is senior lecturer in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, the faculty co-director of LabXchange, and the director of Northwest Undergraduate Laboratories at Harvard University. He is the cofounder of The Biopolis summer school program, which focuses on using biological principles to meet the urban challenges of cities. He is also the UNESCO Chair on Life Sciences and Social Innovation.
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Michelle A. Williams is a renowned epidemiologist, an award-winning educator, and widely recognized academic leader. She recently stepped down as Dean of the Faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and is currently spending a sabbatical year as a Visiting Professor at Stanford University.