CUP 4th Annual Tech Power Forum & Tech Catalyst Recognition Ceremony

CUP will explore how corporate leaders are facing the challenges of assessing and forecasting how AI will impact their business models.

CUP will explore how different corporate leaders are facing the challenges of assessing and forecasting how AI will specifically impact their business models. These thought leaders will discuss the advantages and drawbacks of AI and dive into answering powerful questions that help demystify AI in today’s market. This power forum will also explore how artificial intelligence is shaping the future of humanity across nearly every industry- and it will continue to act as a technological innovator for the foreseeable future.

Opening Remarks: Melissa Fenton, Executive Director, Council of Urban Professionals

Welcome Remarks: Charlene Balfour, Head of Enterprise Client Onboarding & Transformation at Wells Fargo, 2022 Tech Catalyst

Keynote and Speaker: Mark Levine, Manhattan Borough President, City of New York

Closing Remarks: Ken Ebie, Executive Director & Chief Development Officer, Black Entrepreneurs (BE NYC)

CUP 2023 Tech Catalysts Presenter: Rossie Turman III, Partner, Lowenstein Sandler LLP

CUP's 4th Annual Tech Power Forum & Tech Catalyst Recognition Ceremony

Keynote:

Mark Levine, Manhattan Borough President, The Manhattan Borough President's Office

Mark Levine is the Manhattan Borough President, serving since January 2022.

Previously, he was the Council Member for the 7th District representing West Harlem/Hamilton Heights, Morningside Heights, and parts of the Upper West Side and Washington Heights. In his eight years in the City Council, Mark was a leading voice in for tenants’ rights, public health, and equity in our schools, transit, parks, and housing. 

As chair of the City Council Health Committee, Mark rose to national prominence as a leader in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to his work in the Council, Mark founded a community credit union in Washington Heights, and he began his career as a bilingual math and science teacher at a middle school in the South Bronx.

Moderator:

Crystal Hunt, D&I Business Partner, Bloomberg

Crystal Hunt is a D&I Business Partner supporting the Engineering business in the Americas. In her current role, she helps to advance the company’s D&I initiatives and serves as a D&I thought leader on the strategy and vision for Engineering. In her prior role at Bloomberg, she served as a Diversity Recruiting Program Manager, with a focus on entry level talent. In that role, she helped to develop the organization’s strategy to attract, hire and retain entry level diverse talent, with a focus on historically underrepresented groups.

Prior to joining Bloomberg, Crystal was the Vice President of Diversity Recruiting at Citigroup, where she led the development and implementation of campus diversity strategies to attract and recruit diverse talent for Citi’s Institutional Clients Group businesses.

Crystal has over 15 years of HR experience, working in various HR roles and functions at a variety of companies including Citigroup, American Express and JP Morgan.

Crystal studied Biology at Pace University and currently resides in New Jersey with her family.

Panelists:

Victoria Montgomery Brown, Founder, Covell.ai

Victoria Montgomery Brown is Founder of Covell.ai. Covell was founded to bridge the gap between the ever-growing and changing demand for highly skilled individuals and the latent supply. It allows companies to extend their talent pipelines to high-potential, under-skilled candidates by optimizing and subsidizing training pathways needed to close their skill gaps. Covell uses AI/ML as a force for good, helping people identify personalized career opportunities for themselves they didn't know existed or were possible.

Prior, Victoria was a founder of Big Think and was its CEO until its acquisition in late 2020. Victoria is author of "Digital Goddess: The Unfiltered Lessons of a Female Entrepreneur." She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from McGill University.

Michael Ellison, CEO and Co-founder, CodePath.org

Michael Ellison is the Founder and CEO of CodePath, an organization diversifying the next generation of engineers, CTOs, and founders by reprogramming education nationwide.

Prior to CodePath, Michael co-founded ClassMetric, an edtech company that later became Segment, acquired by Twilio for $3.2B. Michael is a Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellow and a member of the Jobs for the Future (JFF) Advisory Council, where he provides insight into promising strategies that create the conditions for increased economic equity.

He was recognized as an Industry Changemaker, part of Walmart’s Black & Unlimited Initiative, during the 2022 NAACP Image Awards. Michael is also a founding board member of Women Who Code.

Pratik Karia, Head of Engineering Buyside Trading Platform (AIM), Bloomberg

Pratik Karia joined Bloomberg as an intern 16 years ago, and now oversees development on one of the company’s most vital products. His team, which has tripled in size over the last six years, builds and manages the company’s buy-side trading platform, a premium product used by hundreds of buy-side asset management firms globally.

As a computer engineer, Pratik was attracted to the firm by the company’s large-scale data and latency challenges. Since joining as a junior programmer, he’s held multiple roles, including programmer, senior engineer, tech lead, and manager across different groups within Bloomberg's Engineering department.

A highly skilled technical leader, Pratik moves seamlessly between day-to-day tactical needs and big picture strategy. He provides architectural and technical guidance, while also inspiring and growing everyone around him.

Pratik is a Diversity & Inclusion Champion for Bloomberg's Engineering organization. He’s also the Executive Sponsor for the Bloomberg Black in Tech (BBIT) community, which fosters career growth, celebrates excellence in technical leadership, and advocates for the Black community in technology both inside and outside Bloomberg. He’s an active volunteer with Black Girls Code and CodeNation.

Pratik earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Mumbai and a master's degree in computer science from Virginia Tech.

Nabiha Syed, CEO, The Markup

Nabiha Syed is the CEO of The Markup, a media nonprofit that challenges technology to serve the public good. Forbes has called Nabiha "one of the best emerging free speech lawyers" and in 2023, she was honored by the NAACP with their Digital Civil Rights award.

Under her leadership, The Markup's pioneering data-driven journalism was named by FastCompany as a World Changing Idea and a Most Innovative Company. Previously, Nabiha served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel at BuzzFeed, as the company's first newsroom lawyer navigating high-stakes litigation, and as the First Amendment Fellow at The New York Times.

She has worked on legal access issues at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, represented asylum-seekers in south Texas, counseled on whether to publish leaked and hacked materials, co-founded the nation's first media law clinic, and spoken widely about misinformation and propaganda, including to two sitting presidents. For her work, Nabiha has been named as a "Rising Star" by the New York Law Journal and received an inaugural Reporter's Committee for the Freedom of the Press Award.

She holds a B.A. from Johns Hopkins, a J.D. from Yale Law School and another law degree from Balliol College, Oxford, which she attended as a Marshall Scholar.