Courtney is the Founder and President of Plaka + Associates, a woman-owned, innovation and impact consulting firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Courtney has over 14 years of experience and leads the firm’s work in impact analysis, real estate development, and ecosystem development. She specializes in connecting leaders in government, economic development, and entrepreneurship at the intersection of innovation, industry, and talent. She is a certified by the International Economic Develpment Council as an Entrepreneurship Development Professional.

Rafa Barroso is an NYC-based Partner Engineer at Apple. He has also been a Solutions Architect at Google and a member of the Google for Startups team where he ran mentorship programs focused on unrepresented founders and advised startups on technology, strategy and cloud related topics starting 2017. He also contributed to Google's internal incubator - Area 120 and is the technical founder and former CIO of Parlevel, a Texas Techstars-backed company that develops unattended retail technology since 2013.

His experience includes application development, R&D, cloud architecture, product management, team / culture building, GTM, fundraising and partnerships/integrations within startups and enterprises in the Retail, Payments/FinTech, Media and Geo/GIS spaces. In the last 10 years, Rafa has been a strategic advisor for several early stage startups while also mentoring 60+ founders and supporting multiple accelerators including Y Combinator, Acceleprise (forum) and Techstars. He's also a part of 3 Day Startup Board of Directors, an angel investor, a DEI Champion and an instructor for Code Next where he has been coaching black and latino students in NYC since 2020.

Tolu Akindunni is an energetic problem solver who has spent the last 17 years developing and delivering innovation stategies for organizations with B2C and B2B models. Having lived and worked globally (USA, UK, Middle East, and Africa), Tolu enjoys connecting with communities and uses her diverse background to create richer, more inclusive and insightful ecosystems for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Shayna was born and raised in New York and moved to Texas after college to escape the winter weather. She’s a problem solver by nature and the title of her memoir will be, “There’s Gotta Be a Better Way To Do This.” She’s spent the last 10 years of her career working in the startup space and helping organizations scale to the next level. When she isn’t working, Shayna can be found running around Town Lake or curled up on the couch reading a book with her cat and dog. Giving back to the community is an important part of her life. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors for 3 Day Startup she is also on the Austin Steering Committee for Annie’s List. Shayna is also the Austin Team Leader for the Texas Oiselle Volée.

Ben is a technology driven marketer and development executive based in Austin, Texas. He currently is the Director of Development at Notley, an organization focused on providing knowledge, collaboration, and capital to the social-impact community.

Prior to Notley, Ben worked for management consultancy, West Monroe Partners out of their Dallas office where he focused on software implementations and improving customer experiences for Fortune 500 clients. he also spent time at Next Ventures, a VC fund focused on the growing health and wellness space.