2018-2019 James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellows
Asha Banks
Masters in Business Administration, Tepper School of Business
Asha is a first-year MBA candidate at the Tepper School of Business. Prior to Tepper, she led growth and optimization programs that contributed millions to the P&L of manufacturing sites within Solvay, a Global Chemical Company. Prior to Solvay, Asha earned her BS in Chemical Engineering from Drexel University.
Asha’s entrepreneurial interests lie within tech enabled consumer product and service solutions that leverage machine learning and IoT. As an avid traveler, she is especially interested in the Tourism Industry and looks forward to further pursuing her startup idea. Along with engaging in the CMU and Pittsburgh entrepreneurial ecosystems, Asha is excited to contribute to Diversity and Inclusion initiatives as a Graduate Student Assembly Committee Member.
Feel free to reach out to her to chat! Asha enjoys discussing business ideas and continues to consult with startups on marketing and business strategy.
Kunal Bhuwalka
Master of Human-Computer Interaction, School of Computer Science
Kunal firmly believes in the democratization of technology and the role that technology plays in providing an equal playing field. Before joining the Human-Computer Interaction Institute as a graduate student, he worked as a researcher at Synergy Labs with Prof. Yuvraj Agarwal to investigate how much private information applications collect from the users on the Android Platform.
Working at the intersection of design and computer science, Kunal wants to utilize his skill set to build products that seamlessly integrate themselves into consumer's lives. His 5-year plan is to start his own company and encourage others to pursue their passions.
If you are interested in grabbing a cup of coffee and talking shop(or just geeking out over cool new tech), just send an email his way.
Jorge Anton Garcia
Master of Science in Robotic Systems Development, School of Computer Science
Prior to starting at CMU, Jorge graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in Computer Engineering. He interned at Nod Labs, a virtual reality startup in Silicon Valley and was on their computer vision team.
He is especially passionate about working on projects that either help automate routine tasks so that people can spend more meaningful time together or ones that lead to higher quality accessible medical devices. A year ago he started a company called Tarseer Inc. that is developing a product to diagnose and monitor glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness, everywhere around the world. His team has recently tested in a hospital and he will continue working on this at CMU.
Apart from this, he spends time learning to dance bachata and salsa, plays soccer, and enjoys exploring wherever he is living! He loves to talk to people passionately working on their own project (whatever this may be), so email him if you are interested in talking or learning more about his work at Tarseer.
Kwaku Jyamfi
Masters in Civil & Environmental Engineering and Engineering and Technology Innovation Management, CIT, ECE, ETIM
Kwaku Jyamfi is a first year Masters Student. He has many passions which range from water treatment and the broader clean-tech, to music production and community outreach. Before attending Carnegie Mellon, he studied Chemical Engineering in undergrad at Syracuse University. His technical and entrepreneurial experience were in the fields of water quality, polymers, and biofuel combustion. He has always had a heart that felt empathy for those struggling. This is part of the reason why he and his partner Will McKnight started Farm to Flame Energy Inc.
Farm to Flame Energy produces universal biomass powered electrical generators that leverage existing markets in developing/developed nations to turn agricultural waste into electrical energy. In the Summer of 2018, Farm to Flame has taken on design engineers and computer scientists to drive forward many organizational aspects. Furthermore, they have received their first investment. Kwaku is leading engineering through the production of the beta unit. Within the next 12 months, Farm to Flame aims to enter all markets within their target scope, as well as venture into new technologies within the clean-tech realm.
On top of his entrepreneurial endeavor, Kwaku is always looking for good advice. He has confidence in his abilities and seeks to strengthen himself in every field. He is interested in the world of investing, as well as discussing new ideas. In his spare time, he likes to write/perform music, play sports, and go on adventures of any caliber.
Ema Karavdic
Master of Design, School of Design
Ema is currently a Masters candidate at the CMU School of Design. She has a keen interest in design strategy, research and user experience design. Prior to starting at CMU, she worked as a senior consultant in the Deloitte Digital Sydney team. Over her four years at Deloitte Digital, she worked on projects in a variety of industries, most recently taking on the role of design lead to help re-define the digital customer experience through design.
Prior to Deloitte, she completed her undergraduate degree in business at the University of Sydney. During this time, she founded the Network of Women, a society aimed at creating an education and support network for any women interested in business. Ema continues to remain interested in female-led start ups and is also passionate about finding ways to apply design to some of the wicked problems of world. She aims to leverage the resources available at Swartz to find new and interesting ways of approaching these issues.
Saurabh Misra
Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
Saurabh is a masters student studying Machine Learning and Computer Sciences. He is excited about the applications of Artificial Intelligence in making human lives simpler and more effective. He believes that intelligent actions by understanding natural language is the most promising way to solve human problems. Saurabh’s interests in entrepreneurship are in creating technology driven products that enhance lives of many people.
Saurabh completed his undergraduate degree in Electronics Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, BHU and worked at Nvidia for two years as an Architect designing software tools for automating GPU design processes using Machine Learning. Then he worked on creating new deep learning based methods for detecting network attacks during his research at SUTD, Singapore. Currently at CMU, he is researching efficient ways to crack passwords with deep learning and use that knowledge to help people create stronger passwords.
Saurabh is excited to be a part of the Entrepreneurial ecosystem at CMU and looks forward to work on innovative natural language solutions. In his free time he enjoys drumming with his band. He enjoys talking and brainstorming over ideas so feel free to reach out to him over coffee or email.
Yool Park
Master of Integrated Innovation for Products and Services, Integrated Innovation Institute, CIT
Yool is a first-year Master’s student in the MII-PS program, which is an interdisciplinary program across engineering, design, and business. She is passionate about all things that revolve around life. Her top four areas of interests are 1. food, 2. health, 3. agriculture, and 4. clean energy, and currently, she is in search of solutions to the sustainability of food. A project she is working on right now is centered around a hypothesis that empowering local farming could advance us closer toward the goal.
Prior to pursuing her degree at CMU, Yool completed her undergraduate degree in business at Boston University, and throughout her college years she worked and interned for startups, startup accelerators, and an incubator. After graduation, she worked as a strategic business analyst at a major tech corporate venture capital.
During her free time, she likes to read, do pilates, and travel. She loves meeting new people and learning something new. Ingenious business models and strategies fascinate her, so she would be excited to meet and discuss this topic at any time.
Brian Porter
Masters in Business Administration, Tepper School of Business
Brian is a first-year MBA student who is interested in using digital frameworks to observe and impact the analog world. Specifically, Brian aspires to build products that tap into the potential of data to drive meaningful, positive, and scalable change in the world. His current research centers on how to better leverage the ever-growing amounts of health data being collected with the hope that revealing activities and behaviors that most significantly impact wellness on an individual basis might incentivize healthier living practices.
Prior to joining Tepper, Brian worked at market research startup, Sense360, where he paired advanced analytics with large sets of behavioral data to create tools that enabled businesses to identify future opportunities and potential threats. Through his cross-disciplinary collaboration at Sense360, he was able to help bring products to market that allowed businesses to view customer insights by the hour rather than the quarter - orders of magnitude better than similar products on the market.
Brian received his bachelors of science in Music Industries (a mixture of music and business) from the University of Southern California. He has since worked in three completely separate industries: music - as an artist/producer, commercial real estate - as a financial analyst, and tech. His experiences have enabled him to become adept at pivoting, tapping into the lessons learned from each stage to provide fresh viewpoints.
During his free time, Brian likes staying active and building things - he placed in the top 94% at Lake Elsinore Spartan Race and is an inventor of a patented methodology that predicts resource availability for retail properties. Lastly, he loves meeting new people. No matter if you’re a seasoned business person, an aspiring entrepreneur, or just curious about the startup world, please feel free to reach out.
Shana Pradeep
Masters in Business Administration, Tepper School of Business
Shana is a first-year MBA student at the Tepper School of Business. Her professional experience has been in business and supply chain operations across a variety of industries—including manufacturing, retail, and health care. After completing an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Shana held key business operations roles across the Midwest and East Coast with SC Johnson, GE Aviation, and Target. Just prior to starting her MBA, Shana was a consultant to the Department of Defense in Washington, DC, at a veteran-owned small business of 15 consultants, engineers, and data scientists.
During her time at Carnegie Mellon University, Shana is shifting toward providing business operations leadership for women entrepreneurs. She is eager to help set up women-led startups for success when they're just getting off the ground and when they're in high growth. As a Swartz Fellow, Shana looks forward to providing multifaceted operational support for women founders in diverse industries. She intends to become a primary interface for women entrepreneurs seeking guidance on business strategy and execution.
Lisha Prakash
Masters in Business Administration, Tepper School of Business
Lisha is a first-year MBA student at the Tepper School of Business. Prior to joining Tepper, she worked at LinkedIn, understanding emerging markets and tackling engineering problems at scale. She got her engineering degree in Computer Science from India and worked on cloud architectures for the first two years of her career. She developed a deep passion for consumer products and decided to pursue an MBA at the Tepper School to explore her entrepreneurial ventures. She is interested in applications of machine learning, robotics and IoT. Her ambition is to build futuristic devices and services that alleviate common problems at workplaces and homes.
She has worked with multiple startups and seeks the hustle. With her prior engineering and product management experience, and resources available at the Tepper School, she hopes to work on radical ideas that will become everyday use cases. In her free time, Lisha enjoys playing the guitar and keyboard. She is also an avid reader and is always open to suggestions on the new reading material.
Vaibhav Viswanathan
Master of Science in Robotics, The Robotics Institute
Vai is motivated by taking robots from the lab and deploying them in the field to solve real-world problems. He is interested in the application of robotics-enabled technology to agriculture and mobility — some of the key challenges that we face in the next century.
Before joining the Robotics Institute, Vai founded Zenith Robotics to help robotics & AI companies accelerate their development. He had the opportunity to work with startups in various stages in both Silicon Beach and Silicon Valley. Prior to that, Vai completed his undergraduate degree in engineering at Harvey Mudd College. At HMC, Vai did NSF-funded research on using underwater robots to map shipwrecks and other marine archaeological sites.
Vai is always excited to talk about robotics, artificial intelligence, or good music — reach out if you want to grab coffee!
Summer (Qinxian) Xia
Masters in Business Administration, Tepper School of Business
Summer is a first-year MBA student at the Tepper School of Business. Prior to joining Tepper, she worked for several global companies such as Hewlett Packard and Electronic Arts. As a software engineer and later a product manager, Summer experienced how cutting-edge technologies solve challenges in a revolutionary way and how a startup mindset accelerates business growth.
Currently, Summer's entrepreneurial interests lie in applying machine learning technologies in impactful solutions to make people's life easier. She is particularly interested in the HealthCare industry. Summer is also excited about being a part of Swartz entrepreneurial ecosystem and especially looking forward to contributing to women's entrepreneurship. In her spare time, she is really into fitness and bodybuilding.
Thank you to our Swartz Center Patrons
