Summer 2024
Final Fellow Presentations
Caroline Nickerson |
Indian Harbour Beach, FL., USA
Issue Area | Decent Work and Economic Growth
Caroline Nickerson is a citizen science and civic technology enthusiast. She is the Executive Director of Florida Community Innovation, where she empowers over 50 student innovators from more than five universities to build social services technologies and operate research projects and community programs. This includes the Florida Resource Map, which promises to be the first-of-its-kind digital access point connecting Floridians to food banks, job resources, and more.
Caroline is also a program specialist at SciStarter, the world’s most prominent citizen science organization (where she manages corporate volunteer programs and partnerships with federal agencies). She is also a PhD candidate at the University of Florida (UF) studying climate change communication.
Caroline holds a Master of Public Policy from American University and graduated from UF with a Bachelor of Arts degree, double majoring in Chinese and History. Fun fact: She won the grand prize scholarship at Miss Earth USA in 2021!
Venture | Florida Community Innovation
Florida Community Innovation is a civic technology non-profit focused on tackling our state’s most pressing issues with human-centric technology.
Lonna Hardin |
Fishers, IN., USA
Issue Area | Quality Education
Lonna Hardin, founder of VoiceBlocks, is a dynamic force in education and technology, passionately committed to community upliftment and equitable education. A singer and serial author, she has worked with special needs and diverse learners in education for over a decade. She founded Live Your Song, an acclaimed afterschool program focused on literacy, leadership development, and social-emotional learning.
At VoiceBlocks, Lonna empowers students with disabilities to help them unlock their voices and unleash their potential. As a thought leader and mentor, she is dedicated to fostering resilience and sparking change in underserved and marginalized communities. Her work is focused on improving academic and behavioral outcomes for diverse learners.
Venture | Voiceblocks
Voiceblocks is a proprietary workflow automation tool that provides equitable access to education for K-12 special needs students and their families. Our software helps families of students with disabilities Navigate the IEP process.
Luis Antonio Uribegan |
Detroit, MI., USA
Issue Area | Sustainable Cities and Communities
Luis Antonio Uribegan believes that the process of creating and innovating is inherent in every human being. As a result, he is passionate about leveraging cutting-edge technologies to improve the creation and attainment of affordable housing.
Luis's dedication to this issue area led to the creation of Personal Apportion Dwellings (P.A.D.). P.A.D. recognizes the inadequacies of our current housing solutions and paves the way for future generations to access affordable and flexible home ownership.
Luis is the C.E.O. of Design Think Tank and resides in Detroit, Michigan.
Venture | P.A.D.
P.A.D. is creating a paradigm shift in housing ownership through a unique modular construction system and new shared ownership structures.
Morgan Bevell |
Orem, UT., USA
Issue Area | Quality Education
Morgan Bevell, the president and founder of Bevell's Advocate, has been dedicated to the special education field for over a decade and believes that individuals with disabilities are entitled to more fulfilling opportunities.
From a very early age, Morgan recognized the overwhelm faced by these families as she watched her mom try to navigate the experience of having a child on an IEP. Moved by this experience, she started Bevell's Advocate, a support service for the families of individuals with disabilities.
Morgan's academic journey has equipped her with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in special education for high-incidence disabilities. She currently resides in Orem, Utah.
Venture | Bevell’s Advocate
Bevell’s Advocate connects families of individuals with disabilities to all educational, financial, medical, and social support through one-on-one consultations and advocacy.
Ava Ramesh | Washington, D.C., USA
Issue Area | Good Health and Well-being
Ava Ramesh, the co-founder of MediMint, is dedicated to leveraging technology to drive social impact in healthcare. Ava's firsthand experiences with the challenges patients and providers face in accessing and sharing critical medical imaging data, leading to delayed diagnoses and suboptimal patient care, inspired her journey into the healthcare technology sector.
Ava, pursuing her MBA in healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship at Wharton, joined forces with her co-founder to build a patented platform that utilizes blockchain technology to provide a highly secure and interoperable solution for sharing medical imaging data. As a fully female-founded and operated startup, MediMint’s efforts have been recognized by the NSF, Halcyon Health, and Wharton, to drive an efficient and patient-centric healthcare system, ensuring that MediMint is at the forefront of healthcare technology innovation.
Venture | MediMint
MediMint is a blockchain-driven platform that facilitates cost-effective, secure, and interoperable medical image sharing between providers and patients, modernizing traditional processes dependent on physical storage mediums like DVDs, and fostering an era of patient-centered healthcare.
Dion Richardson |
Orlando, FL., USA
Issue Area | Sustainable Cities and Communities
After spending a decade in the corporate retrofit and solar industry, Dion Richardson saw how low—to moderate-income individuals and families had challenges accessing energy-efficient products and programs. As a result, he founded Community Dreams Foundation and Dreamlime AI, organizations that aims to help owners and residents in underserved communities access affordable and reliable energy solutions.
Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Dion studied International Affairs at Florida State University.
Venture | Dreamline AI
Dreamline AI helps homeowners and residents secure energy-efficient and clean-energy building upgrades through a platform that assesses needs, identifies products and incentives, and end-to-end project management.
ShaKimberly Cooper | Dallas, TX., USA
Issue Area | Decent Work and Economic Growth
ShaKimberly Cooper, is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of AES Literacy Institute in Dallas, Texas. After completing her bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Louisiana State University, ShaKimberly moved to Dallas, where she met her husband Jermaine Cooper. Together, they found fulfillment in serving their community and established AES Literacy Institute in 2019, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering adults from marginalized communities through education, career opportunities, and financial literacy resources.
Named United Way's Social Innovator of the Year in 2022, ShaKimberly's work has gained recognition from esteemed media outlets such as WFAA, Dallas Morning News, and D Magazine, further highlighting her influence and expertise.
Beyond her professional endeavors, ShaKimberly is a devoted mother and wife who enjoys spending quality time with her family. Her interests include traveling, playing video games, attending opera performances, and watching NASCAR races.
Venture | Creditt Bees By AES Literacy Institute
Credit Bees™ aims to help low-wealth individuals improve access to capital and net worth through an online platform that provides automated and self-guided financial literacy education and credit repair.
Julia DeNey |
New Canaan, CT., USA
Issue Area | Reduced Inequality
Julia DeNey is working towards making the world more inclusive for neurodivergent children. In 2020, during the lockdown, Julia graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in Fashion Design and began teaching special education to autistic students. While teaching, she saw her students struggle with learning and peer inclusion due to the available methods and unique challenges around sensory regulation. As a result, Julia decided to use her expertise in design to create a line of adaptive clothing to help them and started Sense-ational You, a clothing brand for autistic children.
Julia was selected as a finalist for CNMI's Sustainable Fashion Awards for this work during Milan Fashion Week in 2023 and was selected as a fellow in the StartUp Leadership Program in 2024. She currently resides in New Canaan, CT.
Venture | Sense-ational You
Sense-ational You makes adaptive apparel for autistic and ADHD children who need help with sensory regulation to succeed and be included.
Nihat Akin Ercan |
Orlando, FL., USA
Issue Area | Clean Water and Sanitation
It's a staggering fact that approximately 800 million people worldwide, a number larger than the population of Europe, do not have access to clean water for drinking or cleaning. This global crisis is what drives Nihat Akin Ercan's passion to address these issues through his scalable solar power system that produces clean water from the air.
Nihat resides in Orlando, FL.
Venture | PiKARE SKYSOURCE
PiKARE SKYSOURCE is a scalable solar-powered AWEG system that produces water from the humidity in the air.
Mike Michel | Tallahassee, FL., USA
Issue Area | Reduced Inequality
Mike Michel has a Health Science degree specializing in pre-physical therapy from Florida A&M University and has spent over 12 years in the healthcare industry. Driven by the pressing needs of families attempting to effectively manage the needs of loved ones in care facilities or at home, which he witnessed first-hand, Mike launched CaringPort in 2022, a venture close to his heart.
Mike currently resides in Tallahassee, Florida.
Venture | CaringPort
Care Port provides care quality assessments and checks by Registered Nurses and LPNs for individuals who are homebound or living in a care facility.