Team

TEDxBerkeley is a production by the CSUA (Computer Science Undergraduate Association) at UC Berkeley, and is curated by UC Berkeley student Kevin Gong.

Kevin Gong, TEDxBerkeley’s 2011 Curator, is the co-organizer of 3 Day Startup Berkeley and a translator who volunteers for the TED Open Translation Project and the Global Lives Project. An Economics and Statistics double major at UC Berkeley, Kevin is a member of the product design team Berkeley Innovation and the entrepreneurship group Startup at Berkeley. He is a startup enthusiast and helps organize events at Berkeley to bring together aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs from the Bay Area. Kevin keeps a blog at www.kevinmingong.com

Jennifer Barr, TEDxBerkeley’s Director Marketing and Operations, is a social entrepreneur who uses her Wharton MBA skills to make a difference in the world. She has her own management/social media marketing consulting business. She was co-curator of TEDxMarin and is the social media strategist for TEDx Silicon Valley and TEDx Marin, as well as for TEDxBerkeley.  In addition, Jennifer serves as the VP of Operations for the Wharton Business School Club of Northern CA and the Career/Networking Officer of the Northern California Oxford Society. She has been a director at four Bay Area non-profits and was previously a management consultant and investment banker in New York City.

Navi Ganancial, TEDxBerkeley’s Director of Logistics, is a serial volunteer and has helped produce multiple events for such organizations as San Francisco magazine, SF Chamber of Commerce, the Junior League of San Francisco, and many more. She currently blends her knowledge of event planning, social media marketing, and volunteer coordination as the Outreach Associate for Netroots Nation, and Community Manager for ChicMeetsGeek. When not working or volunteering she sits on the San Francisco BRAVO! Club Opera Board, the San Francisco Ballet 30 & Under Committee and the Board of Directors for Kasavita.org.

Brent Locks, TEDxBerkeley’s Director of Sponsorships, is an MBA candidate at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where he is the Co-President of the Entrepreneurs Association. He is also the founding COO and board member of GreenLaces.org, a non-profit social venture that fosters environmental sustainability. Prior to business school, he spent six years advising clients on M&A transactions as a manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers. Brent is a startup enthusiast and a strong advocate of collaboration among entrepreneurial-minded people, which is why he is excited to help promote and organize TEDxBerkeley.

Massimo Paolini, TEDxBerkeley’s Director of Web Strategies, is the owner and principal analyst of MPThree Consulting, a web analytics business based in Silicon Valley. He speaks at various organizations on the power of social media and works with several businesses around the country to increase their web presence, understand their site traffic, and improve profitability.

Rocky Mullin, TEDxBerkeley’s Technical Director, has been a college trained (UCSC 1992) theater arts professional off and on all his life. In particular a rigger, sound designer and technical director for projects such as Cirque du Soleil, The Tandy Beal dance company, and The New Pickle Circus. Rocky is a production volunteer for the Entertainment Gathering and TEDMED. His offstage professional life has run a diverse path, with projects ranging from one of the earliest web workers at one of the first web production start-ups (Organic 1994-2001) to installing home theatre systems for Neil Young with his company Vanadium. Rocky is part owner of Taylor’s Tonics, a sixteen year Burning Man participant, a live ambient musician for weird blinking lights and a working club/event DJ (dj caliban) with the Cloudfactory.

David Allen, TEDxBerkeley’s Volunteer Manager, is a student who has been involved with a variety of academic conferences on and off the Berkeley campus. He is primarily interested in the Neural Theory of Language, a particularly computationally and linguistically heavy aspect of cognitive science. Besides research on campus, David is involved in the Sensebridge project in San Francisco.

Feel free to contact us by email at info@tedxberkeley.org

Jessica Mah, TEDxBerkeley’s 2010 Curator, was the founder and architect of internshipIN.com, which has since helped thousands of college students find their first internships.  Jessica has been mentioned in publications ranging from Inc. magazine to the Wall Street Journal, and has been featured on PBS to encourage students to pursue science and entrepreneurship.  When she isn’t building her company Indinero.com, Jessica studies computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is President of the Computer Science Undergraduate Association (CSUA), and keeps a blog at jessicamah.com.  Jessica is a member of the TED Conference.

Kai Chang, TEDxBerkeley’s Co-Curator, Speaker Relations, Director of Partnerships, is an entrepreneur and President of the UC San Diego Alumni Association. In a former life, he was a mergers and acquisitions investment banker, market intelligence analyst, and print journalist. His blog (which was first published in 2000, making it one of the oldest blogs online) can be found at http://pjammer.livejournal.com.

Eli Chait is a Campus Associate at Alsop Louie Partners, an early stage, IT focused venture capital firm.  He is a senior at Berkeley where he leads the entrepreneurship group Startup at Berkeley. He is also part of the founding team of the John Rivera Sedlar tequila label, a spin off of the popular Los Angeles restaurant, Rivera.

Brandon Liu is currently a junior studying computer science at UC Berkeley, and is the events coordinator for the Computer Science Undergraduate Association.

Also returning in 2011:

>Jennifer Barr, TEDxBerkeley’s Director Marketing and Operations
Navi Ganancial, TEDxBerkeley’s Director of Logistics
Massimo Paolini, TEDxBerkeley’s Director of Web Strategies
Rocky Mullin, TEDxBerkeley’s Technical Director
Francesca Sterling, TEDxBerkeley’s Public Relations Manager,
David Allen, TEDxBerkeley’s Volunteer Manager,