Robin Hood Summit: Opportunity x AI

Alexandra Bernadotte is the founder and CEO of Beyond 12, a tech-enabled nonprofit that combines personalized coaching and AI-powered technology to help underserved students graduate from college and secure meaningful employment. Alex has more than 18 years of executive management experience in the nonprofit and private sectors. Before launching Beyond 12, she was an entrepreneur in residence at NewSchools Venture Fund. Alex previously held leadership roles at The Princeton Review, Foundation for a College Education, Explorica, EF Education, and the World Health Organization. She serves on the boards of Cengage Group, the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship, and Dartmouth’s Presidential Commission for Financial Aid. A graduate of Dartmouth and Stanford, Alex is an Ashoka Fellow, a Jefferson Award winner, a Pahara-Aspen Fellow, and a Distinguished Visitor in Public Interest Technology at Stanford. 

Born and raised in Brooklyn and the son of Panamanian immigrants, Richard R. Buery, Jr. is CEO of Robin Hood, a leading anti-poverty organization that builds, fuels, and advocates for the most impactful organizations and strategies advancing economic opportunity in New York City.

Earlier in his career, Buery served as Deputy Mayor of NYC, where he managed a dozen City agencies and was the architect of Pre-K for All, the City’s commitment to provide free, full-day, high-quality Pre-Kindergarten to every four-year-old. Under his leadership, NYC increased enrollment by 50,000 children in just 18 months. Before Robin Hood, he led Achievement First Charter Schools and managed policy and public affairs fo KIPP, the nation’s largest charter school network. Earlier, he co-founded iMentor, which matches high school students with mentors to guide them through college, and served as CEO of the Children’s Aid Society, one of the country’s oldest and largest child welfare agencies, where he founded the Children’s Aid College Prep Charter School. He began his career as a law clerk on the Second Circuit and as an attorney at the Brennan Center.

A life member of the Council of Foreign Relations and a Fellow of Pahara and the British American Project, Buery serves on several nonprofit boards and public commissions and is a Public Service Fellow at NYU Wagner. He has also taught at Yale, Baruch, NYLS, and NYU Tandon. A graduate of Yale Law and Harvard College and a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, Buery lives with his wife and sons in Manhattan. 

Hannah Calhoon is a VP of Product at Indeed, where she leads the AI for Indeed team. Her team focuses on enabling everyone at Indeed to effectively build and use AI tools, while also preparing the organization for the Future of Work. Previously, Hannah led Indeed's long-term innovation team and built out its GenAI Lab. She has focused her career on building innovation systems that improve people's daily lives — initially in pharma and medtech and for the past 10 years, in software, with a focus on fintech, legal tech, and HR tech. Hannah holds degrees from Harvard College and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She serves as a Venture Partner for Purpose Built Ventures and sits on the board of edtech nonprofit Economic Mobility Systems.

Chris Caruso has dedicated his career to advancing equity and improving educational outcomes. He is the Managing Director for School-Age Children at Robin Hood, New York City's largest poverty-fighting philanthropy, where he leads core strategies in K–12 education and public benefits access.

Previously, Chris served as the founding Senior Executive Director of NYC Public Schools' Office of Community Schools, where he established 300 community schools integrating academics, health, and social services for 150,000 students. He also developed Summer Rising, NYC’s pandemic-response summer program, and oversaw support services for students experiencing homelessness.

Earlier in his career, Chris held leadership roles including Senior Vice President at ExpandED Schools and Assistant Commissioner at NYC’s Department of Youth and Community Development. He began his career at Children's Aid and is an alumnus of Providence College, Columbia University, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation Fellowship.

Jimmy Chen is the founder and CEO of Propel, an app used by over 5 million low-income households to manage their government benefits. Propel is among the most widely used apps built specifically for the needs of low-income Americans. Propel has over 500,000 five-star reviews and has been recognized by the White House, and Propel's investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, JPMorganChase, Kevin Durant, and Serena Williams.

Jimmy also serves on the boards of Share Our Strength and TechNYC. He was named to Fortune's 40 Under 40, and he was a National Finalist for EY's Entrepreneur of the Year. Jimmy holds a B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, where he was an inaugural winner of the President's Award for the Advancement of the Common Good. 

Steven Choi is currently a consultant who builds diverse coalitions to give voice to marginalized communities. He has spent the last 20 years in leadership at social justice and movement organizations, most recently at One for Democracy, a coalition of philanthropists and foundations pledging 1% of assets to support democracy. Previously, Mr. Choi served as Executive Director at the New York Immigration Coalition, a coalition of 200 member groups representing New York’s immigrants. Prior to that, he served as the Executive Director of the MinKwon Center for Community Action.

Throughout his career, Mr. Choi has built coalitions and won historic victories: the restoration of driver’s licenses for immigrant New Yorkers, the creation of the $10 million New York State Liberty Defense Project, the $40 million ActionNYC legal services initiative, and a $40m NYC Census effort in 2020.

Sarah Di Troia is an expert in crafting strategy and operations to drive high growth in nonprofit and for profit organizations. Her experience as an investor, advisor and leader fuels an approach that integrates market insights with the internal change management necessary to realize new opportunities. Sarah is known for teasing order out of the creative chaos of growth and innovation. Prior to joining Project Evident as Managing Director of OutcomesAI, Sarah was Chief Operating Officer at Health Leads and a Managing Partner at New Profit, Inc. She earned her MBA from Harvard Business School.

Joshua is the Chief Scientist of Renaissance Philanthropy. He has driven innovation in S&T for 17 years in academia, government, and philanthropy. At Quadrature Climate Foundation, he led strategies on solar radiation management and CO2 removals, vulnerability, and resilience. He created the BiTS nonprofit science accelerator, a skunkworks in Project InnerSpace, and the ARC initiative to address climate emergencies.

Joshua spent six years at DARPA, programming $600 million in funding for “AI for Science” programs (computational, data, climate, water/food/conflict, synthetic bio, epidemiology, and more). His other obsessions include Artificial Social Intelligence, AI for education, multi-species teaming (canines, humans, and drones), critical minerals, and hydrogen.

Joshua spent ten years at the University of Chicago, studying computational economics and energy, climate extremes, and impacts in hydrology, agriculture, migration, and conflict. He co-founded the center for Robust Decision-Making in Climate and Energy Policy, a Global Intercomparison Project, and a climate informatics startup. His Ph.D. is in theoretical high-energy physics from McGill University.

Michael Ellison is the Co-Founder and CEO of CodePath, the nationally recognized nonprofit reprogramming higher education to create the first AI-native generation of software engineers, CTOs, and founders. Under Michael’s leadership, CodePath has scaled to become the nation’s largest educator of computer science students and is transforming the CS curriculum at over 150 colleges and universities. CodePath works closely with leading technology companies, venture capital firms, and prominent venture philanthropies to accelerate U.S. innovation and drive meaningful change in tech talent pipeline infrastructure. Prominent partners include Google, Microsoft, Meta, Andreessen Horowitz, Base10 Ventures, Y-Combinator, Blue Meridian Partners, Ballmer Group, Iconiq Capital, and more.

Prior to CodePath, Michael founded five companies starting at the age of 19, including being a founding member of ClassMetric, a tech startup that later became Segment and was successfully acquired by Twilio for $3.2B. As part of his entrepreneurial journey, Michael was also one of Y-Combinator’s earliest Black founders.

Michael is a Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellow and has been honored as an NAACP Industry Changemaker. In 2024, CodePath was recognized as one of the most innovative companies in the world by Fast Company Magazine. 

Kumar Garg is the President of Renaissance Philanthropy. Previously, Kumar worked with Eric Schmidt to design and launch moonshot initiatives in education, provide early support to game-changing ideas, and build ongoing multi-donor and multi-sector collaboratives. He has also served in various roles in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Obama Administration and led the administration’s efforts to bolster STEM education, including policy development, implementation, and communication for various science and technology issues. Before these roles, Kumar worked on behalf of parents and children seeking educational reform as an education lawyer and advocate. He has a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a law degree from Yale Law School.

Peter Gault is the Founder and Executive Director of Quill.org, an education nonprofit that uses AI to help millions of low-income students become strong readers, writers, and critical thinkers. To date, Quill has helped 11 million K–12 students by providing 40 million hours of AI-powered literacy tutoring — matching the impact of $1 billion in one-on-one tutoring.

Peter leads AI product strategy, fundraising, and strategic partnerships. In 2024, Peter was named a Mozilla Rise25 changemaker for developing ethical and trustworthy AI. Quill has been awarded by Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Education Companies,” The Gates Foundation’s Literacy Courseware Challenge, and Google.org’s AI for Social Impact Challenge. He studied philosophy, political science, and history at Bates College. 

David Golkin is the Head of the Solutions Incubator at TalkingPoints, an education technology nonprofit dedicated to driving student success through accessible technology that empowers family engagement in children’s learning. In this role, David leads the organization’s research and development efforts — designing, testing, and piloting innovative solutions in partnership with schools to improve student outcomes.

David brings a blend of classroom experience and product development expertise, having previously worked as a teacher and leading innovation at mission-driven education organizations including Teachers Pay Teachers and Success Academy.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Williams College, a master’s in General and Special Education from Touro College, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Dr. Mayme Hostetter is the President of Relay Graduate School of Education, where she was part of the founding team in 2008. As President, Mayme is — with her colleagues — focused on defining and leading Relay’s next chapter, by expanding access to outstanding, affordable preparation for a diverse group of educators across the country. Prior to her work at Relay, Mayme conducted reading development research at MIT, after teaching English and coaching many sports at Deerfield Academy and KIPP Academy. Mayme earned an A.B. and an Ed.M. from Harvard, and an Ed.D. from Columbia.

Clementine Jacoby is the co-founder and CEO of Recidiviz — a nonprofit building technology to help U.S. criminal justice agencies improve case management, provide efficient pathways to re-entry, and dramatically improve outcomes for people in the criminal justice system. Since 2019, Recidiviz has partnered with 19 states that represent 45% of the U.S. prison population and accelerated over 160,000 people towards release from prison, probation, and parole. Previously, Clementine was a Product Manager at Google, where she worked on Google Maps and Android. She was recently named to Forbes “30 Under 30,” Fast Company’s “Most Creative People,” and TIME’s “Next 100 Most Influential People,” and was a 2022 TED Fellow. Clementine holds a B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. 

Aras Jizan leads work on innovation and research that advances economic mobility for low-income people in the U.S. at the Gates Foundation, with a focus on the responsible use of generative AI. Before joining the Gates Foundation in 2023, Aras helped launch and grow The Agency Fund, a multi-donor collaborative that invests in ideas and organizations expanding human agency, mobilizing diverse partners so all people have the resources to envision, navigate toward, and realize a better future. Prior to that, he served as Director of Data & Technology at Community Solutions, where his team's work redesigning data and technology approaches for homeless services helped the organization secure the MacArthur Foundation's $100 million 100&Change award. Aras holds degrees in economics, applied statistics, and data science from the University of Toronto and UCLA. He lives in Los Angeles.

Sarah Johnson is the CEO of Teaching Lab, a nonprofit organization with a mission to fundamentally shift the paradigm of teacher professional learning. In the last two years, Sarah launched the Teaching Lab Studio, which researches, develops, tests, and implements AI tools across Teaching Lab’s nationwide partnerships. Sarah became Teaching Lab’s CEO in 2018 and has since grown the organization from five employees to over 100 employees, serving more than 10,000 teachers per year. Sarah joined Teaching Lab from the Overdeck Family Foundation, where she created and managed the Exceptional Educators Portfolio, a set of investments focused on improving teaching and learning nationwide. Sarah also held leadership roles at the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) and worked directly with the Deputy Chancellor of Teaching and Learning to manage a strategy for a 600-person division and oversee policy for the city’s teacher development and evaluation system, serving over 70,000 teachers. Before her work at the NYCDOE, she was a high school science teacher and founder of a social justice student leadership program in Washington, DC and Oakland, CA. Sarah has a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studied system-level leadership. She earned her M.A.T. from American University, and graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Neuroscience from Emory University. 

Emily Joye is the Head of Education at Kyron Learning. She brings years of experience as a classroom teacher and instructional designer, with a focus on how people learn across contexts and stages of life. At Kyron, Emily leads a team of educators-turned-prompt-engineers who embed learning science into every aspect of the product. Her work connects research and design with the needs of diverse learners, shaping a platform that reflects both depth and intention.

Nafis Khan is a Software Engineer at Amazon, where he works on AI Shopping Guides, AI-driven shopping experiences that help millions of customers discover and learn about products with confidence. Originally from Bangladesh, Nafis moved to the U.S. with a dream of understanding how the world’s most impactful systems are built. During college, he focused on creating communities of ambitious peers, helping others grow while navigating his own path into tech. Nafis has previously contributed to engineering teams at Meta, GoDaddy, and UPS. Today, he’s passionate about building tools that empower people to learn, connect, and make better decisions using AI as a force for good.

Matthew Klein is the Chief Program & Impact Officer of Robin Hood, where he oversees the Grant Strategy, Public Policy, Management Acceleration, and Measurement & Learning teams.  From 2014 – 2021, Matt served as Executive Director of the NYC Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity, a 60-person unit that helps the City of New York use evidence and innovation to identify and grow effective anti-poverty programs, practices, and policies. Previously, he served as the first Executive Director of Blue Ridge Foundation New York, a philanthropic fund that later merged with Robin Hood as Blue Ridge Labs. Matt has served on numerous nonprofit and civic boards. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, Yale College, and the Boston Public Schools. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and twin daughters.

Rich Leimsider is the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Fund for the City of New York and the Director of the AI for Nonprofits Sprint, aiming to help 5,000 staff at 100 “non-tech” nonprofits reach AI literacy in 2025. He holds certifications in prompt engineering (Vanderbilt) and AI Essentials (Google), and was named to “Who’s Who in Emerging Tech 2025” by City & State.

As a consultant, Rich advised NYC’s largest philanthropy on the asylum-seeker crisis and supported a major workforce program on government relations. He founded the PSLF.nyc Campaign, unlocking $4.6B in student debt relief, and led Safe Passage Project for five years.

Rich previously scaled initiatives at Echoing Green and the Aspen Institute. A graduate of Williams, HBS, and NYC public schools, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife and kids, and serves on the board of Nonprofit New York.

Anu Malipatil, Executive Director, is the Overdeck Family Foundation’s founding team member, bringing with her 20 years of K-12 education and nonprofit sector experience. Anu’s responsibilities include working with the Trustees to set the Foundation’s vision, goals, and priorities, while also guiding the leadership team, which includes oversight of the team’s program, impact and learning, communications, and people/operations workstreams.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Anu was a Regents Research Fund Fellow at the New York State Education Department, where she architected the RFP for the $70M Race to the Top statewide effort to build P-12 math and ELA curricula, training, and aligned professional development resources. She also managed the development of EngageNY.org and the first open source P-5 math curriculum in K-12 education, which has been adopted by over 30 percent of classrooms in the country.

While at Teach For America in New York City, Anu led the math and science domain as Managing Director. Her team’s work significantly improved student level outcomes in the region. During this time, she also built the organization’s first assessment bank and student achievement toolkits for math / science, which were replicated in regions across the country.

Anu is a Pahara Education Fellow, a New York Regional Board Member for Teach For America, a Board Member at Open Up Resources, and a Founding Board Member for Coney Island Preparatory Charter School. She is a member of the Leap Ambassadors Community and the women’s leadership network, CHIEF. She holds a master’s in Teaching from Pace University and graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Economics from Emory. She is also a graduate of the Emerging Leaders Program at Columbia Business School. Anu enjoys spending weekends in her local community of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, exploring the world, doing yoga, and spending time with close friends and family.

Barbara (Basia) Michalska, Esq. is a Supervising Attorney at The Legal Aid Society’s Housing Justice Helpline, where she co-created the AI-powered Information Retrieval Tool that was named a grand prize winner in Robin Hood’s AI Poverty Challenge. Selected from nearly 200 national applicants, the tool was recognized as a breakthrough solution to expand access to housing justice. Basia developed the tool in partnership with Columbia Law School’s Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic, blending cutting-edge technology with frontline legal expertise. Since 2017, she has led legal teams across NYC, developed trainings and practice manuals, and continues to drive innovative strategies that serve clients with compassion and impact.

Sendhil Mullainathan is a professor with ​a ​dual appointment in Economics and in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. ​His work integrates the science of people with the science of algorithms. He co-founded the Bike Shop at MIT, which tackles ​complex ​problems in the world by building algorithms that enhance human capacity ​rather than automat​e​​ it​. He co-authored Scarcity: Why Having too Little Means so Much, helped co-found ​ideas42, ​a non​ ​profit ​that appli​es​​ behavioral science, ​and ​co-founded ​J-PAL, ​a center to promote randomized control​led​ trials in development​.​​ ​Sendhil ​serves on the board of the MacArthur Foundation, has worked in government, and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Sendhil ​is a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius Grant,” ​was named a “Top 100 Thinker” by ​Foreign Policy​ ​​m​agazine, and ​was included in Wired UK’s Smart List: 50 people who will change the world​.​”​     ​ 

Britt Neuhaus is the Co-Executive Director at The ASSISTments Foundation. She has been working to improve public education throughout her entire career. She taught for three years in NYC public schools as part of Teacher for Amer, while earning her master’s in Childhood Education. At Citizen Schools, she developed new partnerships to expand the reach and impact of their volunteer program model. Britt spent four years with the NYC Department of Education’s iZone, supporting the implementation of blended learning and digital tools in schools across the city. Most recently, she served as the founding Program Officer for the Innovative Schools portfolio at Overdeck Family Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funds educational research and organizations. In her current role, she oversees the national growth and impact of ASSISTments.

Chymeka Olfonse has over 25 years of nonprofit experience focused on empowering individuals through education and economic opportunities. She is the Managing Director of Adults and Household Supports at Robin Hood, where she oversees a $23 million portfolio aimed at stabilizing and increasing income for working-age New Yorkers facing economic challenges. Previously, Chymeka served as the Founding Regional Executive Director of BUILD NYC, an entrepreneurship education nonprofit, where she led strategy and established key stakeholder relationships. She has held various roles in nonprofit and government agencies, including the NYC Department of Education, where she led efforts to integrate private-sector philanthropy into public schools and advance workforce initiatives. Chymeka holds a bachelor's degree from Yale University, a master’s degree from New York University, and an executive certificate from Harvard Business School.

Amber Oliver is Managing Director of the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund, a collaboration between Robin Hood, the Overdeck Family Foundation, and the Siegel Family Endowment to unlock the potential of technology to transform learning for students experiencing poverty. Previously, Amber was the COO of GripTape, where she helped build a strategy to put 1M youth in the driver’s seat of their own learning. She also served as the VP of Globaloria (now Proto and part of Carnegie Learning), which helped thousands of students become knowledge producers as they learned to design and code their own educational games. Amber has held positions at UNICEF, the United Nations Secretariat, the World Bank, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, and has led efforts in Bangladesh, France, India, Niger, and Senegal. She holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree from Brown University.

Jake Porway believes in agents of change. An AI scientist turned social entrepreneur, his work focuses on thoughtfully using AI to empower nonprofits, governments, and the public. He currently serves as the Entrepreneur in Residence at Decoded Futures, a program out of Tech:NYC and funded by Robin Hood to bring AI support to nonprofits in New York City. Jake also serves as Technical Advisor to Opportunity AI and has helped set up social AI programs like the Foundation for Civic AI and the Technology Governance Congress. He co-founded and ran DataKind and is an alumnus of the New York Times R&D Lab, a PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer.

Carolyn Vine leads Development, Marketing, and Events at Robin Hood, where she builds lasting partnerships and provides strategic philanthropic guidance to generous supporters from every borough — and around the world.

A native New Yorker, Carolyn is passionate about making the city a more equitable engine of opportunity and has been advancing that mission at Robin Hood for more than a decade.

Before joining Robin Hood in 2010, Carolyn worked at D. E. Shaw & Co. in the Resource Development and Fundamental Research groups, focusing on business development, recruiting, and research. She holds an M.Sc. in African Studies from Oxford and a B.A. in English Literature from Columbia.

Dr. Clarence Wardell III, leads a team at the Gates Foundation that advances innovation and technology development to improve economic outcomes for low-income individuals in the U.S. Before joining the Foundation in 2023, Clarence served in senior positions on the Biden-Harris transition team and in the White House, focusing on policy implementation and advancing equity through the federal government. Previously, Clarence served in roles at Results for America, CNA Corporation, and the Obama White House, working to scale evidence-based solutions to address challenges at the local, state, and federal levels of government. He has a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.S.E. in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Jenni Warren is the Program Director of Decoded Futures at Tech:NYC, where she leads efforts to equip nonprofits with the transformative power of AI. With over 15 years of experience in learning and development —both internationally and domestically —she has built innovative programs at the intersection of education, technology, and equity. Jenni holds degrees in Early Childhood Education and Human Development from The Ohio State University and she is passionate about using tech for social impact.