Demo Day 2021: Leaders from across the Collective share inspiration and new ideas during our one-day annual event. 

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Leaders from across the Collective share inspiration and new ideas during our one-day annual event. 

Demo Day 2021: Prism

Demo Day 2021: Opening Film

Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews is a singular artist who puts his own spin on traditional American musical forms. Andrews is the bandleader and frontman of Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, a nine-piece, hard-edged funk band that employs brass-band beats, rock dynamics, and improvisation in a jazz tradition. Growing up in a musical family in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, Andrews got his name at age four when he first picked up a trombone much bigger than he was. By eight, he was leading his own band. Hailed as “New Orleans’ brightest new star in a generation,” Andrews is now a Grammy Award nominee who has presented his high-energy live shows on six continents and has performed and collaborated with artists from a wide range of musical genres.

Troy Andrews in conversation with Laurene Powell Jobs Demo Day 2021

Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews in Conversation with Laurene Powell Jobs

“You can’t change what you can’t see.” While Amy Bach spent a decade as a journalist in county courts, preparing to write her award-winning book, Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court, those words came to her mind often. Most people experience the criminal legal system in the United States at the state level. But inconsistencies in the way data is collected, coded, and published across America’s 3,000-plus county legal systems made it virtually impossible for researchers, elected officials, and legal practitioners to track how the system was working.
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To address this problem, Bach founded the nonprofit Measures for Justice (MFJ) in 2011. The organization collects, standardizes, and publicizes county-level data from across the country, ensuring that data is accessible and easy to understand. Bach has written about criminal-justice data and America’s legal system for publications including The Hill, The Nation, The New York Times, The American Lawyer, and New York Magazine. She is a member of the New York Bar and has been a professor of legal studies and criminal law.

Amy Bach | Emerson Collective Demo Day 2021

Making Data Accessible | Amy Bach

When Johanna Calle first started her advocacy work as a high schooler helping petition Congress to pass the DREAM Act, she held back her most personal connection to the issue. “No one knew I was undocumented. People would ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’ and I would just say, ‘It’s important.’ I did not come out as undocumented until I had a green card.”
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Born in Ecuador and raised in Hackensack, New Jersey, Calle came to the United States as a child, and was undocumented for 11 years. Today, as the director of the Office of New Americans (ONA) at the New Jersey Department of Human Services, Calle works on identifying, developing, and executing policies and strategies to welcome and empower immigrant communities.
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Prior to her work at ONA, she served as the director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, a coalition of more than 40 organizations advocating for pro-immigrant policies at all levels of government. There, she played key roles in passing legislation to expand access to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants and implement the state attorney general’s Immigrant Trust Directive, designed to ensure that undocumented immigrants can feel safe interacting with law enforcement.
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Calle previously worked for the national American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and participated in the ACLU of Northern California’s MiACLU campaign, visiting various ACLU affiliates fighting for immigrants’ rights. She mentors and advises youth and adults organizing for racial and social justice and civic engagement.


Johanna Calle | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Welcoming and Empowering Immigrant Communities | Johanna Calle

Maria Colacurcio believes the problem of gender and race-based inequity in the United States is solvable. As the CEO of Syndio — the only SaaS company licensing data-powered software to help companies analyze pay gaps by gender and race — she is working to eradicate unlawful disparities. Syndio is now leading the market in workplace-equity software, with nearly 10% of Fortune 200 companies currently using its groundbreaking products.
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Before joining Syndio, Colacurcio co-founded the software-solutions company, SmartSheet, Inc., and spent three years at Starbucks, one of the first Fortune 50 companies to go public with pay-equity results. With experience spanning congressional campaigns, and numerous corporate leadership roles, Colacurcio is also a mom of seven.

Maria Colacurcio | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Leading Cultural Change Around Workplace Equity | Maria Colacurcio

T. Morgan Dixon is CEO of GirlTrek, the largest health movement in America for Black women. Dixon co-founded GirlTrek with a college friend, Vanessa Garrison, after the two women became accountability buddies for taking daily 30-minute walks.
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Today, GirlTrek is a movement with more than 1 million members who use walking as a practical first step to inspire healthy living and healthier communities. GirlTrek is a campaign to heal intergenerational trauma, fight systemic racism, and transform Black lives. The simple solution of a walking community, Dixon says, is both “radically powerful and transformational for the health crisis at large.”
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In addition to serving as GirlTrek’s CEO, Dixon co-hosts the podcast, Black History Bootcamp — which has nearly 2 million downloads. She has been awarded fellowships by Echoing Green, Ashoka, and the Aspen Institute, has given two TED Talks with Garrison, and is a visiting innovator at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She currently works from West Africa, in Ghana, uniting women and girls worldwide for health justice.

T. Morgan Dixon | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Increasing the Life Expectancy of Black Women | T. Morgan Dixon

Dave Fils-Aimé discovered his love of basketball as a child in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He served two seasons as the director of operations for the Yale men’s basketball team while earning a degree in political science. When Fils-Aimé returned to Haiti to work for the United Nations Development Programme he was drawn to basketball as a way of enriching young people’s lives. “Being there every day, leaving for work early in the morning and seeing that there wasn’t much available to the people in that neighborhood, really made me want to do something to contribute,” he recalls. Fils-Aimé started Baskètbòl pou Ankadre Lajenès (BAL) (“Basketball to Uplift the Youth”), where he serves as executive director, with the mission to use basketball as a tool to mentor and educate Haitian youth.
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Fils-Aimé holds a master’s degree in human development and psychology from Harvard University and has worked in American politics at the Embassy of Haiti in Washington, D.C., and for the United Nations Foundation. He is also the founder and president of DaliReel Productions, a multimedia company focused on changing the global narrative about Haiti and highlighting the country’s culture and history.

Dave Fils-Aimé | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Using Basketball to Mentor and Educate Haitian Youth | Dave Fils-Aimé

Joe Kennedy III has dedicated his career to social and economic justice, fighting for the basic needs of every American family and for a political system that is truly representative and fair. He founded Groundwork Project to address pervasive disparities in the American political system. Over four terms in Congress, Kennedy built a powerful network of supporters and volunteers, as well as some of the largest digital platforms in the Democratic Party. As he considered the most effective way to activate this network, he was drawn to local activists, advocates, and leaders working in their communities to make change. It became clear that investing in year-round, local community organizing was the best way to build durable civic and political infrastructure and create sustainable progress. Kennedy serves as a senior advisor for Emerson Collective, the Poor People’s Campaign, and the National Association of Community Health Centers. He is a former Peace Corps volunteer, assistant district attorney, and member of Congress representing Massachusetts' 4th congressional district in the U.S. House. He is also on the boards of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the Woodwell Climate Research Center, the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health, and the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps.

Joe Kennedy III | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Disparities in the American Political System | Joe Kennedy III

Tim Latimer traces his interest in energy development to his childhood, when a controversial coal-fired power plant was built in his Texas hometown. He explains, “It was the perfect microcosm of how energy can have really great, positive impacts, but there are clear trade-offs. The plant created a lot of jobs and tax revenue, but you can always hear the turbines running.” Latimer followed his interest into the oil and gas industry, where he began his career as a drilling engineer working in the Permian and Eagle Ford basins. In 2015, driven by a growing appreciation of the urgency of climate change and wanting to learn how to best contribute to the clean-energy transition, Latimer went to graduate school at Stanford University, where he pursued an MBA and an M.S. in environment and resources. Latimer co-founded the geothermal-energy technology company, Fervo Energy with a mission to leverage innovation in geoscience. “Ten years ago, the question, ‘Do you have a climate strategy?’ was asked of energy companies,” he says. “Now it’s asked of all companies. This is an economy-wide trend.

Tim Latimer | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Unlock the Potential of Geothermal Energy | Tim Latimer

Thanks to strides in oncology research, 80% of children who develop childhood cancer are cured. However, 20% still lose the battle, and the children who are cured often get treatments that take a lasting toll on their lives. “We really need to find more modern, more targeted, and more effective ways to treat our kids who come down with the scariest of all diseases,” Crystal Mackall says.
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Dr. Mackall leads an internationally recognized translational research program focused on advancing fundamental immunology and finding new interventions, with a focus on children’s cancers. She is the director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and the Ernest and Amelia Gallo Family Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Stanford, the co-director at the Stanford Cancer Institute, and the founding director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy.
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She has led numerous first-in-human and first-in-child clinical trials for advanced cancer therapies, and helped pioneer work in treating pediatric leukemias. Her group at Stanford is currently developing next-generation cell therapies for both leukemia and solid cancers.
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Dr. Mackall is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2021 Richard V. Smalley Award and Lectureship from the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer, which is the society’s most prestigious award to a clinician/scientist. She serves in numerous national leadership positions, has published over 220 manuscripts, and is board certified in pediatrics, pediatric hematology-oncology, and internal medicine.

Dr. Crystal Mackall | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Finding New Interventions for Pediatric Cancer | Crystal Mackall 

The inspiration for founding EducationSuperHighway came when Evan Marwell was put on the spot by U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra at a White House meeting in 2012. When participants were asked to name the technology project they thought was most important for the country, Marwell, a telecom and software entrepreneur, answered that it would be expanding broadband access for classrooms, as 90% of them lacked high-speed internet access.
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Marwell founded EducationSuperHighway to close that digital divide. Working in all 50 states, Marwell helped connect nearly 47 million students in 99.7% of the country’s K-12 classrooms to high-speed broadband. Now the organization's next goal is to bring America’s most unconnected communities online.
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In addition to leading EducationSuperHighway, Marwell is a co-founder of Ignite! Reading, a Zoom-based, K-3 reading-fundamentals tutoring program. He serves on the boards of Direct Relief, and Recidiviz, a nonprofit building data tools to streamline the criminal-justice system. Marwell is also the board chair at myAgro, an organization empowering smallholder farmers to reduce poverty and increase food security.

Evan Marwell | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Bringing America’s Most Unconnected Communities Online | Evan Marwell

If asked for one word to describe the mission of Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation (CDC), Executive Director Tatewin Means says: “liberation. For far too long the Lakota people have been subject to colonial forces that have attacked this community from every angle, leading to the weakening of our self-determination, health, and culture.” She adds, “Our vision as an organization is liberation for the Lakota people through language, lifeways, and spirituality.”
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Guided by the needs and ideas of the community, this Indigenous grassroots organization, based in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, takes a holistic approach to its equity and community development work.
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Means served as the attorney general for the Oglala Sioux Tribe in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation from 2012 to 2017. In 2015, she was sworn in as the deputy state’s attorney for Oglala Lakota County through a first-of-its-kind inter-jurisdiction agreement between tribal and state sovereigns to protect victims of crimes regardless of the racial status of the offender, while strengthening tribal sovereignty. In 2018, Means sought the Democratic nomination for the South Dakota attorney general, becoming the first Indigenous woman in United States history to run for a state attorney general seat.
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Means is from the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, Oglala Lakota, and Inhanktonwan nations in South Dakota and grew up in the Oglala homelands. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from Stanford University, a JD with a concentration in human rights law from the University of Minnesota Law School, and her Master of Arts degree in Lakota leadership and management from Oglala Lakota College.


Tatewin Means | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Liberation Through Language, Lifeways, and Spirituality | Tatewin Means

When Amanda Renteria became Code for America’s new CEO in May 2020, she felt it was the culmination of her personal and professional journeys. “As someone who grew up in an underserved, farmworking town in California’s Central Valley, it sometimes felt like we were left on our own to navigate life’s challenges. Even as a kid, it just didn’t seem right that the struggles of our communities seemed invisible to a government that felt so far away.”
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Those early experiences shaped her more than two-decade career in public service, where she has focused on creating government services that work for all families. Before joining Code for America, Renteria was the chief of operations for the California Department of Justice, oversaw political and outreach strategy as national political director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, and was the first-ever Latina chief of staff in the history of the United States Senate. She also ran for a 2014 congressional seat and for governor of California in 2018, worked in the financial industry, and as a high school math and economics teacher.

When Amanda Renteria became Code for America’s new CEO in May 2020, she felt it was the culmination of her personal and professional journeys. “As someone who grew up in an underserved, farmworking town in California’s Central Valley, it sometimes felt like we were left on our own to navigate life’s challenges. Even as a kid, it just didn’t seem right that the struggles of our communities seemed invisible to a government that felt so far away.”


Amanda Renteria | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Creating People-Centered, Data-Driven Technology Solutions to Civic Problems | Amanda Renteria

“I started this page because, as a mom, I can no longer sit on the sidelines.” Shannon Watts posted these words on Facebook the day after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, as she started the group that would become Moms Demand Action. As Watts would later recall in her book, Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World, she didn’t envision a future for herself as an activist at the time. “I was a former public relations executive and a mom who had never signed a petition or been to a single rally.”
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Her Facebook page quickly grew into a nationwide movement of mothers and others united against the gun lobby in the United States. Today — with its partners, Everytown for Gun Safety and Students Demand Action — Moms Demand Action has more than 6 million supporters, surpassing the membership of the National Rifle Association.
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In addition to her work with Moms Demand Action, Watts also serves on the boards of Emerge America, a group that recruits and trains women to run for office, and Advance Peace, an organization working to end gun violence in America’s urban communities.

Shannon Watts | Emerson Collective Demo Day

Working to End Gun Violence in America | Shannon Watts

Malala Yousafzai began her campaign for education at age 11 when she anonymously blogged for the BBC about life under the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. Inspired by her father Ziauddin, a Pakistani educator, activist, and humanitarian, Malala soon began advocating publicly for girls’ education — attracting international media attention and awards. At age 15, she was attacked by the Taliban. Malala recovered in the U.K. and has continued her fight for girls.
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In 2013, she co-founded Malala Fund with her father, and a year later received the Nobel Peace Prize. “The terrorists tried to stop us,” Malala said, “but neither their ideas nor their bullets could win. We survived. And since that day, our voices have grown louder and louder.”
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Malala is a recent graduate of Oxford University with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics, and is the board chair of Malala Fund.

Malala Yousafzai began her campaign for education at age 11 when she anonymously blogged for the BBC about life under the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. Inspired by her father Ziauddin, a Pakistani educator, activist, and humanitarian, Malala soon began advocating publicly for girls’ education — attracting international media attention and awards. At age 15, she was attacked by the Taliban. Malala recovered in the U.K. and has continued her fight for girls.


Malala Yousafzai in conversation with Laurene Powell Jobs

Malala Yousafzai in Conversation with Laurene Powell Jobs

Demo Day 2021 Highlights

Capacity Building Offerings

More Capacity Building Offerings

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[TextBlock] The Goodman Center

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[FeatureCard] Voice & Storytelling

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We fund writing workshops with The OpEd Project and The Goodman Center

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Communications & Storytelling

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Emerson Collective is a company that invests in entrepreneurs and innovators driven by purpose and a sense of possibility, working to create a world of abundance for future generations. Complex challenges in education and economic mobility, immigration and the environment require audacious ideas, rigorous thinking and hard work.

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We invited our partners to share ideas for new projects at the intersection of their work and climate change. The following stories show how everyone can find ways to contribute climate solutions.