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#techforgood: New Insights, New Levers
Panel
Wednesday, November 20, 2019  |  11:00 am–12:00 pm

A cross-sector panel exploring #techforgood community of nonprofits from three perspectives: traditional philanthropy, tech-collaborating philanthropy, and tech-incubating nonprofit. We'll explore what's different about nonprofits developing technology for social change and catalyze new ways of thinking about how philanthropy IT can "cross the aisle" to shift foundation attitudes, investments and aspirations for #techforgood.

Presenters

• Bill Cromie, Director of Tech Innovation, Blue Ridge Labs @ Robin Hood
• Shannon Farley, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Fast Forward
• Leslie Payne, Senior Program Officer, The James Irvine Foundation 
• Renée Roux, Director of Technology, The James Irvine Foundation

Moderator

• Suki O'Kane, Director of Administration, Walter and Elise Haas Fund​

• Bill Cromie
• Shannon Farley
• Suki O'Kane
• Leslie Payne
• Renée Roux

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Bill Cromie is one of the cofounders of Blue Ridge Labs @ Robin Hood, a non-profit technology incubator in Brooklyn that helps incredible people build products for underserved communities and people. Prior to founding the labs, Bill was serial tech entrepreneur, CTO and cofounder of Selectable Media, sold to Meredith Media and Copromote.com. At Robin Hood, Bill consults on a number of projects, including an SMS based communications platforms for benefits access, Criminal Justice reform, and strategies to leverage technology in the non-profit ecosystem.

Bill grew up on the South Side of Chicago, graduated from NYU with degrees in Economics and Philosophy, lives in Brooklyn, and likes to tinker with Arduinos and woodworking in his spare time.

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Shannon Farley is a co-founder and Executive Director of Fast Forward, an accelerator for tech nonprofits. Previously, Shannon was the founding Executive Director of Spark, the world's largest network of Millennial-age philanthropists. Spark members crowd source grants, pro bono services, and connections for investment in grassroots women’s organizations. Prior to joining Spark, Shannon co-founded The W. Haywood Burns Institute, a MacArthur Award-winning juvenile justice reform organization. Shannon is a trustee of The Whitman Institute. Shannon holds a BA in American Studies from Georgetown University and an MS in Gender and Social Policy from the London School of Economics.

​Suki O’Kane (@shoister) is relentlessly involved in technology strategy and implementation for the independent, philanthropic and public sectors. An advocate for wise use of technology to drive philanthropic collaboration, she was the instigator of open hGrant, the open source tool for publishing machine-readable grants data. Suki is copyleft, operating-system agnostic, and can be found resorting to hand coding. The director of administration at the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, Suki is a musician, composer and curator working with artists from a wide array of music, movement, expanded cinema and public art genres. She’s moderating this discussion the way she plays most gigs: part composition, part improv, a lot of feeling.

Leslie Payne joined the Irvine Foundation as a Senior Program Officer in September 2016. Her background spans private sector and nonprofit work, including experience helping mission-driven organizations launch, adapt, and thrive.

Before joining the Foundation, Leslie was the head of social impact at LendUp, a start-up that focuses on serving customers who do not have access to traditional financial services. She was also a partner at Citizen Engagement Lab, a nonprofit that accelerates people-powered change through incubation, advice, and implementation.

Earlier in her career, she was the third employee at Arabella Advisors, a philanthropic consulting firm that helps clients maximize the impact of their resources.

Leslie has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from Georgetown.

​Renée Roux joined the Foundation as Director of Technology in September 2016. She brings more than 20 years of experience leading technology teams and partnering with businesses to implement complex solutions in a variety of sectors, including financial services, education, and consumer products.

Before joining the Foundation, Renée worked as the North America Director of IT for Dyson, a UK-based consumer goods company located in Chicago. In addition to her role in technology, Renee was presented with a unique opportunity to help build a cross-functional team in California and to implement a new strategy for hyper-local sales and marketing initiatives.

Prior to Dyson, Renée was the Vice President of Information Technology at Meritas, a collection of global K-12 schools, where she was responsible for all aspects of technology. While at Meritas she collaborated closely with school administration and staff to develop and implement technology roadmaps for all digital needs: classroom technology, student information systems, financial operations, and physical technical infrastructure. She also collaborated closely with the Chief Academic Officer to develop strategies for measuring and reporting student outcomes.

Renée has also held positions at Kaplan Professional, Charles Schwab, and GE Capital, where she managed both small and large teams. Her areas of expertise includes project management, business analysis, ERP implementations, data driven outcomes, and business intelligence.