Any good conference leaves its attendees feeling inspired, with a renewed sense of excitement about their industry and the roles they play in it. But FullConTech goes above and beyond by turning inspiration into tangible action, and we couldn’t do it without our speakers. Each year, we invite a diverse group of leaders and innovators in the technology community to discuss their experiences, ideas, and achievements, and motivate attendees to channel their energy into real change.

 

Here’s a sampling of this year’s speakers:

Stephanie Donner is the Chief Legal and People Officer, and Corporate Secretary for Galvanize Inc., a Colorado-based dynamic learning environment with over 270 employees. Students at Galvanize learn software engineering, data science, and entrepreneurship, alongside startup and established companies that work in the Galvanize space. As Chief People and Legal Officer, Stephanie is an Officer of the Company and oversees all legal, human resources, compliance and government relations matters.

Rep. Drew Hansen chairs the House Higher Education Committee. He was the prime sponsor of the landmark Washington bills to expand computer science education, HB 1813 and HB 1472. He also led the effort to expand funding for the UW Seattle Computer Science department.

Jessie Woolley-Wilson held several executive positions in leading EdTech companies before joining DreamBox Learning, including Kaplan, LeapFrog and Blackboard. Recognized by Forbes’ “Impact 15,” she has dedicated her career to expanding access to high quality learning experiences for all students through industry-leading innovative technologies.

Kevin Wang is the founder of the TEALS program that helps high schools start and grow sustainable computer science programs and build CS teacher capacity by integrating professional software engineers into the classroom in a co-teaching model with a classroom teacher. Within 2 years, committed partner schools can independently sustain CS courses based on UC Berkeley and University of Washington curricula. TEALS is an industry-wide initiative with a proven track record that engages local communities to participate in bringing rigorous computer science courses to high schools across the country.

Kevin has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley and a graduate degree in education from Harvard University.  Kevin is also a former high school computer science teacher, a teaching fellow for Harvard’s CS1 course, and a fellow at Lockheed and Toyota. He was a software engineer in the Microsoft Office 365 group when he founded TEALS in 2009.  He now runs TEALS full-time, generously supported by Microsoft Philanthropies.  Kevin spends what little of his free time trying to not be outsmarted by his dog while watching British panel quiz shows.

 

We can’t wait to hear from these four Seattle tech industry trailblazers next month. Read more about our other FullConTech 2017 speakers here, and click the button below to register for the conference.