Farm to Future

Kayla Pearson is a surfer, hairdresser, helicopter mechanic, and the Founder of Surf Soap ( @surf_soap ), an ocean-safe hair care and skincare company.  Kayla was born in a tiny town in California, and has always had an affinity with the ocean. After growing up in Utah, she moved to Florida, where she learned to surf. Kayla joined the Army in 2013 as a UH60 Blackhawk mechanic and crew chief, and t...

Is it possible to pursue art and achieve financial stability? That’s a question that Michelle Favin is beginning to answer. Michelle is an artist based in San Francisco. She uses acrylic and natural pigments in her work and pulls inspiration from her mixed lineage of Korean and American. In this episode, Michelle opens up about leaving a glamorous and high-octane job in tech to slow down and pursu...

Sometimes what you need is the lemonade factor. In other words, the ability to turn a sour situation into something sweet.   Here’s an example.   In 2011, Nicole Ketchum interviewed for a job that involved designing decor for a Halloween theme. She came up with a beautiful modern chandelier design. She was sure the company would love it.   Turns out, they thought the concept was “too modern” and t...

When you first start your business, not everyone will believe in you. But that’s okay, because the only person that needs to believe in what you’re building — at least to start — is you.  Allison Claire had a ton of doubters when she was starting her jewelry business - her dad, one of her first customers, and banks who denied her a loan. But it turns out, Allison had a perfect background for what...

The best products often come from a frustrated consumer. Laura Armstrong was an event planner who traveled a ton for work and struggled to find the right hair products to bring on the road. She couldn’t lug all her tools and hair products around, and the only dry shampoos she could find came in aerosol cans, which were banned from carry-on and they turned your hair white. So, Laura created her own...

What’s the first step to building a thriving business? Well, easy — getting started.  But that can be scary. Whether it’s quitting your day job, putting up a website, or getting out there to find your first customer, just getting started requires being brave. Here’s a secret, though. You don’t need to be brave all of the time. Just the moments that matter. That’s how Claire Smith managed to quit h...

To cap off Season 1, Severin from Episode 4 comes back to interview me, Jane Z.! We take a trip down through my multi-leg journey of entrepreneurship, from building a neighborhood piano school at age 13 to designing a student-run cafe at McGill University, building a clean tech startup community in Vancouver, to co-founding the first-ever classroom design platform. We also discuss my research on f...

Vivienne Walz is a former Health Scientist at the CDC who worked on the 2018 Ebola Outbreak response in the DRC, where she focused on analyzing community feedback from Red Cross volunteers. Today, Vivienne supports the Covid-19 response as a community health liaison in the Kahnawà:ke First Nations reserve outside of Montreal. Vivienne holds an M.Sc. in Public Health and B.A.&Sc. in Cognitive S...

Mark Pan is the Director of HR & Business Strategy at Newsela, an EdTech platform that delivers news-related content to students at different reading levels. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Urban Education, Mark took his knowledge to the classroom, teaching English in San Jose, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. He then brought his teaching skills into the tech indu...

Carly James is the Executive Director of Global Development at ThinkPlace Global, a strategic design thinking firm that tackles the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Carly is trained as a cultural anthropologist, and she’s worked on design research projects like behavior change in the health system for Somali women, disaster resilience in Myanmar, HIV testing in West Africa, and co-designin...

Shahil Patel ( @shahilbollyx ) is the Co-Founder and CEO of BollyX, a Bollywood-based fitness class that’s grown into a global movement. BollyX has been featured on Shark Tank and in 2009, Shahil led the first-ever Bollywood dance team to the final rounds of America’s Got Talent. Shahil has choreographed, produced, and led over 200 Bollywood performances and has performed alongside superstars such...

Chi Pham is a UX Designer at Google, a Masters of Public Health candidate at UC Berkeley, and an Ironman triathlete. Chi empowers over 120,000 women to embrace their badass selves through her Instagram account @fit_pham , where she’s been documenting her fitness journey over the years. Chi’s parents fled the Vietnam War and landed in San Diego, where Chi grew up and learned to swim, later swimming...

Dr. John Rhee is a neurology resident at Mass General Brigham at Harvard Medical School and the co-founder of the podcast and platform The Hippocratic Forum. He has published articles on palliative care, physical-assisted suicide, and on loneliness at hospitals in the time of COVID (links below). He is also a devout Catholic and one of the smiliest people you will ever meet.  In this episode, we t...

Natasha Jung is the Founder of Cold Tea Collective (@coldteacollective), a new media platform for stories from Asian millennials in Canada and the U.S. Today, the platform features stories across topics like arts and culture, food, career, and mental health, from over 30 contributors across North America. Natasha was inspired to found CTC when she attended the Vancouver Asian Film Festival a few y...

Ryan Chen is the Co-founder of Neuro ( @neurogum ), a company that makes functional gum and mints to energize, calm, and focus your mind. On paper, Ryan might look like a familiar startup success — Forbes 30 Under 30, Shark Tank contestant, revenue in the millions, and an investor in other consumer startups. What these wins don’t capture is how Ryan had to literally rebuild his life from the botto...

Dani Calleiro ( @consciouscalleiro ), formerly known as Dani Cimorelli, is a 20-year old YouTube Creator and former pop star. Dani grew up in a house of 10 siblings and sang in a band with her five sisters called Cimorelli. Their YouTube covers were an instant hit, and before long they garnered a fanbase of over 5.5 million subscribers. Dani was only 10 when she joined the band and they signed wit...

Harriet Kim and Mirae Lee are the Co-founders of Choa Magazine ( @choamagazine ), an online platform for Korean diasporic stories. Harriet is a photographer, writer, community arts organizer, and environmentalist. She co-created a portrait series called Dressed in Layers: A Hanbok Project and is the founder of the Korean Canadian Writers’ Collective. Mirae is a cultural producer, bilingual writer,...

Stephen Sun is a Licensed Architect and CEO/Co-founder of Development Integration Group, or DIG. His team is building an AI-based “digital architect” that will eventually allow anyone to design their own fully-compliant home or building. One glance at Stephen’s LinkedIn profile will tell you he never stops learning — his job roles have spanned from Elementary School Teacher to Real Estate Develope...

Marsh Jean ( @themarshajean ) has been solo traveling the world since she was 18. In the past five years, she’s done things many would consider nuts — she’s hitchhiked alone from Iran through France, cycled solo through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan, and couchsurfed in places like Kandahar (former “capital” of the Taliban) and Iranian Baluchistan (one of the most dangerous places in the wor...

Jero Beccar is an entrepreneur and filmmaker from Buenos Aires. After getting his B.A. in Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College, he worked for Warner Brothers and Walt Disney. While at Disney, he managed a crew of over 45 people to shoot Disney’s first Apple iTunes commercial. He then took his technical lighting experience back home to Argentina, where he co-founded an LED lighting company, pro...

Viola Wang ( @theblessingbucket ) is best known for her travel blog, where she shares gorgeous photography alongside practical tips for travelers on a budget. An advocate of slow travel, Viola has traveled to 32 countries and spent time living in Australia, Japan, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Peru. She also completed her yoga teacher training in Rishikesh, India, considered the world capital of yoga. ...

Dan Levine is a PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab in the Biomechatronics group. His work involves building better prosthetic limbs, and he was once part of a team that built a tongue-computer interface for people with spinal cord injuries. (That’s right, it's a computer you control with your tongue!) Dan holds Bachelors degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science from Cornell Univ...

Bryanne Leeming is the Founder and CEO of Unruly Studios and the inventor behind Unruly Splats, the first STEM learning tool that combines coding with active, recess-style play for kids. Splats are durable, programmable floor buttons that light up, make sound, and sense when kids stomp on them. Kids can code their own rules for Splats games like relay races, whack-a-mole, and dance routines. Since...

Severin Ibarluzea ( @seveibar ) is the CTO and Co-founder of Workaround Online ( wao.ai ), a platform that helps companies clean up their datasets to prepare them for machine learning algorithms. What sets them apart from competitors is their social mission: Workaround employs displaced Syrian refugees who would otherwise have trouble finding fair and dignified work.  This isn’t Seve’s first rodeo...

Jennifer Zhang ( @jenerationdiy ) is well-known on YouTube for her DIY craft videos and extreme room makeovers, and as JEN Z on Spotify for her dark yet dance-y bops. Jennifer is a 22-year-old YouTube Creator and singer/songwriter with a YouTube following of 2.6 million. Since starting her channel in 2013, she’s gotten to travel the world and work with brands like Microsoft, Amazon, thredUP, Clini...