Panelists

Abid Siddiqui
Principal

Abid a Principal Builder at AI Fund, works with Founders in Residence and Venture Advisors to validate potential business ideas and rapidly build new companies.

With over a decade of entrepreneurial experience, Abid brings a broad set of business validation and building skills to the AI Fund. Most recently, he worked with the BARDA, the biomedical innovation unit within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). There Abid served as a strategic advisor and supported the HHS’s pandemic preparedness and response efforts. He was responsible for launching the organization’s first startup studio, which focused on launching new companies at the intersection of healthcare and national security. He also designed and launched numerous accelerator and incubator programs and worked with the participating founders on all aspects of their company build.

Working with passionate founders is my favorite part of my job. Their passion is both contagious and inspiring,” he says.

Lulit Tesfaye
Partner & Vice President, Knowledge & Data Services

Lulit Tesfaye is a Partner and the VP for Knowledge & Data Services and Engineering at Enterprise Knowledge, LLC., the largest global consultancy dedicated to Knowledge and Data management. Lulit brings over 15 years of experience leading diverse information and data management initiatives, specializing in technologies and integrations. Lulit is most recently focused on employing advanced Enterprise AI and semantic capabilities for optimizing enterprise data and information assets.

Ike syed
Senior Vice President

(Panel Moderator)

Ike Syed, works at KiwiTech as Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, where he leads the Enterprise and SaaS engagements within the startup community. Before KiwiTech, Ike served at the U.S. Department of State, where he advised the senior leadership on economic impacts of foreign investments, digital economy and emerging technologies. In that role, Ike liaised closely with other government/international entities (such as the National Security Council, the Departments of Defense and Commerce, other Executive Branch departments, etc.) and the private sector.

Prior to entering public service, Ike worked as a Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Connectloud, a next-generation Cloud Computing company. Previously, he was a management consultant at Oliver Wyman and a finance executive at Fidelity Investments, where he advised corporate leaders globally on critical strategic and business issues. As an experienced veteran of the ICT industry, Ike has led product development and technical research initiatives at Cisco Systems in Silicon Valley and Lucent Technologies/Bell Laboratories in the past.

In 2012, Ike was selected to be part of Boston Chamber of Commerce’s Future Leaders program. From 2005 to 2007, he served on the executive committee of the MIT-Stanford Venture Lab, a Silicon Valley non-profit organization dedicated to connecting entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and private investors. Ike received his BASc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in Canada and a MS in Computer Science from Boston University. A licensed Professional Engineer, he obtained his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Presenters