Moderator

Roger Fong, Founder of Sumpmon

Roger Fong is Founder of Sumpmon, Inc., a company whose mission is to provide peace of mind from flooding to homeowners with basements. Currently in the agile prototyping phase, Sumpmon aims to launch its pilot/beta service in Q3 2017, allowing Roger to finally earn his title "Lord of the Sumps."

With experience as both an intrapreneur and entrepreneur, Roger has witnessed a number of successes and failures here in and in Silicon Valley. After serving masters in the corporate and startup worlds, he is applying these battle lessons in bootstrapping Sumpmon through a rapidly changing Internet of Things (IoT) environment. For fun, Roger has turned his house into a test bed for Connected Home devices. Roger has a MBA from Kellogg and a BSME from Illinois Tech.

Panelists

Paul Leamon, Founder of Beermiscuous and Wellfount

Paul Leamon has over 20 years experience in designing and building new ventures, strategy consulting and investment banking. Most recently, Paul launched a new way to enjoy and explore the craft beer market though a cafe in Chicago called Beermiscuous. The cafe offers over 350 brands for enjoying in a coffee-shop-like environment or for mixing a variety pack to go. His previous startup experience was in health care where he founded Wellfount, a technology-enabled medication distribution company for rehab facilities. Raising over $17 million in two rounds of venture capital, Paul grew the company to over $60 million in annual revenue today with 300 employees.

Prior to starting companies, Paul worked with corporations and federal government to streamline operations and regulations, and develop strategies for new products and services as a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington, DC. Paul then continued his advisory experience as an Associate Vice President within investment banking for Wachovia Securities. He helped numerous middle-market companies within health care and business services set their financial strategies, raise capital and pursue mergers and acquisitions to support their strategy.

Paul has a BS in Public Affairs from Indiana University and an MBA in Finance and Strategy from Northwestern University (Kellogg Graduate School of Management).

Deepak Jayanti, Co-Founder of Ascent Technologies

Deepak Jayanti is the Co-Founder of Ascent Technologies, a financial technology company that helps financial services firms better manage their regulatory compliance risk. Ascent recently raised $1.2 million and was a Finalist in the 2015 New Venture Challenge at The University of Chicago.

Deepak has 10+ years of experience in the financial services industry. Most recently, he was an Engagement Manager at Quantitative Risk Management. Deepak has also been an Innovation Fund Associate at the Chicago Innovation Exchange at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at The University of Chicago, a Senior Consultant at Ernst & Young, and a Senior Asset-Liability Management Associate at Allstate.

Deepak has a MBA in Analytic Finance, Marketing & Strategic Movement from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BS in Mathematics and BA in Finance from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Michael Tu, Founder of Voyant Diagnostics

Michael Tu is the Founder of Voyant Diagnostics, a startup developing an add-on device to toilets that automatically diagnoses deadly diseases through the urine. Voyant was a Finalist at the international GIANT Beanstalks Health Startup Competition in , and is currently a member of the Chicago Innovation Mentors Program at MATTER.

Michael has a recognized track record of leading medical technology innovation and commercialization. Michael has led an infusion system product development program at Baxter Healthcare. Michael was an Invited Speaker at Medtronic and The University of Ibadan, Nigeria for developing a surgical device to treat neonatal infants in Nigeria with anorectal malformations. His innovation was recognized by Isaac Adewole, Nigeria’s Minister of Health, as an early catalyst in creating a “Silicon Valley” in Nigeria. Michael was published in Gene Therapy – Nature for a major advancement in ALS therapy. His patent filings include a trocar for obese patients and 3 optical sensor devices.

Michael graduated with an outstanding biomedical design award from Northwestern University with a M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Economics.

Christina Rodriguez, Co-Founder of EXPO Collective

Christina Elizabeth Rodríguez is a Mexican-American writer, communications specialist and co-founder of EXPO Collective, an artist accelerator building community through exhibitions, the Quetzal Art Fest, dedicated to highlighting the visual art, and The Exchange, a series of educational workshops focused on marketing, branding and entrepreneurship in the arts.

In the past three years, alongside partners Erick "ROHO" García and Ricardo "Naco" González, EXPO Collective has hosted The Tour exhibition in , hosted over 20 city-wide exhibitions and has worked with over 75 artists across Chicago. In 2010, Rodríguez worked with Arte y Vida Chicago and in 2011 acted as the Editorial Director for Extra Bilingual Newspaper. She also aided in the launch and was Executive Editor of LatinoDr.org, a health source for Latinos online. Most recently, Rodríguez was a Senior Account Executive at a social media and word-of-mouth marketing agency, Zócalo Group, gaining experience in the Hispanic and general market, managing and consulting for corporate social media accounts as well as influencer marketing.

Rodríguez graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Media with a master’s degree in journalism.

Meng-Yang Chen, Co-Founder of Latona Therapeutics

Meng-Yang Chen is the Co-Founder of Latona Therapeutics, a startup developing a lipid bilayer cancer treatment platform that targets cancer cells while avoiding healthy cells. Latona Therapeutics was a Finalist at the National Institute of Health’s Nano Startup Challenge in Cancer.

Meng-Yang is a systems engineer at Baxter Healthcare in the renal home therapies group, and a co-founder of the cancer therapeutic venture Latona Therapeutics. Meng has 5 years of product development and strategic marketing experience in various healthcare segments such as in vitro diagnostics, life science research, and peritoneal dialysis. Meng studied BME/ECE at Duke and is finishing up his part-time MBA at Chicago Booth. In his free time, he enjoys rock climbing, playing piano, and supporting Blue Devils basketball.

Cato Yang, Partner at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP

Cato Yang is a partner with McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP. An accomplished patent attorney, Mr. Yang focuses his practice on patent and trademark issues, including preparation and prosecution of domestic and foreign applications; portfolio strategy and management; due diligence and intellectual property licensing; litigation related to patent infringement, trade secret, unfair competition, and false marking; and other client counseling.

Mr. Yang has significant experience drafting and prosecuting utility and design patent applications and analyzing patentability, validity, and infringement matters in technical areas of electrical circuits, control systems, and devices, such as optical sensors and piezoelectric devices; computing systems and software, including business methods and communication management applications; medical devices, procedures, and navigation systems; graphic arts and printing technology; semiconductor design; industrial packaging machines and strapping tools; power systems; and a variety of consumer products, among others. In addition to his prosecution practice, Mr. Yang has experience in numerous phases of patent litigation, including validity analysis, discovery, motion practice, claim construction, and pre-trial preparations.