Adam is an Information Technology Executive with over 15 years of experience in a variety of industries including Government, Healthcare, Disaster Response and Humanitarian Aid. He served over 8 years in the United States Army. Adam is a Clay Hunt Fellow and was the 2014 recipient of the Clay Hunt Spirit of Service Award. He is a Registered Maine Guide and enjoys spending free time outdoors with family and friends.

Alexis Bonnell is the Division Chief of Applied Innovation and Acceleration in the U.S. Global Development Lab of USAID. Alexis has delivered humanitarian and development programming in over 25 countries, in almost every sector from education to stabilization. Her more than 20 years of experience in management and communications has provided her incredible opportunities to work on/with: Wall Street, “Dot.coms”, Middle East Peace Plan, Afghan and Iraq Elections, global emergency response coordination  and major logistics operations. Her focus is how to leverage science, technology, innovation, and partnership for greater impact. Alexis founded the Global Innovation Exchange, and has been lucky enough to see USAID invest in more than 1,000 social innovators and entrepreneurs, changing millions of lives around the world.

Dr. Andrew Lustig is a worldwide humanitarian Naturopathic Doctor/EMT/I and the President/Founder of Global Outreach Doctors.

He has provided medical care in hospitals, ambulances, local clinics, mud huts and even under trees around the globe. For the past ten years Andrew has worked in disaster and poverty conditions in remote regions of the world including Haiti, Africa, Nepal, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Lesvos (GR), Syria border (JO) and the Amazon Jungle.

He was a member of the Disaster Medicine Assistance Team of NM. Andrew provided medical care for many years at annual large scale events including Bataan Death March (attended by 20,000 participants), Burningman (attended by 50,000 participants) and LovElution (attended by 10,000 participants).

As a humanitarian, Lustig has worked with solitary confinement, life sentence and death row inmates at the super max State Penitentiary of New Mexico.
He’s organized large scale events and raised substantial funds for his dear friends, the Maasai people of Kenya to build schools and provide food. Lustig and has given speeches and appeared in print, radio and television.

For two decades in Andrew’s prior life chapter, he was an owner/CEO of a diversified media corporation with 1000 associates in NYC and locations across the country. He lives in Venice, California and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Daniela Giardina is Oxfam’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Advisor with specific focus on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, activities based in Boston. She has over ten years of experience working in the water, environment and sanitation sector with non-governmental organizations in East and West Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Central Asia in humanitarian relief and in recovery/development programs. This work has included technical assessments, project design and proposals writing, project management and coordination, monitoring and evaluation, and capacity building of local partners among other tasks. In 2015 she was involved in the Ebola prevention and preparedness program in West Africa and in 2016 in the new displacement in Northern Darfur. She holds a PhD in Sanitary Engineering and Sustainable Development and Master Degree in Engineering for the Environment and the Territory.

As Executive Director of PQMD, Elizabeth (EJ) Ashbourne is responsible for furthering PQMD’s commitment to championing and advancing standards in medical supply and service donations by developing the vision, strategy, and execution of the organizations five pillars of work.

Prior to joining PQMD, EJ was most recently the Managing Partner for EJA Consulting, a small private firm specializing in strategic planning, fundraising, international development and joint venture support, mission driven event management, and all aspects of non-profit turn-around. Prior to that, EJ spent 17 years at the World Bank in a number of senior level positions, in the areas of private sector partnerships, global public health, infectious disease, and health management information systems.

A collaborative, empathic, and detail-oriented leader and bridgebuilder,
I combine humanitarian and development experience with deep knowledge of tech for social change.

I work to realize technology’s potential to bring about better aid, development and social justice practice. This means addressing systemic gaps in accountability, ethical requirements, capacity, infrastructure, and capital, and unjust and unequal concentrations of power in the Global North. I believe in patient progress through principled process.

Mostly, this means that I help people understand and solve problems together. To do this, I draw on twelve years’ global experience in technology, social change work, and entrepreneurship. I lean on ideas and methodologies from humanitarian aid and development, applied research, software product management and human-centred design, to create spaces people can think, perform, and collaborate in. I share what I learn, and pay my blessings and privilege forward wherever I can. And I lead close-knit and high-performing teams.

I contribute substantive research at policy and systems level, particularly
around data ethics, monitoring and evaluation, context analysis, and inclusive and accessible technology. I also lead close-knit and high-performing teams. My approach is to set clear goals together, and create a culture of accountability, team spirit, and compassion. This usually works well, when combined with access to snacks.

I started my career at the British Red Cross, working on humanitarian policy, accountability, and learning. In 2010, I joined FrontlineSMS, where I helped turn open-source desktop software into a non-profit business and cloud platform in just two years. At SIMLab, I lead a team that translated that experience into practitioner-facing tools and frameworks, and argued for improved, more ethical and more evidence-based practice. In 2018 I consulted on responsible data, evidence, and product, project and organizational strategy, and joined the Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation, working on data ethics and new technologies like blockchain. In March 2019 I join the Digital Impact Alliance as Senior Director of Insights and Impact.

I have served on the Board of ELRHA and am a trustee of the CDAC Network and a funding committee member for the Humanitarian Innovation Fund. I live in Washington, DC, with my husband and daughter and our yellow lab. I love to grow things, read things, and host chaotic but delicious feasts.

Professor Samson Williams

Principal Consultant, Axes And Eggs – A Think Tank & Digital Advisor based in Washington, DC

Adjunct Professor, University of New Hampshire School of Law – Blockchain, Cryptocurrency & Law Program

Adjunct Professor, Columbia University – Blockchain, AI, Cryptocurrencies and FinTech

Email: samson@axesandeggs.com

Samson is a classically trained anthropologist, finance and public health expert who advises Fortune 100 companies, Executives and startups in Dubai, Washington, DC and Dublin, Ireland.  Samson’s focus is helping firms understand the latest trends in  fintech, alternative investments, blockchain, AI, health and digital transformation, so that they can make strategic and profitable decisions for their bottom lines. Follow Samson on Twitter/Instagram @HustleFundBaby or reach out to him on LinkedIn to follow the latest insights in his academic and market research.