Talks & discussions by several speakers on Makers, Burning Man culture here & it’s evolution globally, Social Entrepreneurship, (Urban Sustainability, possible) music & Spoken Words etc. more may be added.

Speakers:

Maker Cities

The maker movement has transformed how we produce the stuff in our lives. How can this DIY, collaborative community reinvent the systems in our lives—learning, municipal governance, health and well-being, even infrastructure? How citizens will make the future of cities, and what might a Maker City look like in 2025? How will San Francisco be a Maker City? Join Jason Tester and Alex Goldman from the Institute for the Future for a conversation about these questions and learn how you can help make the future.

Jason Tester
Jason is a Research Director for the Technology Horizons Program at the Institute for the Future. Jason focuses on three areas: research into how people use emerging technologies, the application of design to futures research, and facilitating groups to stimulate insights and implications about the future. Jason strives to look beneath the surface of society and its artifacts for hidden layers of meaning.

Alex Goldman
Alex is a Research Manager for IFTF’s Technology Horizons Program. With a background in Videogame Production/Design and Politics, he researches how new ways to organize group efforts, collaborate, cooperate, and compete are solving human problems. Alex conducts strategic research on emerging technologies and how they impact the landscape of human interactions—whether with machines or other human beings.

Please find below a description about what I would like to speak about at the event and a bit about myself.

Nima,

& below here is info on Pulse Savings the HULT University Alumni speakers’ intro info.

About Pulse Savings (www.pulsesavings.com):

Pulse is a mobile savings tool which aims to alleviate food insecurity by smoothing the peaks and valleys of peoples incomes, allowing people to save money and redeem it for food using their basic (feature) mobile phones. The target market is people with small, and fluctuating incomes living in urban slums in developing countries. By allowing people to save any spare change in a safe and convenient manner on days they have an income, they can then spend it on emergencies on days when they do not earn a wage. We are targeting hospitals, pharmacies and local grocery vendors to accept the form of payment. We ran a field pilot with 25 women in Ahmedabad, India for six weeks starting beginning of July. We witnessed that Pulse helped the women increase their families’ food budgets by 12 percent — enough to pay for an average of 14 more meals per month!

We were also among the final 6 teams competing for $1M of funding in Hult Prize 2013, the largest business competition in the world, It had over 10,000 entrants this year. As one of the six finalists we were proud to present our solution in response to President Clinton’s challenge of solving food insecurity in urban slums. We presented our social enterprise to eight competent judges such as Dr. Yunus, Desh Deshpande, Mo Ibraham, Premal Shah, Kathy Calvin, Ertharin Cousin, Steve Andrews, and Peter Sands.

About myself (Niketa R. Malhotra):

Born and raised in India, Niketa is passionate about creating sustainable ecosystems for social businesses in developing countries. Her experience ranges from implementing projects for nonprofits in India, to developing software solutions and managing business development for KPIT Cummins. With this diverse knowledge in social enterprises, business, and technology, Niketa is able

to lead and execute projects for Pulse. Niketa holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology from the University of Pune, India. While completing her Master of Social

Entrepreneurship degree at Hult International Business School, Niketa held positions at Net Impact Hult San Francisco and interned with Shanti Microfinance and Kiva Microfunds.

Niketa brings a passion for social causes, business acumen, and an understanding of technology to the Pulse Team.