The Covitech Challenge

Deborah is a creative problem-solver that is passionate about software and web development and, loves UI/UX design. She loves to combine her skills in design and development to create memorable user experiences for others. Presently, she is a Technology Analyst at Accenture and a recent graduate from the Computer Science Co-op program at Ryerson University. Beyond work, Deborah is learning Korean and hopes to be fluent in the future. She also has a food Instagram (@debeats_) where she uses her skills in food photography to share her love for food and help local businesses. She is a Co-founder of International Hub, an initiative to help students and young professionals achieve their dream careers.

Kapil is a second-year computer science student at the University of North Texas, who has experience in working with a couple pre-seed startups. His background is in software engineering and AI/ML development in a product as well as research setting. Some of his accomplishments include publishing a NLP research paper at IEEE's COMPSAC 2021, building an app with funding from Google, leading a team to build a live delivery management platform that's used by 20+ nonprofits to complete 500,000+ deliveries every year, and building an autonomous cave mapping robot to compete in the DARPA subterranean challenge.

Ayesha Khan is currently an Experience Designer at ThoughtWorks. Previously designed for a healthcare tech startup that uses vocal biomarkers combined with machine learning to derive valuable insights into health and wellness. Specifically, determine if a person had COVID-19 by using only their voice through a smartphone. In her talk, she'll go over how she worked cross-functionally and collaborated with different teams such as the Clinical team and Audio Scientists. Ayesha graduated from San Jose State University with a Bachelors in Software Engineering. She loves to help startups in the space of healthcare, education, and mental health design to enhance the mobile app experience backed by research and data.

Alon Grinshpoon is the CEO and founder of echoAR , a cloud platform for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) that provides tools and network infrastructure to help developers & companies quickly build and deploy AR/VR apps and content. Alon received his MSc in computer science from Columbia University specializing in computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality, and human-computer interaction. Alon received his BSc in computer science and electrical engineering from Tel Aviv University specializing in software engineering, computer networks and cyber security. Alon is a former Mellanox engineer, graduate researcher at the Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Laboratory of Columbia University, and research and teaching assistant in the fields of computer networks and distributed cloud networks. Alon is a Techstars alum, NYC Media Lab alum, a Startup Leadership Program (SLP) fellow, and member of the Virtual World Society. Alon is a speaker on emerging technologies and has given talks at major AR/VR tech conferences in the US and Israel.

Dr. Munish Jindal was named Noble Asian of the Year 2018 by the United Nations and received the highest civilian distinction, the Karmaveer Chakra. He received his MBA from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. He founded HoverRobotix in India, the biggest seller of hoverboards and eMobility robots.