LGBTQ+ in Tech

LGBTQ+ in Tech Summit

Below please find our event schedule, speakers, login details and startups!

Event Schedule (in CST)

12:00pm	Welcome & Introductions
12:10pm	Opening Remarks with Accenture
12:20pm	Session 1: Addressing Racial Equity & Allyship within the LGBTQ+ Community with Joli Robinson
12:45pm	Session 2: Panel on Being an LGBTQ+ Founder (Jack Harrison-Quintana, Peter Arvai, James Bilodeau, Ransom Ashley)
1:10pm	Accenture Spotlight "Pride Means More"
1:15pm	Session 3: Panel on Behind the Swipe; Developers Connecting A Community (Robbi Katherine Anthony, Julian Bryant, Matt Winser-Johns)
1:40pm	Hopin Networking & Transition to Startup Showcase
1:50pm	Startup Showcase
2:50pm	Winners Announced + Closing Remarks

Special thanks to accenture & Baker botts

Accenture LOGO

Guest Speakers

Erin Miller (she/her) | Founder & CAPCOM at Out There Productions

Our emcee for the event will be Erin Miller, an entrepreneur, advertising specialist, and artist.
Erin's first business was a media production company that operated out of a renovated school bus. Since then, she's helped entrepreneurs of all sizes and industries get a handle on their digital assets, social media, and branding. She's explored Austin through making films for SXSW and shaking things up as a team member at Capital Factory. Now Erin is a facilitator at 3 Day Startup, providing entrepreneurship education and training to students of diverse educational backgrounds to inspire the pursuit of entrepreneurial endeavors and careers.

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Mellie Price (she/her) | Educator, Investor, and Strategic Advisor

Mellie Price is a highly experienced innovation and operations executive, venture fund manager, angel investor, philanthropist, data geek, and technologist who has worked in organizations ranging from non-profits to startups to publicly traded companies to state government.
Price, an eight-time entrepreneur, is also well known as a co-founder of the nationally recognized startup accelerator program and entrepreneurial hub, Capital Factory. In 2015, Mellie launched SoftMatch, a tech-enabled corporative innovation consulting firm, to help Fortune 1000 companies connect with the emerging technologies, startups, and talent that can help navigate this era of digital disruption. Formerly, Price was the Founder & CEO of Front Gate Solutions/Front Gate Tickets, one of the largest privately held primary market ticketing software platforms in the US/Canada from 2002 to 2015 when it was sold to Live Nation/Ticketmaster. Mellie is currently a Partner at Notley Ventures and Senior Advisor to Ecliptic Capital.

Jacob Spangler (he/him) | Senior Manager, Strategy at Accenture

Jacob Spangler is a Senior Manager, Strategy at Accenture working with the Kates Kesler organization design team on organizational design and operating model projects across a variety of industries. He serves as the Dallas PRIDE Network Lead and is on the UT Austin recruitment team for Accenture. Jacob graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in Business Honors and Supply Chain Management and a BA in Plan II Honors and Government.

Joli Robinson (she/her) | VP of Government Affairs & Public Policy at Habitat for Humanity

Joli is currently the VP of Government Affairs and Public Policy with Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity. Prior to joining Dallas Area Habitat, Joli managed Community Engagement efforts at the Dallas Police Department. Joli also serves as the Co-Chair for the local Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation organization, volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate with Dallas CASA, and serves in a board capacity with the North Texas LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Joli graduated from Dallas Baptist University with a Bachelors of Art and Science in Sociology and Communication and a graduate degree in Communications specializing in Organizational Communication Management. She is continuing her road to higher education by pursuing an EdD in Organizational Change & Leadership at the University of Southern California. Joli has published several Op-Eds and her most recent work can be found in The Dallas Examiner, USA Today, Ms. Magazine, and Visible Magazine. Joli also conducts training on topics ranging from Implicit Bias to the Inclusion of Queer Voices in Racial Healing. She is focused on lifting and amplifying voices of all people and being a cheerleader for others to fully realize, appreciate, and step into their potential.
StrengthsFinder: Input Developer Empathy Connectedness Positivity

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Jack Harrison-Quintana (he/him) | Founding Director of Grindr For Equality

Jack Harrison-Quintana is a queer Mexican-American activist, writer, and researcher. He is the founding director director of Grindr for Equality (G4E), which which he harnesses the
power of the world’s largest network of gay, bi, and trans people to promote LGBTQ health and
human rights in nearly two hundred countries. For his work with the app, Jack has been
honored as one of Fast Company’s 2016 Most Creative People in Business and Foreign Policy’s
2016 Global Thinkers.
Before Grindr, Jack was the director of the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Policy Institute, where he co-authored the landmark study, Injustice At Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. He has also worked at the Global Trans Research and Advocacy Project (GTRAP), the National Center for Transgender Equality, Khemara Cambodia. Hailing from Signal Mountain, Tennessee, Jack earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Georgetown University in DC, which he still resides.

Grindr is hiring for roles across tech, operations, talent acquisition, and more. To learn more about who they are and what they believe, visit: https://www.grindr.com/careers/

Website

Peter Arvai (he/him) | Founder at Prezi

Peter founded and lead Prezi during its first 12 years. Together with over 100M Prezi users, he created the world’s largest library of publicly available presentations, and with many billions of views, this makes Prezi one of the most widely spread brands to have originated from Hungary. Peter has also worked to encourage young Hungarians to have the confidence that entrepreneurship can provide an opportunity to compete globally. He founded and chaired Bridge Budapest, an organization that reaches half of Hungary’s population with entrepreneurial inspiration on a yearly basis. He has also founded and chaired WAO - a gathering of over 1,000 Central and Eastern European companies that work for diverse and inclusive work environments, representing over 100k employees. In 2015, he became the first visible openly gay CEO in Central and Eastern Europe. He’s been named Entrepreneur of the Year by the EU Commission, Alumni of the Year by the Royal Institute of Technology, and included multiple times in Financial Times’ ranking of the world’s most influential LGBT executives."

Website

James Bilodeau (he/him)| Founder & CEO PreFix Inc.

James is CEO and Founder of Austin-based PreFix Inc. Prior to starting PreFix, James worked in strategy and operations consulting with C-level executives in the IT and financial services industries. He was Director of Strategy and Program Management at an Austin-based mobile payments company and worked in Strategic Research at the Corporate Executive Board (now Gartner).
He also headed the Emerging Markets Finance Group at the World Economic Forum after being selected for their Global Leadership Fellows Program. He has an MBA from the Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA (honors) from Brown University.

Website

Ransom Ashley (he/him)| Owner- Son of Rand | Photographer, Actor, Creative Entrepreneur

Ransom Ashley is a photographer, actor, and creative entrepreneur. He attended Parsons The New School for Design in New York City where he was concentrating on photography and went on to receive his Bachelor of Science in Psychology. He has shown work internationally (in New York, London, Brighton and Budapest) and been included in shows at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, and Masur Museum of Art, among others. He has also been featured in select publications such as Teen Vogue, The New York Times, Deadline, Wonderland Magazine, Metal Magazine, and Dazed and Confused Magazine. Ashley is currently developing a body of work exploring LGBTQIA+ subcultures and continuing to grow his eponymous design studio and shop Son of Rand.

Website

Robbi Katherine Anthony (she/her) | CEO & Founder of Euphoria.LGBT

Robbi Katherine Anthony (better known as RKA) is the CEO & founder of Euphoria.LGBT, a mHealth public benefit corporation creating a suite of mobile applications to resolve the great pains associated with gender transition. RKA is a front-end developer by trade whose lived experiences as a transgender woman in tech deeply inform the products she builds.

The self-described “relentless optimist” was part of Go Magazine’s 100 Women We Love Class of 2020, a former TEDx Speaker, a 2021 Stylus Changemaker, and has sat on panels for Healthtech4Medicaid and the Yale Women's Mental Health Conference. In her free time, she can be found searching for wildflowers or hunting for dresses with pockets.

Website

Julian Bryant (he/him) | Product Manager & iOS Developer at Lexploration LLC

Julian Bryant is a Facilitator and iOS programmer based in San Diego, CA. After a brief career as a lawyer, he shifted careers to programming for iOS and facilitating events for Startup Weekend where participants pitch ideas and launch new startups in just one weekend.
When COVID quarantines started being implemented, he recognized that the related anxiety, job losses, forced isolation was going to be a challenge not only to his own sobriety, but also be a challenge for so many other people. In spring of 2020, he started the Slay Today! podcast to talk about issues of substance abuse particularly within the LGBT community. In addition to the podcast, he's been busy creating an app to deliver love and support to people who may be struggling in isolation. Through the podcast, app, and facilitating digital events his focus is building community and inspiring others to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.

Matt Winser-Johns (he/him) | Assistant Director, LGBTQ+ Programs at UTD

Matt Winser-Johns (he/him) is the Assistant Director for LGBTQ+ Programs at The University of Texas at Dallas. Matt has worked in Higher Education for over 15+ years and loves working with students. UT Dallas is currently ranked #14 in the nation for LGBTQ-inclusivity, based on the latest Campus Pride Index ranking. Matt's passions include making space for LGBTQ+ at the table. Matt knows Texas has a long way to go in inclusion for LGBTQ+ people, but he is committed to staying here and doing the work.