Shmona is an enabler of global and equitable access to technology products. In 2020, she founded Paritii- a social enterprise aiming to make technology better for everyone. Today she leads a team of strategists and developers who help their clients reach all users (regardless of geography, gender, or race) with their strategies, products, and services. Prior to Paritii, she was a strategist at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an infectious disease specialist serving low-and middle-income countries, and a research scientist. Her research is published in Lancet and Nature, and she is a frequent advocate for equity-aligned technologies at international conferences and events. Shmona holds a DPhil from Oxford University where she was a Rhodes Scholar.
Marilyn Agbeko began her career in technology after obtaining her MBA from Washington University in St Louis and a BA in Economics from Princeton University. She has extensive experience building and scaling technology products from a Product Management and Product Marketing perspective, taking products from concept to launch through to the growth stages.
Marilyn is currently heading Product Strategy and Development at Paritii, working with clients to use software to solve real-world problems. She was previously in charge of the Prescription Program at 98point6, helping pioneer a new, virtual, artificial intelligence-enabled primary care delivery model. Prior to 98point6, Marilyn spent most of her career building software.
Marilyn also serves on the Board of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni, and as a Venture fellow with Nassau Street Ventures.
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Rachel is passionate about connecting education, technology and community, and specializes in enabling higher education institutions to reach their potential in digital learning solutions, organizational effectiveness, and technology transformation. Her expertise includes EdTech integration, online and blended learning, educational programming, operations management, program portfolio management, budget and strategy development, data-driven analysis, process streamlining, and team building.
For over 20 years, Rachel led teams and cross-functional initiatives at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in digital transformation projects for the student experience, registration, advising, degree progress, admissions, teaching and learning, and school-wide operations. As the Director of Learning, Design, and Technology, she led a team of 18 designers and developers to create learning solutions for 23 Executive Education LEAD online courses and blended MBA courses across the curriculum. In her role as Director of Applications, Digital Solutions, she managed EdTech integration projects for the school’s student information system (SIS), customer relationship management (CRM), learning management systems (LMS), classroom technologies, and custom solutions for key school operations. In addition to her roles in digital solutions, she held positions as Registrar, in the MBA Program, Teaching & Learning and Career Management.
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Amy Peterson is an access-focused educational technology leader with more than 20 years of experience leading learning design, student and teacher coaching, and academic consulting teams to provide holistic and innovative strategies and support for learners in and out of the classroom. Prior to joining Paritii, Amy oversaw the curriculum and instruction functions for Elevate K-12, which live-streams certified teachers into schools. In her work at Pearson, Embanet-Compass, and Career Education Corporation, she has collaborated with dozens of colleges and universities to develop and implement program strategies, online and hybrid courses, education technology strategies, and student retention initiatives. She teaches in the Master of Science in Designing Instructional and Educational Technology program at National University. Amy holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology and M.A. in Education from Michigan State University, an M.A. in Public History from Loyola University Chicago, and a B.A. in History from Illinois Wesleyan University.
Hanna is a Management Consultant with primary expertise in technology strategy. She has advised and supported the C-Suite of major companies or over four years – an accumulation of experience at Deloitte Consulting and at Paritii.
She has supported clients across multiple industries, including automotives, insurance, telecommunications, and education organizations. Her previous projects include developing an 8-year Digitization Roadmap to enable digital transformation through smart manufacturing initiatives, implementing a centralized Business Intelligence System for better reporting and analysis, establishing a target operating model for data governance, and formulating an end-to-end education technology intervention strategy to help under-represented minority students succeed.
Born and raised in Indonesia, she holds a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Bandung Institute of Technology and earned an MSc in Engineering Management from Johns Hopkins University. She is passionate about leveraging technology to create a sustainable environment and community.
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Erica Swanson is a Management Consultant with a passion for STEM education, restorative justice and improving educational outcomes for students from underserved communities. Prior to joining Paritii, she was a STEM educator and school leader, and served as a 2014 Teach for America corps member in New Orleans. As a school leader, Erica focused on building and leading teams with coaching, professional learning facilitation and data-driven continuous improvement initiatives.
Prior to her experience in education, Erica supported federal, commercial and non-profit clients as a Consultant with Deloitte Consulting. There, she worked on national grants management programs, supply chain management initiatives with Veterans Affairs, non-profit budgeting and financial analysis and large-scale healthcare technology implementation engagements. Erica holds Bachelors degrees in Economics and Political Science from Virginia Polytechnic Institution and State University and a Masters in Educational Leadership from Louisiana State University.
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Hanwen is an active explorer in educational development with a focus on global equity. She has served at multiple NGOs and INGOs worldwide to support their program development and strategy research. She has been leading research and analysis at Paritii since its inception. Prior to joining Paritii, she conducted research at UNESCO, tracking the impact of COVID-19 on the higher education systems of the member states.
Moreover, she contributed to system analysis and policy intervention development at the International Rescue Committee to rehabilitate the education system for emerging countries. Holding a Master's degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, Hanwen specializes in conducting quantitative and qualitative research, and delivering data-driven strategies while engaging stakeholders across sectors in her research.
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Raaghav is a scholar, scientist, and strategy consultant with a background in climate research, STEM education, wisdom traditions, and creative direction. At the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, he led teams, whose work concerned the geometrical optimization of solar panels on satellites and combating the urban heat island with green infrastructure.
He is currently a lab member and researcher at the Collaborative for Spirituality in Education, a recipient of the Ruth Gottesman Award, and a winner of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Oratory Event. He is finishing his PhD at Columbia University along with being a physics/engineering educator. There, he studied and presented the intersections of Indian contemplative philosophies, multicultural education, and the nature of science.
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Candace is a Computer Scientist and Software Maker with 15+ years of industry experience. She enjoys creatively solving problems using technology. Candace was most recently a Software Developer at No Moss Co - a humanist, socially responsible, anarchist collective of executives, directors, engineers, coaches, learners and problem solvers who have an aligned purpose toward cooperatively progressing human endeavor.
Prior to her role at No Moss Co, she spent 6+ years at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer where she worked on several web-based projects for EC2 and Amazon.com. She has also held positions at CGI and ThoughtWorks.
Candace holds a Bachelors in Computer Science from the University of Sydney. She is committed to furthering fairness in our world. She redesigned the Urban Rest Stop and Low Income Housing Institute websites for greater accessibility during her time in Seattle working with the houseless population. Her other interests include film, civil rights legislation, Indigenous sovereignty & health policy.
Ania has expertise supporting multidisciplinary and multicultural teams in multiple jurisdictions. Prior to joining Paritii, Ania supported Legal Administration at Linklaters, one of the top London-headquartered law firms.
She is also a Sworn Translator and Interpreter for legal, business, and family matters in the English-Polish pair. She has supported Paritii as an Executive Assistant since the beginning of 2022.
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Anasstassia Baichorova is a deeply committed ally and accomplice in people’s struggle for liberation and equality. She has been actively involved in global movements for equity and decolonization over the last 18 years in different countries.
For over eigh eight years she led Equity work internally and with Teach For All’s global network of 53 partners, focusing on how equity-aligned organizations and movements are built, transformed, and supported as a Senior Director for Global Inclusivity. Prior to Teach For All, she focused on recruitment at Teach for America. She holds degrees from Cornell Institute of Public Affairs, PACE University School of Education, and a bachelor’s degree in Inequalities from Cornell University.
Her heart and ways of working are deeply influenced by her indigenous family in the Caucasus mountains and Belarus where she was raised.
Bruce is a strategy consultant based in the United States but has extensive background working globally with public and private organizations in the social impact, technology, and education sectors. His business acumen is derived from 15+ years of leadership roles with Fortune 500 companies, including Coca-Cola, Fila USA, and Pearson Education where he led product development and project management efforts for the U.S. K-12 blended learning team. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration from Northcentral University, an MBA in Strategy from DeVry University, a Master Certification of Project Management, and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Psychology from Coppin State University.
He has also launched an EdTech business skills development platform for entrepreneurs and founders. And finally, the author of Making Dough: A Young Entrepreneurs Tale, spends time providing free courses to underrepresented high school students on financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills.
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Emily specializes in scaling and designing digital products that solve social issues within non-profit, federal, pharmaceutical, public health, education, and healthcare verticals. She is a skilled supervisor with 5+ years of experience managing teams of 3 to 75 direct reports, and 250+ indirect reports.
Emily also has 7+ years of combined experience managing $100M+ worth of nonprofit, federal and state grant programs. Her recent work includes: leading a portfolio aimed to modernize the way public health agencies report data, led research and end-to-end design for a product to combat vaccine misinformation via artificial intelligence, leading user interface design for an application to expand minimally invasive surgery in East Africa, designed open-source software to improve learning experiences, and more. Furthermore, Emily has facilitated design-thinking workshops for clients within different industry verticals and is passionate about elevating the voices of vulnerable populations in the co-design process. Emily has a Masters degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a UX/UI Design Certificate from UC Berkeley-Extension.
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Athinangamso was an organizing member of the Rhodes Must Fall Movement in Oxford, the Fees Must Fall Movement at Wits University and Rhodes Must Fall UCT. She is an Oxford Weidenfeld Scholar, and a contributing editor of ‘Rhodes Must Fall: The struggle to decolonise the racist heart of empire.’ Athi loves debating and was Chief Adjudicator for the South Africa Nationals Debating championships in 2017.
Athinangamso holds an honors degree in International Relations from the University of the Witwatersrand and a Masters of Social Sciences in African Studies from the University of Oxford. At Witwatersrand, Athinangamso founded the ‘Wit’s Women’s Forum’ & Students for International Affairs’ and the ‘Annual In Remembrance of Biko’ talks. She holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town where she worked as a lecturer in Political Studies.
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Naseemah is a Research Fellow at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Global Policy Center at the University of Virginia. She received both her master's degree and a doctorate in comparative and international education policy as a Rhodes Scholar from the University of Oxford, and her bachelor's degree in African studies and social studies from Harvard University. As a researcher, she has designed and carried out qualitative and quantitative studies in lower and higher education.
Her present academic projects include research on the relationships amongst education, media, global politics, and violence. A native of Zimbabwe,
Naseemah is a first-generation academic.
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Katia was a youth worker, teacher and school administrator for 25 years. She presently works to dismantle systems in higher education that create barriers for first-generation students and students from underserved communities, to ensure they have access to the quality of education they deserve. She is a College Persistence Counselor for the Dougherty Family College where she meets both her desire to support students through their educational journeys, and also contributes to her larger passion of changing and dismantling institutional systems that create barriers for underrepresented students. She studied English Literature and Afro-Studies at the University of Minnesota.
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Kate Sultuska is Absentee Shawnee. She grew up in Oklahoma City and graduated from Oklahoma City Public Schools. She attended Dartmouth and University of Oklahoma. Kate is a Teach For America alum, an inclusion educator, a co-founder of Sovereign Community School - the first Indigenous created and led charter school in Oklahoma. Her specializations include transformational in-person and virtual engagements around recruitment, retention, and development of Native American professionals, in-depth interviews and data analysis to create an inclusive approach to creating inclusion at the organizational and cultural level, as well as working with teams on the community-led design process in order to create tools that truly meet the needs of the community being served.
Kate has 5 years of experience coaching and leading startups, 2 years of experience in embedding inclusivity into board function, 5 years educating teams of professionals about intergenerational trauma and utilizing trauma-informed practices, 5 years of experience training educators to understand and combat systemic inequalities to best serve communities.
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Samantha is a global leader in education equity. She Directed Girl’s Education at Teach For All. Prior to that, she served as Chief of Staff to the CEO after spending five years in Johannesburg establishing Teach For All’s organizational operations in Africa. Through this work, she led the organization’s external relations, growth strategy, and partner support in the region. Before joining Teach For All, Samantha worked in South Africa at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, and later as a researcher and project manager for Harvard University. She began her career working in high school dropout prevention at Communities In Schools of Georgia in Atlanta. She holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of the Witwatersrand, and Georgetown University, where she is on the Board of Trustees of the George F. Baker Scholars Program.
Abby provides team strategy and planning, particularly as it relates to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and provides direct coaching support around inclusivity and organizational development. She has spent 5 years on Teach For All’s Organizational Development, Scale and Leadership Learning teams leading on inclusivity, virtual learning and chief of staff work. She was a fellow with Teach For America and taught high school English in the Las Vegas Valley as well as working on Teach For America’s Las Vegas regional team. She holds a Masters of Secondary Education from University of Nevada Las Vegas and a bachelor’s degree from Luther College.
She aims to pursue educational equity by getting behind the leaders in communities and listening to their visions for what they hope to be true, and is inspired by the radical systems change that’s possible when we center community voice. She currently lives in Seattle, Washington, but will always hold deep connections to her home community in the driftless region of NE Iowa.
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Jeet Patel has been working in the education sector for the past 14 years, focusing on teacher recruitment, curriculum design, and teacher coaching. He believes deeply in the values of inclusion as a means to help make our world a more just and equitable place for all people. He has focused on centering equitable, and inclusive practices in leadership development, talent acquisition, team management, team culture, executive and strategic coaching, and mindsets that underpin all of these efforts. Jeet began his career teaching middle school science and has focused his time and efforts in the American landscape as well as the South Asia, African, and Middle East regions. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in Psychology and Spanish, and a Master of Science for Teachers from PACE University School of Education. He has spent the last 8 years in Mumbai and recently moved back to Detroit, Michigan, USA to be closer to his family and friends. He is currently the Global Recruitment Lead at Teach For All.
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