Change Wave

Despite being offered a college scholarship, Snooky pursued her dream of becoming a cosmetologist and founded Rico’s on 3rd, The Salon Inc. Everything changed when she received a harrowing breast cancer diagnosis. By faith, she found a deeper purpose. Loving You Through It emerged, a non-profit partnering with the American Cancer Society to offer free wigs and beauty services to women undergoing chemo. She’s a warrior & survivor - empowering others and making the world a more beautiful place.

Holly is an accomplished technology services and operations leader with 30 years’ experience building products, teams and operations. She is passionate about building customer-focused organizations that enable customer success. She dropped out of college to co-found her first start-up where “the next 7 years were the best education I could ever get”. She served as COO, CIO and SVP of Customer Success for software companies including WebTrends, NetIQ and Puppet, and is now EVP of Technology at Opus Age

In Season 1 we had the privilege of speaking with pioneers, practitioners, and future leaders in EdTech. 

In Season 2 we interview ordinary people who have accomplished extraordinary things, all without getting a college degree. Ryan Carson digs into the nitty-gritty details of how they overcame challenges, stayed motivated, and ultimately achieved their goal. These are real stories, from real people.

The show will be recorded in our studio, and will be available in both audio and video formats.

Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup, which has sold over one million copies and has been translated into more than thirty languages. He is the creator of the Lean Startup methodology, which has become a global movement in business, practiced by individuals and companies around the world. This methodology was the inspiration behind his founding of the LTSE and his books The Leader's Guide and The Startup Way.

Laura Medalia is a software engineer working at a medical startup in NYC. She's developed a strong Instagram following that she uses to break stereotypes about coding. She shares tips on getting started, overcoming fears, finding support, and giving back.

lauramedalia.com

www.instagram.com/codergirl_/

CEO of The Dream Corps, a  social justice accelerator, and director of Green For All, a national initiative to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

Vien Truong is a solutions innovator and movement builder who has been a key architect to building an equitable green economy. Vien has developed numerous energy, environmental, and economic policies and programs at the state, federal and local levels.

thedreamcorps.org

greenforall.org

Dornubari Vizor is a serial startup and consumer internet product guy. Currently Co-founder at Yazamo, a SaaS marketing company that generates leads and sales for small to mid-size businesses.

He shares how he overcame a challenging start in the US as a refugee from Africa, launched his first business in high school, and leveraged that success into his impressive career in tech.

yazamo.com

Social entrepreneur Lisa King is on a mission to ensure no child goes to school hungry.

She is the founder of Eat My Lunch, one of NZ’s most successful social enterprises.

Eat My Lunch established that a simple yet powerful idea could empower consumers by giving them a choice with something they already do - for every lunch you buy they give a lunch to a Kiwi kid in need. In just over 2 years, Eat My Lunch has gone from a small business run out of her home to making over 1,000,000 lunches.

At only 12 years old, Moses Finlay has taught himself to code, built 8 web apps, and is already working on a startup. Hear how he manages these impressive accomplishments while also leaving time for a balanced life that includes daily surfing, time with family, and occasionally beating his Dad at chess.

http://mosesfinlay.com/

Laurence Bradford (@learncodewithme) is a product manager at Teachable (online course platform with over 7 MILLION students) and founder of the blog Learn to Code with Me, which helps people learn to code so they can get ahead in their careers and ultimately find more fulfillment in their lives.

As a self-taught techie, she retains her learning mindset and has an uncanny ability to guide and inspire others along their coding journey.