Iconic Conversations with Tanaka Tava

Sanika Bhave is an environmentalist, venture capitalist, and graduate of the University of Texas at Austin double majoring in Canfield Business Honors and Plan II Honors in Management Information Systems and Art History. She’s a firm believer in people and has sought to realize the power that comes from community at the intersection of policy, technology, and business whether it be by working in impact investing, policy, or social entrepreneurship.

Sanika co-founded Austin Venture Strategy, an undergraduate venture capital organization working to make the venture capital and startup ecosystem more accessible to all, and co-founded the CBHP Impact Network, which is working towards creating a more impact-minded Business Honors community. In Spring 2021, Sanika was named a Bill Archer Fellow and spent the semester in D.C. doing policy work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Sanika’s Plan II Honors thesis is on fossil fuel divestment and what that could potentially look like for institutions, including the University of Texas. 

She celebrates people coming together to have important and impactful conversations, regardless of political, social, or geographic pressures, to create a better place for the next generation.

Achievement is in Diana Nyamekye’s DNA! She is a highly successful 26-year-old social entrepreneur, former Googler, activist, and global speaker, honored by the Princess of Dubai as the CEO of the Most Impactful Initiative worldwide. She is the product of a diligent single mother, prayer, and a constructive community of Newark, NJ. Nyamekye is the founder and CEO of Black Sisters in STEM, where she is on a mission to unleash the global brilliance of Black women in STEM. To this aim, she is building the largest talent marketplace of Black college women in STEM globally. From Lagos, Nigeria to Atlanta, Georgia, Nyamekye is building a community that the world has never seen.

Powered by AI, their platform improves the hireability of Black women through live projects, mentorship, and learning communities at scale. Under her leadership, Black SiS built an ecosystem composed of ~7.3k women in 24 countries with representation from 12 African countries. All in just 3 short years. She is a proud alumni of the University of Virginia, and a proud recipient of Pure Leaf’s “No” grant, led by Olympian Allyson Felix.

Mouloukou Sanoh is the Co-founder of Cassava Network, a Web3 platform focused on entertainment, gaming and rewards for the African continent. He is keenly interested in driving Web3 adoption in Africa.

Mouloukou is also an Investment Manager at Adaverse, a $100 million fund backed by Emurgo, and a Vice President Emerging Markets at Everest Ventures Group, a global venture studio.

Additionally, he previously ran Mansa Capital, an investment advisory firm helping African startups raise funding. Past deals completed by Mr. Mouloukou include Crowdforce, Skygarden, Omnisient, Kwara and more.

As a global character who has lived in four countries, namely; China, Guinea, Netherlands and Belgium, Mouloukou has cultivated a culture of adaptability and an open minded nature.

Warwick Powell is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Design at Queensland University of Technology, where he is an industry lead in a multi-disciplinary research program focused on the design and application of distributed ledger technology solutions to supply chain environments. He is also founding chair of Smart Trade Networks, a blockchain technology development and commercialisation company with partners in 5 regions globally. He has founded and exited a number of businesses over the past 25+ years, principally focused on applied statistics and data analytics, and design-driven communications. He has industry experience in cross border trade and investment, and sector experience in ICT, food systems, natural resources and energy and land use. He is a social impact expert, and advises property development projects on how to optimise beneficial social impacts. In this capacity, he has also been an expert witness for matters before the Planning & Environment Court of Queensland in Australia.

After a year of lockdowns, global economic turmoil, 9% inflation rate, record high home prices and record low savings rates, the average American is hurting financially with $6500 in credit card debt and less than 10% over 65 having enough to retire. The cost of a college degree is going through the roof while its value is going through the floor. So how do we fix this? 

Grant Watkins is an entrepreneur working to bring financial education to kids from elementary through high school with a fun video game. Learn the basics of financial literacy, investing, budgeting, real estate, buying a small business and more in an exciting and interactive way.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Grant worked a number of sales jobs, from selling Toyotas to pay his way through college, to manufacturing contracts in Beijing, China, to residential real estate in his hometown of Houston, Texas.

In 2019, Grant began working on his own personal finances which led him down the rabbit hole of modern finance and all its problems. From the overall lack of education to traps such as payday loans. He began plugging himself into the Houston ecosystem in August '21 and finally took the leap into full-time entrepreneurship in January '22.

Self-made developers Calvin and Chris LaMont host the HGTV Hit Show Buy It or Build It. The duo’s journey to builder success started with their first company, which specialized in fixing fire and water damage (and helped them hone their renovation skills). 

Soon after, the brothers found major success flipping fixer-uppers, eventually growing a stellar reputation. Today, the former college football players own more than 25 residential lots in up-and-coming Dallas neighborhoods. They have their sights set on creating entire communities in cities outside of Texas, including St. Louis and Augusta, Georgia. 

Rena is the CEO of Boutiq, which is building a trusted luxury vacation rental brand and real estate investment engine. Prior to launching Boutiq, Rena worked in finance and strategy for Indeed’s new product portfolio, and led an edtech startup, Prepify. She previously was a senior consultant at Deloitte and has also worked at organizations such as Bono's ONE Campaign. Rena earned an MBA from MIT Sloan, an MPAff from The University of Texas' LBJ School and a BS from Georgetown University.

Isaiah Studivent is the CEO, Head of Growth of Evron Digital, a RevGen Ad Agency that uses social media as the primary customer acquisition channel for growth-stage B2B SaaS companies.  As the CEO, Isaiah's goal is to facilitate and cultivate a culture of innovation, creativity, and progression that results in sustainable, repeatable, and momentous growth for clients.   With a background in design, he approaches client problems as a blank canvas and orchestrates an assembly of elements to create the perfect outcome that our clients envision.   Isaiah attended RCBC, a community college in New Jersey before leaving to pursue entrepreneurship. Alongside running Evron, Isaiah helps early  stage founders build RevGen models and customer acquisition strategies for accelerated growth.   

Chalique Seabron is the COO and co-founder of Evron Digital. Which is a Rev Gen Ad Agency that works with hyper growth companies receiving Series A/B funding.  He creates efficiency-boosting frameworks, facilitates growth initiatives, and drives continuous iterations of systems, workflows, and development projects.  Chalique attended SNHU for 3 years, studying computer science before he made the ultimate decision to go into business full-time.

Jonathan Barshop is a podcast growth marketer for the HubSpot Podcast Network — working on top business shows like My First Million, The Hustle Daily Show and more.  Before joining HubSpot, he co-founded a podcast agency where he helped brands like FreshBooks, Four Sigmatic & Doist grow through podcast PR and production.