Tag: gms

Meet Leandra de Labastida, Gates Millennium Scholar, Class of 2005

Social Agenda Co.

 

Leandra de Labastida  is a Project Manager by trade and an event planner by passion. She believes in creating weddings and events that become memorable experiences.  Her passion for event planning began while she was attending college in San Francisco, CA, where she learned to coordinate social gatherings and campus-wide events that became staples in the community.

After college, Leandra moved to Atlanta, GA where she began planning countless fundraising events for charity. Events that included Galas, Walk/Runs, Radiothons, amongst many other social events.

 

GMS: Tell us about Social Event Co.?

Leandra: We offer a wide variety of event planning services in the Atlanta area. Our main goal is to relieve the stress of planning and allow you to enjoy your special day. With our ample experience and resources, we can craft the perfect event for any occasion.

GMS:  What inspired you to create Social Event Co.?

Leandra: I always enjoyed the event planning process, what others find stressful, I find fascinating. Event Planning is a skill that everyone needs but not everyone possesses.

GMS: Please tell us (related to your business) how the Gates Millennium Scholarship Program directly or indirectly had a part in your path to being an entrepreneur:

Leandra: GMSP allowed me to get out of my comfort zone in college, it gave me the opportunities to socialize with a lot of groups. This allowed me to expand my skill in event planning and to discover that I had a rare talent.

GMS: What advice would you give to other Gates Millennium Scholars who have aspirations to become an entrepreneur?

Leandra: There is never a right time to start a business. Just do it.

To connect with Social Agenda Co., visit their Facebook and LinkedIn Pages, and follow them on Instagram

 

Meet Cecilia Corral, Gates Millennium Scholar, Class of 2008

CareMessage

 

Cecilia Corral  is the Co-Founder and VP of Product at CareMessage. Driven by her experiences growing up in a low-income immigrant household, Cecilia takes a patient-centered approach to product development with a relentless focus on user research. Outside of her work at CareMessage, she is an advocate for Diversity and Inclusion in the tech industry through collecting and publishing data on Latina Tech Founders. Cecilia was on the 2019 Forbes 30 under 30 list for Healthcare and graduated with a B.S. in Product Design Engineering from Stanford University.

 

GMS: Tell us about CareMessage?

Cecilia: CareMessage is a patient engagement platform for undeserved populations. We work with over 6 million undeserved patients in over 40 states.Mission: Leverage technology to help safety-net organizations fulfill the essential needs of undeserved populations. Vision: A world where all people regardless of income or background achieve equitable health outcomes.

GMS:  What inspired you to create CareMessage?

Cecilia: After graduating from undergrad I thought I wanted to make an impact in the world through education. I started a Master’s/PhD program in Mechanical Engineering. However, during my first year my dad who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer a few years before passed away and it made me reevaluate what I was doing with my life. I took the summer to help my co-founder do user research and product development. I fell in love with healthcare and ended up dropping out to join the team full time. Working on this opened up my eyes to a lot of the experiences I had growing up and allowed to give back to my community in a way that helps make healthcare more accessible.

GMS: Please tell us (related to your business) how the Gates Millennium Scholarship Program directly or indirectly had a part in your path to being an entrepreneur:

Cecilia: The Gates Family has been a part of my organization from the beginning. One of our first product managers and user researchers were gates scholars. Over time, my relationships with other Gates Scholars that have moved into healthcare have been key to help us keep jointly working on fighting for healthcare access for undeserved communities.

GMS: What advice would you give to other Gates Millennium Scholars who have aspirations to become an entrepreneur?

Cecilia: The best thing you can once you have an idea is get started! Try to test your ideas with minimum investment and iterate over time. There’s never going to be a perfect time or a perfect company to start, you just have to do it and learn along the way.

To connect with CareMessage, visit their Facebook and LinkedIn Pages, and follow them on Instagram and Twitter.

Meet James Li, Gates Millennium Scholar, Class of 2009

Mighty Health

 

James Li  is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mighty Health, a highly personalized, at-home digital health coach that uses AI and behavioral science to help people with heart disease change their daily habits, improve their health, and reduce their risk of costly future cardiac events.

Previously, James founded and served as CEO of Encore Alert, a marketing intelligence platform that helps executives at brands like IDEO, Denver Broncos, University of Michigan, Under Armour, and the American Cancer Society identify and act on the top 5 daily crises and opportunities facing their brand, their competitors, and their industry. In March 2016, Encore Alert was acquired by Meltwater, the leading media intelligence platform.

James also regularly writes and speaks about practical startup tactics at his site, JamesLi.com, and his work has been featured in the Washington Post, TechCrunch, NPR, and Bloomberg.

GMS: Tell us about Mighty Health?

James: Mighty Health is a digital cardiac health program that helps heart patients improve their health and avoid costly hospitalizations. Dr. Bernard Chang (medical co-founder) was the youngest ever in the history of emergency medicine to attain a top tier, multi-million dollar NIH grant (researching the intersection of cardiovascular disease and psychology). He is a practicing physician and Vice Chair of Research at Columbia, with an MD from Stanford and PhD in Psychology from Harvard. James Li (CEO) and Felipe Lopes (CTO) previously founded a software solution used by organizations ranging from Tufts Medical Center to the American Cancer Society, which they successfully led to an acquisition. Mighty Health was in the Summer 2019 batch of Y Combinator, and their investors include Vivek Garipalli (Clover Health), Max Wessel (CIO of SAP), NFL Hall of Famer Joe Montana (Liquid 2 Ventures), RRE Ventures, and NextView Ventures.

GMS:  What inspired you to create Mighty Health?

James: My dad had to have emergency open heart surgery back when I was in college. Luckily, The surgery was successful, but that was only the beginning of our problems. As you may know, heart disease is the #1 leading cause of death around the world and the American Heart Association recently found that over half of Americans – 121 million people – have some sort of heart disease. When people are diagnosed, like my dad, they’re sent home and told by their doctors to just “eat healthy” and “exercise more,” with no support or accountability. It’s no wonder that people are anxious and overwhelmed, continue their bad habits, and up to half of heart patients end up back in the hospital within 6 months.

GMS: Please tell us (related to your business) how the Gates Millennium Scholarship Program directly or indirectly had a part in your path to being an entrepreneur:

James: The Gates Millennium Scholarship was one of the biggest factors that enabled me to become an entrepreneur. It allowed me to choose an undergraduate business program I really wanted to attend, regardless of the cost. I was able to graduate college with no debt, which empowered me to be able to dream bigger and start a company right after graduation. It also allowed me to have financial peace of mind in college as my dad was going through his health issues (above), so I could focus on my studies and supporting him in other ways.

GMS: What advice would you give to other Gates Millennium Scholars who have aspirations to become an entrepreneur?

James: What would you do if you could not fail? Utilize the time when you have lower financial overhead (in school or recently graduated) to take risks and create something. The best way to learn to be a better entrepreneurship is to start early and get the reps in.

 

To connect with Mighty Health, visit their Facebook and LinkedIn Pages, and follow them on Instagram and Twitter.

Written by Mashari Grissom

“Mass Communications in itself is one of the most competitive fields to land a job or opportunity in,” stated by many scholars and graduates throughout the world who delve into media careers. But with fear, comes faith, take Thomas Manglona II, for example. For the first time since 2013, a UC Berkeley student has won the exclusive Truman Scholarship, a grant intended for public service leaders. Thomas is a Gates Millennium Scholarship recipient and media studies student of University of California, Berkeley who’s already ahead of the game!

Thomas was awarded Truman Scholarship along with 61 students from 346 colleges. The applicants were from a pool of 840 students; while the scholarship provides financial support, it also offers priority admission at some of the elite graduate programs.

“This scholarship not only means that graduate school is more of a possibility, but also that I am able to learn and gain skills to be a better journalist for our communities,” stated Thomas.

https://youtu.be/CTDVZhco5h8

According to the Truman Foundation’s website, “They were chosen by sixteen independent selection panels based on the finalists’ academic success and leadership accomplishments, as well as their likelihood of becoming public service leaders.”

Born and raised from the island of Rota of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. Territory in the Western Pacific, Thomas started reporting at an early age. Like most people, while enrolling in college, the decision of choosing your major is always a tough one. On the contrary, Thomas was already aware of his passion in media since elementary school!  In middle school, he began writing on his personal blog and composing stories on various topics. Inspired by investigative reporting on television, he aimed to be beat the odds.

No reporter resides and no newspaper is printed in my hometown.

Through high school, he started reporting for the Marianas Variety and Saipan Tribune. After landing an entry-level position a Pacific News Center he eventually became an on-air correspondent for their ABC7 and FOX6 platforms.  There is no easy way to gain access to media careers, entertainment gigs, and opportunities in production. But most mass media scholars and recent graduates are preparing for their dream roles with their own resources such as blogs, social media, and networking. So with preparation comes diligence, and Thomas did just that.

Today, Thomas is the Executive Director of CalTV where he manages 100 students on campus to produce content in news, sports, and entertainment.

His expertise of article writing is human interest stories, the environment, government, and other local news.

“I recently co-founded Oceania Connects in an effort to reclaim and rewrite Pacific Islander narratives,” stated Thomas on his official media website. In efforts to raise awareness of community issues of the island,  he creates solutions for higher education and opportunity.

Besides media, he is also minoring in Comparative Ethnic Studies at UC Berkley. Thomas serves as an organizer for the Asian-Pacific American Student Development office. One of the components in his vision involves working to improve Islander representation on a national level as he continues to produce, shoot, and edit his stories as a multi-media journalist. For more information on Manglona’s journey of multi-media, past, and present projects.

Written by Mashari Grissom

sources: Marianas Variety and Thomas Manglona website