Paragraph Biographies:
Iqbal Quadir
Founder and Director Emeritus,
Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT
Iqbal Quadir is a pioneer in creating inclusive ventures in low-income countries.
Quadir is recognized as being the first person to see the potential of mobile
phones to lift up low-income people. With this understanding, he founded
Grameenphone in Bangladesh in the 1990s. This company, a part of the Telenor
Group of Norway, now has 55 million subscribers. After going into Bangladesh,
Telenor subsequently made a strategic plan to increase its position in Asia; today
Asia accounts for 52% of its revenues.
In 2010, Quadir helped establish bKash Limited in Bangladesh, a company that
helps low-income people gain access to financial services. Currently, with nearly
20 million customers, bKash is completing about 100 million small financial
transactions a month.
With this inclusive philosophy in mind, in 2005 Quadir cofounded Innovations,
an MIT Press journal. In 2007, he founded the MIT Legatum Center for
Development and Entrepreneurship, a center that has trained more than 200
MIT students for entrepreneurial careers in low-income countries in the past
seven years.
Quadir’s work and thinking has been cited in over 70 books. He has published in
the Financial Times, Forbes.com, Harvard Business Review, Science, Nature,
Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal. He holds an MBA and MA from the
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a BS from Swarthmore College.
He has received two honorary doctorate degrees and other honors for his work.
Jim Yim
Jim Yim is an investor and entrepreneur based in the Boston area. After running his own
company, Opentech, from 1996 to 2001, Jim has been involved in numerous start-ups. In
early 2000, he was the founding investor and board member of Auditude, an on-line
video technology and business platform company. In 2011, Adobe and Yahoo acquired
Auditude.
Jim invested in Essexbio in 1998, a biotech company based in Zhuhai, Guangdong,
China. Essexbio was listed in the HKEx in 2001. Jim currently serves as an advisor to the
board of the company. Essex has its own bFGF platform technology and has approved
products for the eye and wound care.
In 2004, Jim became the CEO of RFTune, a smart antenna semi-conductor company that
was later merged with eMobile. Jim invested in a MA based fair trade company, Equal
Exchange in 2005.
In early 2014, Jim became the first private investor of Medtric Biotech, a start-up from
Purdue University and serves as CEO of Medtric.
In early 2015, Jim invested in a Boston based biotech company – Abpro and has been
advising the company on strategic issues.
Jim has been serving as a judge at the Rice University Business Plan Competition since
2010 and has provided seed funding to a number of teams from the competition. Jim
serves as the managing partner for Yim Investments LLC, a privately held fund that
invests in public and private equity.
Jim’s additional experiences include sales, marketing and software engineering at BBND,
DEC, EDS, and Atex.
Jim holds a BS in Economics from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from
Babson College.
Raymond Chang
Raymond is a successful entrepreneur, and an active angel investor based in Boston. He
is also a Lecturer in the Practice of Entrepreneurship at the Yale School of Management,
and an Adjunct Professor in Entrepreneurship at Babson College.
In 1997, Raymond founded GigaMedia, the first broadband internet company in Asia. In
1999, GigaMedia received US$35mm strategic investment from Microsoft, and in 2000,
the Company went public on NASDAQ and raised US$280mm, one of the largest IPOs
for Internet company prior to 2000. In 2007, Raymond founded Luckypai, a leading TV
shopping company in China and raised venture financing from Lightspeed Venture
Partners, DT Capital, Intel, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs. In 2010, Luckypai
was sold to Lotte Home Shopping for US$160mm. From 2012-2013, Raymond served
as the CEO of New Focus Auto, the largest automobile after-sales service company duallisted on Hong Kong & Taiwan exchanges, (US$1 Billion in market cap). In 2013,
Raymond completed a US$160mm investment from CDH Capital, a leading Chinese
private equity fund. In 2000, Raymond was selected by FORTUNE as one of the twentyfive Next Generation Global Leaders Under 40, (5/2001), and by BUSINESS WEEK
Asia as one of Asia’s 20 most influential new economy leaders in the 21st century,
(7/2000). He was also featured as a panel speaker at World Economic Forum in Zurich,
Switzerland in 2005.
Raymond also participates in various social, charity, educational, and Christian faith
organisations. He Co-founded Shanghai West International Fellowship, was the Former
Treasurer/Elected Board Member of Shanghai American School, and a member of Young
President’s Organization – Shanghai Chapter. Raymond received his BA from New
York University, MBA from Yale School of Management, and MPA from Harvard JFK
School of Government.
Nadia Liu Spellman
Nadia Liu Spellman cannot deny her love of true Chinese food. After graduating from
Babson College and working on Wall Street for five years, she realized her true passion
was for good food. Through the inspiration of her parents and being raised in the
restaurant industry, she has launched Dumpling Daughter. Nadia showcases her
childhood favorites and family's home recipes to give others an opportunity to try
brilliant Chinese homestyle fare. She is thrilled by all the recognition and attention her
venture has received as Dumpling Daughter arrives at its one year anniversary.
Ian So
Aggressive, community conscious, leader looking to revolutionize the world through
entrepreneurship. Professionally, Ian's goal is to be the first global food truck brand. His
business is quickly on track for global expansion. In 3 short years, Chicken & Rice Guys
has experienced double digit, multi-million revenue growth. What started as one food
truck that rotated through Boston, is now 4 trucks with permanent locations, a downtown
Boston store front, and a full service catering and consulting/investment business.
Chicken & Rice Guys has won numerous awards and publications in the media including,
Boston Eater's Hottest Restaurants of 2015, Thrillist's Best Food Trucks in Boston,
Reader's Digest Nationally Top Ranked Food Truck, Boston A-List's Best Food Truck of
2013 and 2014, and has enjoyed top rankings in catering and food trucks on Yelp.com.
Ian is frequently featured on the speaking circuit for his entrepreneurship. Notable
appearances include sitting on a food panel with Bizarre Food's Andrew Zimmern & Top
Chef's Gail Simmons at Babson College's Food Day, serving as a panelist for NAAAP's
New England Leadership Conference panel on Entrepreneurship, featured as a content
expert for City of Boston Office of Business Development's Social Media Accelerator, as
well as giving presentations & talks on entrepreneurship at the Business of Doing Good,
One Hen Inc., Asian American Commission's Asian Leadership Symposium & the
SHOWA Institute.
Joel Kamm
Design Thinker
The found of Kammit, Joel specializes in design thinking and working as a design
manager.