Story
Gumball Capital started in February 2007 when we competed in the Stanford
Entrepreneurship Week Challenge. We came in to the Challenge as a few kids
interested microfinance, the act of giving small loans to help low-income
entrepreneurs grow their businesses. We came out of the competition with a
big group of microfinance evangelists who spread the word to tons of
students, and raised over $1,800 for microfinance loans. We also took home
the grand-prize for Most Value Created!
After our success at E-Week, Gumball Capital began in earnest. We
incorporated over the summer of 2007 and created the Gumball Challenge,
which was run at five colleges in November of 2007-08 and another 5 colleges
in 2008-09.
In 2009-10, we were recognized in several competitions, received 501(c)3
tax-deductibility status, and ran the Challenge at 15 schools including a
pilot of the Challenge at several high schools and one Challenge in Beijing!
Moving forward, we're looking to expand the Challenge, focusing on both
colleges and high schools, and getting students around the world more
involved with entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation.
Corps
Travis Kiefer
Executive Director
Travis is a rising senior at
Stanford University majoring in Urban Studies with a concentration
in Social Entrepreneurship and a minor in Computer Science. Since
coming to Stanford, he has engaged himself thoroughly with the
Stanford entrepreneurship community and is involved with many groups
that focus on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, and student
activism. Travis got started with Gumball Capital by participating
in the Challenge his freshman year and has somehow convinced a lot
of people that he is pretty good at getting things done. When not
busy with student groups, Gumball, and friends, you might see him
running around the world.
Janelle Tiulentino
Managing Director
Janelle hails from Rio Vista,
California, and is currently a senior at Stanford University. She is
deciding between an interdisciplinary major in Symbolic Systems or
Computer Science, though her interests are too difficult to capture
in one major area. She is most invested in exploring the fusions
between technology and innovation, international culture, and human
interests. Janelle is actively involved in The Courage Project
research team, the Stanford Student Enterprises Capital Group, the
recently-founded Drawn Together organization, and various other
service activities. Janelle loves to travel and spend time outdoors,
read, and learn new languages.
Justin Lee
Challenge Director
Justin Lee is a sophomore from
Honolulu, HI. He currently lives in FroSoCo and can't wait to get
chewing with Gumball Capital!
Ping Li
Finance Director
Ping is a graduate student in
Stanford Graduate School of Business. Her research uses advanced
econometric models to help managers understand dynamics in various
industries (banking industry, pharmaceutical industry and retailing
industry). Her experience as a teaching assistant for an MBA
Investment management course makes her fascinated with finance and
investment. This passion leads her to various positions at Stanford:
She was Funding Committee Chair of Graduate Student Council, and she
is currently involved with the Charles R. Blyth Fund. Her work with
Gumball Capital involves managing Gumball Capital's balance sheets
and she is looking forward to contribute more to Gumball's annual
report and future fund raising events.
Beatrice Wu
Web Project Manager
Beatrice is an International
Relations major and Urban Studies minor. She is interested in
international development and is passionate about social
entrepreneurship as a tool to eliminate all the subpar equilibriums
in the world. Her hometown is Kauai, Hawaii.
Zach Weiner
Website Officer
Zach is a sophomore at Stanford
majoring in Symbolic Systems with a concentration in Human-Computer
Interaction. He's particularly interested in the role of new web
technologies in the social entrepreneurship space, recently starting
DailyDollar.org and joined Gumball to pursue these interests. When
away from the computer, Zach plays the piano, pets his dog, skis,
and roots for the Yankees.
Katherine Chen
Creative Director
Katherine Chen is a Junior from
Irvine, CA majoring in Computer Science with a focus in
Human-Computer Interaction. She is inspired by the impact engineers
can have in social entrepreneurship and the idea that sometimes a
little faith--and a microloan--is enough to enable individuals to
rise up from poverty. When she's not busy coding, Katherine enjoys
baking cupcakes, playing spades, and practicing ukulele for
Katherine and Clare's Sunshine Band.
Ian Chan
Challenge Coordinator
Ian hails from Hong Kong but
has spent the last four years in a boarding school in CT. He is
currently an enthusiastic freshman living in Serra and plans to
major in Public Policy concentrating on how government can support
the social sector. He is allergic to eggs and peanuts but loves to
eat all the food he can.
Mailyn Fidler
Challenge Coordinator
Mailyn Fidler is a freshman
from Indiana. She plans to combine policy and science in her studies
at Stanford. Mailyn is interested in exploring ways that social
entrepreneurs can run an economically and socially sustainable
business. She became interested in entrepreneurship through her
entrepreneur grandparents, who advised her to enter the business
world using “ice cream money,” or to start small. She became curious
about the power of ice cream money, or in this case, gumball money,
and wants to see just how far a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit
can go.
Board of Directors
Sophia Tu
Chairperson
Sophia graduated from Stanford
in 2008 with a major in Science, Technology, and Society. She
previously served as Gumball Capital's Outreach and Executive
Director. She is interested in how information and communication
technologies can be used to address unmet social needs and advocate
for social justice, and has spent time working with an NGO in
Ecuador on these issues. While in southern India, witnessing the
transformative effect of microfinance on gender power dynamics
reinforced her passion for microfinance. Sophia is currently a Coro
Fellow in Public Affairs in New York City.
Jason Shen
Finance Chair
Jason is pursuing an MS in
Biological Sciences at Stanford University. He is also serving as
co-chair of Cardinal Council, Stanford's student athlete advisory
council and has previously held leadership positions at Stanford
Scientific and the Unofficial Stanford Blog. He has enjoyed helping
Gumball grow and is excited to take expand its reach and impact.
J.S. earned a BS in Biological Science with interdisciplinary honors
in 2008.
Bilal Mahmood
Member
Bilal is a Biology/Economics
student at Stanford University, and responsible for managing the
operations of Gumball Capital's seven departments. Having studied in
both the United States and Pakistan, he has developed a keen
ambition in alleviating global poverty. Recently, he consulted for
KZO-Networks which is expanding education to rural villages in
Pakistan through the web-portal ED-LINKS program. Bilal has also
worked as an intern in Google's AdSense Policy division, and
conducted regenerative medicine research at the Stanford Medical
School. In the future, he aims to apply his knowledge and
experiences to driving Biotech ventures, particularly in his native
land of Pakistan. Bilal is also an avid Muay Thai fighter, and loves
comic books, video games, and pizza.
Maria Matsu
Member
Maria is a retired banker who
is excited about inspiring creativity in youth to raise money to
alleviate poverty. At Bank of America, she worked as a financial
analyst and project manager conducting efficiency studies,
evaluating investment proposals, and preparing pricing and
profitability analysis. Prior to the bank, she was a management
consultant and owned a bakery. Her volunteer work includes serving
as Chairperson of Nihonmachi Little Friends, a Japanese bilingual
childcare non-profit. She spends her time traveling extensively,
listening to live jazz, hiking, bicycling, and raising two children.
Kerry Philp
Member
Kerry is senior marketing
manager at Schwab Charitable, where she helped launch an innovative
program that enables Schwab Charitable donors to set aside a portion
of their Charitable Gift Accounts to support global microfinance
initiatives. Previously, she was the executive director at Mission
Learning Center, a San Francisco-based education nonprofit. Kerry
served in the Peace Corps in Guinea and Albania and is a proud
graduate of Stanford's School of Education. In her spare time you
can find her on a run in Golden Gate Park or with a book in her
hand.
Advisory Board
Jessica Jackley
Advisor
Jessica Jackley is a co-founder
of Kiva.org, the world's first peer-to-peer online microlending
website. Named as one of the top ideas in 2006 by the New York Times
Magazine and called ÒrevolutionaryÓ by the BBC, Kiva (www.kiva.org)
lets internet users lend as little as $25 to specific developing
world entrepreneurs, providing affordable capital to help them start
or expand a small business. Kiva has been one of the fastest-growing
social benefit websites in history, and since its founding in 2005,
has loaned over $100M from lenders to entrepreneurs across 182
countries, and has been featured in a wide array of media and press
including Oprah, the Today Show, CNN, BBC, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, the
WSJ, NYTimes, The Economist, and more.
Jessica is currently CEO of ProFounder, a new platform allowing
small businesses in the U.S. to access start-up funding through
community involvement. Jessica also currently teaches Global
Entrepreneurship at the Marshall School of Business at USC, and is a
Fellow at Stanford University's new Center for Philanthropy and
Civil Society.
Jessica holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
with Certificates in Global Management and Public Management, and a
BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Bucknell University.
David Hornik
Advisor
David is a General Partner with
August Capital and the creator and Executive Producer of The
Lobby Conference. He invests broadly in information technology
companies, with a focus on consumer facing software and services,
enterprise applications and infrastructure software. He is the
author of the first Venture Capital blog, VentureBlog. Prior to
joining August Capital, David was an intellectual property and
corporate attorney at Venture Law Group, Cravath Swaine & Moore, and
Perkins Coie LLP. David teaches business and law at Stanford’s
Graduate School of Business and writes about the venture capital
industry in
VentureBlog.
Mark Nelson
Advisor
PACTFund is initially providing
collaborative, P2P social micro-capital for cool social ventures and
causes around the world--and will then get even more interesting. My
job is laying out the initial vision, attracting the right people to
collaborate, and catalyzing the ongoing collective creation process.
If this sounds interesting to you, please check out
www.pactfund.com for a more detailed overview. If you're still
intrigued after that, please consider signing up for our beta. I
would be delighted to have you join us
Bruce Deming
Attorney
Bruce Deming is a corporate
partner in Covington & Burling's law office in San Francisco. Bruce
has a broad-based corporate and securities transactional and
advisory practice, with extensive experience in domestic and
cross-border mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture
capital transactions, securities offerings and capital markets
activities.Bruce is active in a number of professional and
community-based organizations, including serving as Co-Chair of the
Corporations Committee of the California State Bar; President of the
board of Support for Families of Children with Disabilities; and as
board member or advisory council for Lambda Legal Defense and
Education Fund, the Peter M. Cicchino Social Justice Foundation and
Our Family.
Kalvin Wang
Founder
Kalvin founded Gumball Capital
in March 2007 with 25,000 gumballs in his dorm room and served as
its first Executive Director. He is a Computer Science major who
grew up in Silicon Valley watching the bubble grow and pop. With
strong interests in social change, technology, and entrepreneurship,
he enjoys chewing on scalable social ventures like Kiva,
DonorsChoose, and Gumball Capital. He is currently working at
Virgance.
Ellen Kim
Founder
Ellen was formerly the Chief
Executive Officer of Gumball Capital before she earned an MBA from
Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2008. Before Stanford she
worked for three years at Citigroup in the Public Finance Investment
Banking Division and was an Associate in the department's
Technology/Financial Structuring group. During that time she was
responsible for modeling innovative debt structures for a variety of
clients, including the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the City of
New York, and Catholic Healthcare West. At the GSB, Ellen was
co-President of the Social Venture Club and was on the 2007-2008
Executive Team for the Public Management Initiative, ReelImpact. She
has a BS in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Rishan Mohammad
Founder
No bio.
Jeff Seibert
Founder
No bio.
Wendi Chiong
Founder
No bio.
Stephanie Shih
Founder
No bio.
Jessica Richman
Founder
Jessica was part of the found
Gumball team that worked feverishly that weekend to gather donations
on post-its, and also helped put together the original website.
Jessica earned an A.B. in Economics and a B.S. in Science,
Technology & Society with Honors at Stanford University and is now a
Clarendon Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. She has been
involved in social entrepreneurship projects with the Grameen Bank,
the Women's Institute for Financial Education, and is hard at work
on a (stealth) project. Chosen as a member of the USA Today
All-Academic First Team, she is also a recipient of the Richard
Kovacevich Scholarship for Social Entrepreneurship, the Carpe Diem
Scholarship, the Mensa Scholarship, the Gilman International
Scholarship from the US Congress, and other awards.
Alumni
Wesley Leung
General Editor
Wesley is a freshman at
Stanford University planning on majoring in Computer Science. He is
very excited about entrepreneurship, especially with leveraging the
web to promote initiatives such as microfinance. After his studies,
Wesley hopes to explore and help better communities around the world
by joining the Peace Corps. In his spare time he enjoys tinkering
with various projects, reading, and camping. Wesley's interests also
include life and being unprepared for creative accidents.
Jason Chua
Creative Director
Jason is a junior majoring in
Product Design and thinking about a minor in Architectural Design.
He's excited to be working with Gumball Capital on awesome projects,
and is looking forward to learning a lot from all the talented
people around him. Jason enjoys food, sleep, and hanging out with
people more interesting than he is.
Daniel Posch
Web Director
Daniel Posch is a sophomore
majoring in Computer Science. He wants to help ensure that people
with initiative can find opportunity no matter where they are or how
much money they have, and is excited about the potential of
microfinance to make that happen. He's also excited about applying
the power and reach of web applications to promote microlending. In
his spare time, he hacks, builds stuff, and plays the occasional
game of Ultimate. He sometimes misses roaming the wide streets of
Utah in his old Eurovan. Despite this, there's no place he'd rather
be than right here, right now.
Erin Parker
Finance Director
Erin is a junior from the
Philippines majoring in Economics and Math. She came to Stanford to
pursue her interest in finance, and is currently a director in the
Charles R. Blyth Fund and an analyst with Stanford Finance. Her work
with Gumball Capital involves managing Gumball Capital's balance
sheets and general finances. Microfinance was a natural extension of
her interest in finance and public service. In her free time Erin
enjoys running, hiking, and studying medieval literature
Ashni Mohnot
Ashni graduated from Stanford
University with a B.A. in Human Biology (International Health focus)
and English (2005) and M.A. in International Comparative Education
in 2006. She now works as Director of Education for Stanford's
Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. She also
works for Mobile Metrix and is developing her own award-winning
social venture on eliminating the financial barrier to education
through future income loans. Besides international development and
social entrepreneurship, she is interested in innovation, design,
Silicon Valley startups, and emerging web technologies, specifically
their application to advance the citizen sector. She grew up in
Bombay, India and loves writing fiction.
Lucas Hughes
Lucas is senior majoring in
Management Sciences and Engineering and is serving as Financial
Manager at the Suites Eating Clubs. He manages all bank
account-statements, financial reimbursements to employees, and
overall budget analysis/projections. He was also responsible for
distributing Gumball Challenge revenue in microloans through
Kiva.org, and managing the organization's Kiva account. He enjoys
skiing and rock climbing.
Jeffrey Wong
Jeff is a sophomore double
majoring in Economics and Computer Science at Stanford University.
He is very interested in development economics and joined Gumball as
an outreach officer in 2008. Jeff is passionate about education,
particularly in curriculum design, and has designed and created
curriculum in the past for middle school and high school math
classes. He hopes to complete an honors thesis in Economics on the
Economics of Education. In his spare time he likes to program PC
games.
Kelsey Walker
Kelsey is a senior at Stanford
University majoring in Sociology with a special interest in product
design. At Gumball she was responsible for developing and
maintaining its many programs and getting young people as excited as
she is about social innovation. When not trying to shamelessly
promote a better world, Kelsey enjoys running, day-dreaming in the
California sun, and making artistic messes.
Salina Truong
Salina is a junior majoring in
Psychology and Life. She loves engaging students with
entrepreneurship and is excited to see Gumball bring its programs to
high school students. She is currently involved with several
business organizations including Stanford Consulting, BASES, and
Alpha Kappa Psi. In her free time, she enjoys Texas Hold ÔEm,
community service, and home improvement. Salina prides herself as an
amateur chef and avid lucid dreamer.
Becky Johnson
Becky Johnson is a junior
planning to double major in Psychology and Economics. She is
interested in the intersection of these two fields, and is currently
doing research in the Psychology department in neuroeconomics and
the brain processes behind economic decision making. This past
summer, Becky was awarded a fellowship with the Psychology
Department to pursue a research internship. Outside of Gumball,
Becky is a director for WYSE, an all-female mentorship group that
works with middle school students in East Palo Alto, a Conference
Director for Stanford Women in Business, and a Vice President of
Membership for Delta Delta Delta sorority.
Jackie Lho
Jackie is a Junior at Stanford
University who plans to major in Economics and minor in Chinese.
Having always been interested in the business world, she joined
Gumball Capital to learn about social entrepreneurship and has found
the experience to be very rewarding so far.
Kelly Ding
Kelly Ding is a sophomore at
Stanford, planning on majoring in International Relations and
possibly Philosophy. She is involved in Stanford Women in Business
and Alpha Kappa Delta Phi.
Sumaiya Talukdar
Sumaiya is a recent law school
graduate. Born in Bangladesh, she has seen the powerful impact of
the Grameen Bank and believes in the incredible power of
microfinance. She can't wait to change the world, one person at a
time!
Marimar Jauregui
Marimar is a sophomore at
Stanford University planning on majoring in Public Policy and
Economics. Having firstandedly seen the need for entrepreneurship in
the countries where she's lived, Mexico and Brazil, she understands
the value of microfinance very clearly. Marimar is also one of the
founding members of Students for Engagement and Activism in
Microfinance at Stanford.
Shelly Ni
Shelly is a senior at Stanford
studying Product Design. In the future, she hopes to use her
skills/obsession with aesthetics & design thinking for The Power of
Good. She's interested in sustainability, urban design, and design
for social change. When she's not tinkering on her latest project,
tweaking fonts in the latest Gumball brochure, or making art for
fun, Shelly also enjoys writing about her interests in the third
person, culinary experimentation, taking walks, interpretive dance,
and trees.
Crystal Yan
Crystal Yan is @crystalcy on
Twitter. She is a trilingual Chinese American high school senior in
the San Francisco Bay Area. As a serial social entrepreneur with a
focus on youth marketing and online social media strategy, she has
collaborated with a socially responsible start-up to start an
internship program for high school and college students, worked as a
consultant in a consulting firm to help a non-profit expand its
donor and volunteer program in its 50 centers throughout the Bay
Area, won the national championship scholarship for a debate-like
case study competition in Banking and Financial Systems, and worked
pro-bono on graphic design projects for the largest student business
organization in the world, an international non-profit, an
award-winning robotics team, and many more (see
crystaly.carbonmade.com). Crystal also sits on the board of a
governing body that oversees 6,000+ student leaders and leads a
language honor society chapter that runs a nationally-acclaimed
debate program. Crystal aspires to attend a four-year college and
contribute to the fields of global business, foreign affairs,
corporate philanthropy or international aid.
Jillian Wells
Jillian Wells is currentlty
studying Industrial design at CA college of the Arts. As Jillian
pursues her career in the arts she is looking for opportunities to
serve as well as create. This past spring Jillian traveled to
Guatemala to work with native craftsmen on developing products that
they could sell to expand their income.
Joy Chua
Joy Chua is a senior at Brown
University studying international relations. She is deeply involved
in Brown's Social Entrepreneurship community and is currently TAing
a class on the subject. Joy enjoys yoga, reading, travel and
visiting her home in the Phillipines.
Taher Ezzi
Taher Ezzi is an international
student from Kenya planning to major in Mechanical Engineering with
a possible minor in some other cool subject (Haven't decided yet).
While in Kenya he actively participated in and helped organize a
number of social initiatives aimed at helping the less fortunate
members of society. He was introduced to the fascinating world of
social entrepreneurship during the ASB program ÒSocial
entrepreneurship in the Bay AreaÓ. In his free time he enjoys
sitting under the warm Californian sun with his laptop and
connecting with his friends back home via Facebook.
