On Monday, December 2nd, Startup San Diego hosted its signature quarterly event, 1st Mondays – Networking & Lightning Talks at the Cooley LLP headquarters in Torrey Pines. This end-of-the-year celebration saw over 160+ attendees for a night of social innovation and connections.
Social Innovators: Reimagining Impact Through Technology, Finance, and Sustainability
The compelling lightning talk session featured six social innovators sharing transformative approaches to addressing systemic challenges across various sectors. From personal habit formation and financial inclusion to sustainability reporting and humanitarian assistance, the speakers demonstrated how targeted technological and strategic interventions can create meaningful social impact.
Featured speakers included:
- Douglas Harrison, CEO at The Rise Club & Keep Rising Program
- Oralia Alvarez, Director of Business Development at Mission Driven Finance
- Jorge Muniz, Co-Founder & CEO at Ascender Systems
- Sydney Paige Thomas, Founder & General Partner at Symphonic Capital
- Cindy J. Lin, CEO & Co-Founder at Hey Social Good
- Sheba Najmi, Founder and Executive Director at Tech for Change
Douglas Harrison shared his entrepreneurial journey, focusing on KeepRising.io, a platform designed to help people transform good intentions into lasting habits. Drawing from personal experience and “extreme empathy”, he developed a tool that supports mentorship and behavior change by breaking down habit formation into three key components: making goals small and clear, providing timely reminders, and creating opportunities to celebrate progress.
Oralia Alvarez, the Director of Business Development at Mission Driven Finance, presented a radical approach to investing that aims to dismantle financial exclusion. Her organization provides capital to underserved communities by rejecting traditional risk assessment methods like personal guarantees and credit scores, which she argues are legacy mechanisms of discrimination. By investing in businesses led by women and people of color, and including nonprofits in their portfolio, Mission Driven Finance demonstrates that diverse, impact-driven investing can be both socially transformative and financially viable.
Dr. Cindy Lin, founder of Hey Social Good, addressed the critical gaps in sustainability reporting and corporate social responsibility. With a background in environmental science and EPA regulations, she highlighted that less than 0.5% of businesses produce sustainability reports, and an 80% gap exists between businesses claiming to be sustainable and those actually implementing sustainable practices. Her organization is developing a data-driven platform using UN Sustainable Development Goals to help businesses affordably track, verify, and improve their social and ethical impact.
Jorge Muniz, Co-founder of Ascender Systems, is a former helicopter pilot with extensive humanitarian experience, having completed over 200 missions across locations like Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, Haiti, and Fukushima. Drawing from his background in disaster response and humanitarian assistance, he highlighted the critical importance of emergency services deploying essential resources during crises, focusing on establishing communication and support systems during emergencies.
Sydney Paige, Founder & General Partner at Symphonic Capital dove into her work as an investor, and her journey to getting to where she is today. At Symphonic Capital Sydney works side by side with founders to make sure they achieve their goals. Symphonic Capital is an early-stage VC firm investing in the next generation of institutions serving overlooked and underserved communities. Their mission is to change the venture game by investing in companies that are dedicated to making a more equitable future for all.
Sheba Najmi is the Founder & Executive Director of Tech for Change, with a mission to harness the power of people and technology in communities around the world to build better. She spoke about her work in Pakistan through Code for Pakistan by making technology more equitable for the citizens in the region, the challenges they faced, lessons learned, and the impact of the project.
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