I first joined the Gifted & Talented Silicon Valley Innovators (GATSVI) as a fellow in Summer of 2019. The program was designed to be a startup incubator where I had 10 days to ideate, design, and build a product. At the end of the program, I was put in front of Bay Area VCs to receive pre-seed capital to continue building my product. I won $7,500 to launch my first startup Zeta.

After the program ended, I was invited back to be a mentor for future fellows. Every year since, I have been mentoring a cohort of 12 fellows and supporting them as they prepare to launch their product. Teams have gone on to be featured in Forbes, earn capital, as well as build a strong network of the top VCs in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I was also added to the board to help manage a $1M portfolio of startups, conduct board meetings to assess past and current startups, as well as source fellows for future incubator programs.

Website: www.gatsvi.org