Theme: Blueprints

Our theme for 2022 is Blueprints - At its core, a blueprint is a framework for the future. Our lives are built upon unfinished drafts that we strive to complete over time. Acknowledging the precedent we rely on to form ideas worth spreading accelerates our path towards the future. While Blueprints may appear fixed or rigid, with sharp angles and precise lines running across the page, in reality, these are dynamic frameworks upon which masterpieces are derived. Layer-by-layer, blueprints remind us of where projects first begin, whether they are for something as small as our DNA, as big as rocket ships, or as complex as our understanding of humanity itself.

Zlotnik Family Ballroom - AT&T Hotel and Conference Center
1900 University Ave
Austin, Texas, 78705
United States

Emily Yan

Emily Yan is a dual-degree Medical Student at the University of Texas at Austin. She is earning her M.D. at UT's Dell Medical School and her M.A. in Design focused on Health at UT's Design Institute for Health. Previously, she studied at the University of California San Diego and holds a B.S. in Physiology and Neuroscience and an M.S. in Biology. She completed her Master's thesis in the field of Neuroscience at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla, California. Along the way, her artistic bent sparked new ways of connecting with those around her. Her unique perspective lends itself to thoughtful collaboration with patients in the design of their own health care experience. As a forward-thinking future physician, she is committed to designing a reimagined health care system because she believes that patients deserve to have their values serve as the through-line of their care.

Gloria Chan Packer

Gloria Chan Packer is a Principal & Founder of Recalibrate, a workplace mental wellness provider that delivers a uniquely science-backed, realistic, and actionable approach to mental wellness for busy professionals. Recalibrate has trailblazed the workplace mental wellness industry since 2018, educating 20,000+ employees at client organizations globally. Prior to Recalibrate, Gloria led an established career in management consulting as a Senior Engagement Manager specializing in technology strategy and implementation for Fortune 500 clients. Gloria founded Recalibrate after an unexpected medical battle forced her to re-examine her relationship with stress, inspiring her to improve mental health education by promoting science over stigma. Gloria’s training and education includes various continuing education trainings with Deep Eddy Psychotherapy in Austin, Mindfulness Teacher Training from The Mindfulness Center in Washington, D.C., Executive Education from Columbia Business School, and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from The University of Texas at Austin.

Jim Allison

Dr. James Allison is Regental Professor and Chair of the Department of Immunology, the Olga Keith Wiess Distinguished University Chair for Cancer Research, Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Research, and the Executive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has spent a distinguished career studying the regulation of T cell responses and developing strategies for cancer immunotherapy. He earned the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with Dr. Tasuku Honjo, "for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation." Among his most notable discoveries are the determination of the T cell receptor structure and that CD28 is the major costimulatory molecule that allows full activation of naïve T cells and prevents anergy in T cell clones. His lab resolved a major controversy by demonstrating that CTLA-4 inhibits T-cell activation by opposing CD28-mediated costimulation and that blockade of CTLA-4 could enhance T cell responses, leading to tumor rejection in animal models. This finding and a great deal of persistence paved the way for the field of immune checkpoint blockade therapy for cancer. Work in his lab led to the development of ipilimumab, an antibody to human CTLA-4 and the first immune checkpoint blockade therapy approved by the FDA. Among many honors, he is a member of the National Academies of Science and Medicine and received the Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research award in 2015. His current work seeks to improve immune checkpoint blockade therapies currently used by our clinicians and identify new targets to unleash the immune system in order to eradicate cancer.

Karen Willcox

Karen E. Willcox is Director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, Associate Vice President for Research, and Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds the W. A. “Tex” Moncrief, Jr. Chair in Simulation-Based Engineering and Sciences and the Peter O'Donnell, Jr. Centennial Chair in Computing Systems. Prior to joining the Oden Institute in 2018, she spent 17 years as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she served as Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the founding Co-Director of the MIT Center for Computational Engineering, and the Associate Head of the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She is also an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Willcox holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and masters and PhD degrees from MIT. Prior to becoming a professor at MIT, she worked at Boeing Phantom Works with the Blended-Wing-Body aircraft design group. She is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and in 2017 was appointed Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to aerospace engineering and education. In 2022 she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). In addition to her research pursuits, Willcox is active in education innovation. She served as co-Chair of the MIT Online Education Policy Initiative, co-Chair of the 2013-2014 Institute wide Task Force on the Future of MIT Education, and Chair of the MIT OpenCourseWare Faculty Advisory Board. She is a recognized innovator in the U.S. education landscape, where she is a 2015 recipient of a First in the World Department of Education grant that developed and deployed educational technologies in community colleges.

Leon Chen

Entrepeneur

Tiffany and Leon Chen started Tiff’s Treats in 1999 as 19-year-old sophomores at the University of Texas at Austin. They started with $20, a cell phone, and a dream, and over the past 20+ years have grown the business to 75 retail distribution locations (and counting) employing more than 1,700 employees, with a valuation over $500 Million. Tiffany and Leon both graduated from the University of Texas in 2001 and live in Austin with their boy/girl twins. In addition to running Tiff's Treats, they often keynote at events such as SXSW and for companies like Southwest Airlines and Dell Technologies. They've been chosen as Ernst and Young Entrepreneurs of the Year and are also investors in dozens of other companies in addition to supporting local non-profits such as Foster Angels of Central Texas, The Andy Roddick Foundation and the ConnorMan Foundation.

Sanika Bhave

Sanika Bhave is an environmentalist and a senior at the University of Texas at Austin double majoring in Canfield Business Honors and Plan II Honors and pursuing minors in Management Information Systems and Art History. She’s a firm believer in people and has sought to realize the power that comes from community at the intersection of policy, technology, and business whether it be by working in impact investing, policy, or social entrepreneurship. Sanika co-founded Austin Venture Strategy, an undergraduate venture capital organization working to make the venture capital and startup ecosystem more accessible to all and co-founded the CBHP Impact Network, which is working towards creating a more impact-minded Business Honors community. In Spring 2021, Sanika was named a Bill Archer Fellow and spent the semester in D.C. doing policy work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Sanika’s Plan II Honors thesis is on fossil fuel divestment and what that could potentially look like for institutions, including the University of Texas. She celebrates people coming together to have important and impactful conversations, regardless of political, social, or geographic pressures, to create a better place for the next generation. As a child of immigrants, Sanika grew up with a desire to make the most out of the opportunities she's been given and a strong appreciation for what she's been lucky enough to call hers, including this planet. Sanika likes to spend her free moments wandering through the stacks of Austin Public Library and inviting her friends over for a cup of chai.

Scott Tinker

Dr. Scott Tinker is a global explorer who works to bring industry, government, academia, and NGOs together to address major societal challenges in energy, the environment, and the economy. Dr. Tinker is Director of the 250-person Bureau of Economic Geology, the State Geologist of Texas, and a professor holding the Allday Endowed Chair in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin. Scott formed and is Chairman of the nonprofit Switch Energy Alliance (SEA), and together with Director Harry Lynch, co-produced and is featured in the award-winning energy documentary films Switch and Switch On, which have been screened in over 50 countries to more than 15 million viewers and are used on thousands of educational campuses worldwide. SEA produced Switch Classroom, used in AP Environmental Science classes nationwide. Scott is the creator and voice of Earth Date, a weekly program featured on over 425 public radio stations in all 50 United States. In his visits to some 60 countries, Scott has given nearly 1000 keynote and invited lectures.

Tiffany Chen

Entrepeneur

Tiffany and Leon Chen started Tiff’s Treats in 1999 as 19-year-old sophomores at the University of Texas at Austin. They started with $20, a cell phone, and a dream, and over the past 20+ years have grown the business to 75 retail distribution locations (and counting) employing more than 1,700 employees, with a valuation over $500 Million. Tiffany and Leon both graduated from the University of Texas in 2001 and live in Austin with their boy/girl twins. In addition to running Tiff's Treats, they often keynote at events such as SXSW and for companies like Southwest Airlines and Dell Technologies. They've been chosen as Ernst and Young Entrepreneurs of the Year and are also investors in dozens of other companies in addition to supporting local non-profits such as Foster Angels of Central Texas, The Andy Roddick Foundation and the ConnorMan Foundation.

Valeria Colunga

Valeria Colunga (she/her) is a 21-year-old activist, social entrepreneur and community organizer from Monterrey, Mexico. She is a student at The University of Texas at Austin working towards a dual degree in Latin American Studies and International Relations & Global Studies. Valeria co-founded Cabilde, a software as a service tool to facilitate civic engagement and advocate for open government in Mexico. As a young teenager, she advocated for gender equality and girls’ empowerment through Girl Up. During her presidency in Girl Up Monterrey, Valeria directed the first Girl Up coalition in Mexico and served as a Teen Advisor. She is a LLILAS Benson Community Engagement awardee and finalist in DivInc's 2021 Champions of Change Awards. In 2020, she began her Spanish podcast Activismos & Quietismos where she talks with other Gen Z leaders and community organizers about social change in Mexico. In 2021, she was appointed by the United Nations Foundation as one of the eight Next Generation Fellows to write Our Future Agenda, a report aimed to foster solidarity between young people and the international community.