J. Frederic Kerrest
MIT $100k Entrepreneurship Competition Lead Organizer

J. Frederic “Freddy” Kerrest is a second year MBA candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is a class leader in the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program and the 2008 MIT Patrick J. McGovern, Jr. Entrepreneurship Award winner. Prior to Sloan, Kerrest served in a number of enterprise software development and management roles, where he wrote enterprise software for Sun Microsystems and Applied Materials, and started and ran an award-winning high-technology consulting firm in Latin America. Most recently, Kerrest served for five years in various Business Development roles for Salesforce.com where he was responsible for creating the first ever on-demand OEM and mobile software distribution channels. Kerrest received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science at Stanford University.

Tamara Mendelsohn
Mentors Team Lead Organizer

Tamara is a second year MBA student at MIT Sloan. Prior to MIT, Tamara was a senior analyst with Forrester Research, an independent technology research and consulting firm. As a leading expert on eCommerce technology, multichannel retail, and trends in how consumers integrate technology into shopping, Tamara authored research reports and worked with both retailers and technology vendors to help them shape their strategies. She spoke regularly at industry events, sat on the advisory boards of several industry associations, and has been quoted in top newspapers and journals. Tamara graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in comparative literature and economics.

Ann DeWitt
BioTech Track Lead

Ann is a second year MBA student at Harvard Business School. Most recently she was an advisor at the University of Minnesota’s Venture Center, evaluating university technology for health care-related commercial application and writing a business plan for a medical device start-up. Prior to this, she worked at 3M Company for 5 years. As 3M research specialist, she created an R&early D knowledge management system in the pharmaceuticals division and built a product development team and an underlying computational platform in the optical systems division. Ann has a Ph.D. from MIT in the quantitative analysis of biological processes advised by Doug Lauffenburger (2001) and a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She enjoys skiing, traveling, and golfing (HCP 18).

Pallavi Konwar
Development Track Lead

Pallavi is a second year MBA student at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to joining Sloan, she worked in the financial services industry, at Citigroup, doing securitization work in New York. Even prior to that, she worked as a business development associate for the Software and Information Industry Association, a software trade organization, where she helped forge introductions between emerging technology vendors with enterprise customers and venture capitalists. Pallavi has her BS in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and enjoys travelling, movie watching and dancing in her spare time.

Chad Lovell
Energy Track VP of Events

Prior to MIT Sloan, Chad spent 5 years as a systems engineer for TAC Energy Solutions where he worked on the integration and installation of building automation systems into facilities for energy management purposes. With a concentration in software team project management, he also led initiatives to improve processes and procedures leading to significant labor cost savings. Chad received his BS in electrical engineering from TCU in 2002 and is focusing his studies at MIT Sloan on finance and entrepreneurship. Energy efficiency and integration of digital media with home automation technology remain avid interests of his.

Akshay Nanduri
Mobile (M Prize) Track Co-Lead

Akshay Nanduri is a second year MBA student at MIT Sloan and a member of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program.  Prior to Sloan, Akshay was a founding member of SlipStream Data – a leading provider of internet acceleration and optimization solutions for wireless and narrowband data networks.  At SlipStream, Akshay led the software development and sales engineering teams, resulting in successful deployments with some of the world’s largest Internet Service Providers, including; NetZero, Wanadoo and Terra.  After SlipStream was acquired by Research In Motion, Akshay managed the integration of its core technology in the BlackBerry platform.  Akshay holds a MASc (2003) and BASc (2001) in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Ananda Ghosh
Products & Services Track Lead

Ananda Ghosh is a second year MBA at MIT Sloan.  Prior to MIT, he spent three years at Deloitte Consulting in the Technology Integration practice in San Francisco. At Deloitte he worked on a variety of projects involving large scale custom software implementations. Prior to Deloitte, Ananda worked as part of the founding team for a small software startup in the Model Driven Architecture (MDA) space. Ananda has a BS degree in business administration from the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley.

Ian Cornwall
Web 2.0 / IT Track Lead

Ian is a second year MBA student at MIT Sloan and currently helps lead product marketing for a VC-backed internet startup in Boston.  Prior to Sloan, Ian designed new web products to deliver research content, as well as managed online client networks of finance executives, for the Corporate Executive Board in Washington, D.C.  Ian received his B.A. from Yale University and holds a M.A. in Political Science, which he completed in Spain while working for CNN International and studying as a Fulbright Scholar.

Ryan Carag
Events Team Lead

Ryan is a second year MBA student at the MIT Sloan school of Management and is a member of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program. Prior to attending Sloan, Ryan was a software program manager at Microsoft's Automotive Business Division in the automotive telematics space, and helped to define and build the Microsoft Automotive platform from concept to the core technology behind such groundbreaking products as FIAT Blue&Me and Ford Sync. Furthering his interest for automotive and passion for entrepreneurship, Ryan also formed a company in the performance and motorsports automotive parts niche. Ryan's interests at MIT are in enabling mobile device scenarios, particularly through improved human machine interface and improved power storage and management in the areas of battery technology and the general infrastructure in which these devices live. Ryan is a graduate of Cornell University with a degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering.

Irina Starikova
Events Team Co-Lead

Irina Starikova is a second year MBA student at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a member of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program. Prior to Sloan, Irina worked as a Manager in Microsoft’s Intellectual Property & Licensing group, evaluating and acquiring intellectual property rights and breakthrough technologies. Before Microsoft, she was an Associate at Berkeley Capital Partners, one of the first venture capital firms started in Russia. There she contributed to a number of highly successful investments in a variety of industries. Irina is passionate about technology and helping entrepreneurs build and grow their businesses. Irina earned a Masters degree in Economics from Novosibirsk State University, Russia.

Jimmy Chen
Marketing Team Lead

Jimmy is currently a second year MBA student at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Jimmy has a strong interest in the internet industry, with a focus on consumer service sector. In addition to his commitment to 100K organization committee, Jimmy has worked on strategic projects for Yahoo, NTT DoCoMo and Artaic Technology through MIT Ventureship and MIT MarketLab. Prior to attending Sloan, Jimmy worked as a Market Information Manager for Bank of America in Retail Banking Strategy. Jimmy earned his BA and BBA degree with high honors from University of Massachusetts Amherst's Commonwealth College program in 2002.

Calvin Chung
Judging Team Lead

Calvin "the Hammer" Chung is currently an undergraduate sophomore at MIT double-majoring in Electrical Engineering and Management Science. At MIT, he is logistics director of the MIT Technology Fair and core committee member of the Hong Kong Student Society. He is also a first violinist of the MIT Symphony Orchestra. Last summer he researched on digital image processing techniques at the University of Hong Kong. This summer he will be working in New York as a sales and trading summer analyst.
• More on the Judging Team

Ellis Kim
Alumni Team Lead

Ellis Kim is currently an MIT undergraduate junior in the department of Economics.  In the past he has worked on two online media startups, one of which was recently acquired by a major television network.  He also has had past exposure to venture-backed medical device and pharma companies while conducting valuations for a Los Angeles investment banking group.  Last summer he was a summer analyst at a real estate private equity group in Orange County, California.  After graduation, Ellis hopes to gain exposure to a wide variety of industries and eventually make his own principal investments.

Mike Kaplan
PR Team Lead

Mike Kaplan is a second year MBA candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is focusing on technology marketing management.  Prior to Sloan, Kaplan served in a number of high-technology public relations roles, where he helped clients drive awareness for their products and services and develop cohesive corporate, marketing and sales messaging.  Most recently, Kaplan served as an Account Director at fama PR, working with clients such as Kodak Health Group, Sapient, Spotfire, 80108, Visible Measures and General Catalyst.  Kaplan received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Studies at the University of Rochester.

Team Descriptions

Events Team

The Events Team leads, plans and coordinates numerous MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition events with a $125,000 yearly budget and up to 40 team members. Events include networking dinners, sponsor receptions, panel discussions and gala events with over 400 attendees.

Sponsor Team

The Sponsors Development team works closely with VCs, law firms, corporations and in-kind sponsors on fundraising and is made up of current $100k team leaders.

Collaborations Team

The collaboration team works closely with members of the MIT Venture eco-system including the MIT Enterprise forum, Deshpande Center, Entrepreneur center, MIT labs, MIT VMS and student clubs throughout campus. The Collaboration team is responsible for organizing all team-building events and works closely with students in labs to connect great technology with great entrepreneurs. The team will build over 150 teams from 50+ labs and work with 600+ scientists, graduate students and professionals throughout the contest.

Operations Team

The New Entry team is overall responsible for ensuring proper team entry in compliance with the $100k rules and non-disclosure policy. The Operations lead ensure all teams, mentors, judges and organization members comply with the rules and conflict of interest policy.

Sponsor Team

The Sponsors team works closely with current VCs, law firms, corporations and in-kind sponsors on fundraising and is made up of current $100k team leaders in order to raise at least $300,000 every year.

Judging Team

The judging team organizes 25 judges from the MIT eco-system to read, assess and evaluate over 150 student business plans. Members of the judging team can not participate in the $1k during the fall semester.

Marketing & Media Team

The Marketing and Media Team manages works closely with our in-kind sponsorship marketing and public relations firm to promote current VCs, law firms and the success of the $100k teams and contest with over a $35,000 budget.

Mentor Team

The mentors team recruits and works closely with over 200 volunteer mentors whose careers represent a wide range of experience as top entrepreneurs, Angels, VCs and lawyers. Mentors also include faculty and staff from MIT and other universities, who bring technical or business expertise to the program.