Dr. Uchenna Chukwu (“Dr. U.”) is Founder and Chief Technology Officer by day, and an artificial intelligence (AI) inventor by night. With over 20 years experience as a startup CEO and 12 years leveraging AI to create, brand, protect, and monetize big data assets, she currently serves as CTO of Chi’s Research Corp, a Minnesota-headquartered AI firm.

She is a sought after speaker on entrepreneurship, patenting, machine learning, AI and other emerging technologies who has delivered numerous presentations and hosted media events both within the United States and abroad. Dr. U. believes in the use of technology to create holistic and socially responsible AI solutions that add value to the marketplace.

Jenna Pederson is a business owner, community builder, and technical entrepreneur with a passion for community and equity-building. As founder and owner of 612 Software Foundry, she helps entrepreneurs make their product ideas a reality. Jenna is a community builder at heart and is passionate about making space for more women in tech and entrepreneurship. She is a proud Co-founder Emeritus of Hack The Gap, led the Twin Cities Geekettes for a number of years and currently serves on the Minnestar Board of Directors.

Chelsey McKinney is a Full Stack Developer for the City of Saint Paul. After interning for Software for Good she fell in love with computer programming and graduated from the University of Minnesota’s Full Stack Coding bootcamp. She has most recently transitioned into tech from a stint working for Minneapolis Public Schools.

Originally from Tennessee, she currently live in the Twin Cities and is bilingual, speaking both English and Spanish fluently. She will happily geek out about the use of semicolons in programming, Minneapolis Junior Devs, and MERN (Mongo, Express, React, and Node).

Emi Lyman is a Senior Engineer at Target. With an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Emi came to the tech industry through roles as a professor of drawing and an art installation technician at the Waker. Her background in art propelled her into UI engineering, which has led her to become the co-creator and leading engineer on Target’s enterprise UI framework. She is a staunch advocate for hiring, mentoring and retaining engineers with marginalized identities, and she currently works with Target to recruit and interview new talent. In addition to coding, Emi also gardens, walks her two cats on leashes, and moonlights as a DJ for a 30+ queer dance party.