de fellows

Joost Paul Bonsen studies innovation everywhere, from invention in research labs through action in entrepreneurial startups and in innovation ecosystems generally. Formerly an entrant, mentor, judge, and Lead Organizer of MIT's $100K Entrepreneurship Competition - he was instrumental in the growth of and recent doubling of the prize fund to include a Development and Social Impact Track. Joost is co-founder of the Howtoons project which distributes educational cartoons which show kids everywhere "How To" build things. He most recently finished the Management of Technology (MOT) program at the MIT Sloan school.

Randy Zadra is a visiting fellow at MIT and has over 14 years of international experience in the information technology and telecommunications sector. He has held various management roles at Teleglobe International, - a global communications services provider active in over 100 countries. He has also worked at Orblynx, and is the founding Managing Director of the Institute for Connectivity (ICA) – a $20M initiative established by the Prime Minister of Canada for financing and promoting information and communications technology innovation in the Americas.

Jhonatan Rotberg is a Visiting Scientist at MIT's Media Lab on behalf of
Telmex, Latin America's largest Telco. He oversees the relationship between these two organizations, and does research on business models for developmental communications based on convergent digital media in the Lab's Human Dynamics group. Before joining Telmex, Jhonatan spent 7 years in consulting and investment banking, and 4 years as the founder of various ventures, including the first Web startup aimed at Latin America's kids market as well as one of Mexico's first specialized mortgage lenders. He is a graduate of Psychology from Brown University, and has done graduate work in finance and law.

Nathan Eagle is a Research Scientist at the MIT Design Laboratory. He is currently involved in the creation of MIT's EPROM (Entrepreneurial Programming and Research on Mobiles) initiative. EPROM’s key activities include the development of new applications for mobile phone users worldwide, academic research using mobile phones, and the creation of a widely applicable mobile phone programming curriculum. His entrepreneurial experience includes co-founding MetroSpark and participating in Stanford's Technology Ventures Program as a Mayfield Fellow. He holds a PhD from M.I.T., and graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering.

Juan Carlos Barahona is a doctoral candidate and a research assistant in the Human Dynamics Group at Media Laboratory at MIT. His research is focused on the role of technology and social structure in promoting entrepreneurial activity and social and economic growth. He was Deputy Director of the Latin American Centre for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development and a consultant for the World Bank on Sustainable Development. He was project leader for customs reform in Central America as part of a joint research-action initiative of Harvard's Centre for International Development, Harvard Business School's Centre of Strategy and Competition, and INCAE.

Akshay Mohan is at the Human Dynamics Group at the MIT Media Laboratory. His interests are to develop multi-scale and measurable human behavior models and the role of technology in development and use of such models. His experience involves healthcare research and consulting. In 1997, he created TRIAD (tribute to innovation and development) – a non profit organization aimed to create useful and needed technology through increased collaboration between academia, non-profit, government and industry. He holds a M.S. from the MIT Media Laboratory and a B.Tech from IIT Kanpur.

Don Yansen has been a serial venture capital startup entrepreneur in the Boston area for many years. More recently he has worked on developing programs for jump starting the formation of entrepreneurial eco-systems in emerging economies. Geographic area of interest are South Asia and Latin America. Technical areas are wireless education, micro equity funds, entrepreneur network development.