Team

Vijay Umapathy

Software Development - MIT Media Lab

Vijay Umapathy is a junior majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He hails from Sunnyvale, CA and is excited to help design software that will produce a positive, tangible impact where it is needed most!

Oliver Wilder-Smith

Software Development - Harvard / MIT Media Lab

At the age of 14, Oliver took his first electrical engineering course at Harvard - Physics 123, and was hooked. Oliver was asked back as a TA for that class, and has continued to TA P-123 at Harvard Extension School, Harvard College, and Harvard Summer School ever since. Over the past four years, he’s studied programming, continued to develop his EE skills, and pursued an interest in human development & psychology. Oliver has extensive coursework in both child and adult development, cognitive psychology, and neuropsychology at the undergraduate and graduate level. Most recently he has been working as an RA for the Affective Computing Group designing wireless biosensors for autism research. Oliver wants to use his technical skills to design technology which has the potential to improve people’s lives in the immediate future - something he finds both exciting and meaningful.

Jeffrey Warren

Systems Architecture - MIT Media Lab

Before coming to MIT, Jeff was a partner and co-founder at Vestal Design, a design firm focused on information and interface design. In 2006, he opened a design school (cutpastelabs.com) in Lima, Peru, focused on teaching web technologies to students in developing countries. More recently, he co-founded Weardrobe.com and Kogbox.com. Jeff has a B.A. in architecture from Yale, and now works with spatial data and digital cartography at the Media Lab’s Design Ecology group.

Sandy Lin

Operations - MIT Sloan

Sandy is a 2nd-year MBA student in the MIT Sloan Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program. She has worked in Product Marketing, Technology Consulting, and Software Engineering and hopes to work at a startup or create one in the near future. Outside of school, Sandy is co-editor of Fifteen, Sloan’s independent student newspaper, where she enjoys writing, marketing the paper, and trying to drive people to the website. Sandy lived in Taiwan before getting her BA in Computer Science at UC Berkeley, where she did research in stereographic and haptic feedback technologies.

Sreya Sengupta

Sustainability - MIT

Sreya Sengupta is a junior studying Economics and Political Science at MIT. She organized the Economics Program for the Inaugural Millennium Campus Network Conference hosted by MIT’s Global Poverty Initiative last year and is currently GPI’s Director of Academic Relations. She has done research for the Sloan School of Management, the Behavioral Research Lab, and the Development & Entrepreneurship Program @ MIT. Sreya spent the summer working for the U.S. Treasury Department and is currently volunteering for the William J. Clinton Foundation. Her interests include international development, policymaking, and foreign relations.

Nicholas Vaky

Documentary Journalist - Emerson College

Nicholas Vaky is in the last semester of his senior year at Emerson College where he is pursuing a BA in media production with a minor in post-colonial studies. Beside film and video, Nicholas’s interests include history, global studies, and teaching. Nicholas taught English abroad in Taiwan and volunteer tutored in Boston at the Asian American Civic Association. Nicholas hopes to return to Taiwan upon graduating to teach and work on experimental and documentary film and video projects.

Max Wagenblass

Documentary Journalist - Emerson College

Max Wagenblass is an undergraduate senior at Emerson College. He was raised in western New York and began experimenting with video at 13. Now he makes short films and focuses on cinematography and creating experimental image capturing techniques. His latest film Caterpillar is premiering at a film festival in Pisek, Czech Republic. Max is aiming to work in documentary and educational film, while finding time to do personal fiction works. Aside from making films, he also likes to write and illustrate stories and animation.