Entrepreneurs-in-Residence: Not Just for VCs
Venture capital firms have utilized the services of ‘Entrepreneurs-in-Residence’ (EIRs), seasoned innovators with functional expertise to help spur entrepreneurship and fill gaps in expertise. Now, imagine combining the “innovation mojo” of EIRs with some of the government’s brightest intrapreneurs to solve the nation’s most pressing challenges. Do the words ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘government’ sound paradoxical to you? Believe it or not, state and federal government have already jumped on the best practices of the startup world and have actively been recruiting world-class entrepreneurs and innovators to join the best internal talent to rapidly create, develop, engage and accelerate innovation. The end goals? Moving from cash to electronic payments to support foreign policy, building technology to withstand natural disasters, evaluating new licensing proposals from start-up companies or revamping the nation’s organ transplant system, just to name a few!
Presenters
Arnaub Chatterjee is currently the Associate Director for Operations within the Office of the Chief Medical Information and Innovation Officer at Merck. In this capacity, he is responsible for fostering the development of partnerships with Merck and big data organizations. Previously, he served as Special Assistant to the Chief Technology Officer in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In his role, he worked on health and healthcare initiatives at the intersection of technology and innovation and helped to lead efforts for the health data initiative and healthdata.gov. He initiated and developed the inaugural HHS Innovation Fellows program, which enables agencies to bring on-board innovation and lean start-up experts and entrepreneurs to work with HHS in taking on some of the Department’s toughest challenges.
He has also worked in the Secretary’s Budget Office for the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control (HCFAC) program and was a management consultant in the Strategy and Operations practice at Deloitte Consulting.
He earned his Master in Health Administration (MHA) and Master in Public Administration (MPA) degrees from Cornell University and his undergraduate degree in cellular/molecular biology at the University of Michigan.
John Paul Farmer serves as Senior Advisor to the US Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy. As such, he directs the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, which brings top innovators and entrepreneurs from the private sector for tours of duty in government, where they team with top government innovators to make game-changing progress on projects of national importance. John has also served as a Senior Advisor for Healthcare Reform at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, working on healthcare information technology, delivery system reform and economic issues. Previously, John worked in the investment industry for Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers. He played professional baseball as a shortstop in the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves minor league systems. John holds an MBA with honors from Columbia Business School and a BA with honors from Harvard University.
Kara’s passion for creating engaging online and offline experiences has brought her to many exciting places including the Super Bowl, the Oscars, TEDx, and most recently, to the White House as a member of the first class of Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF). The PIF program pairs top innovators from the private sector, non-profits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate during focused 6-12 month “tours of duty” to develop solutions that can save lives, save taxpayer money, and fuel job creation. As a Fellow, Kara and her team worked on MyUSA (formerly known as MyGov), reimagining the relationship between the government and the people by organizing services around the specific tasks people complete at all levels of government. Kara drove the UX (user experience) strategy, making sure it delivered a well-crafted, delightful experience—most notably shaping the site’s friendly Eleanor “Ellie” Franklin UX persona, which lets people know the new experience is centered around their needs.
During her work with MyUSA, Kara was on sabbatical from TurboTax, where she works as a UX Strategist and Intuit Innovation Catalyst, influencing the voice of TurboTax.com and empowering Intuit’s employees to utilize design thinking in their project work. Kara also provided pro bono social media services to TEDxSanDiego and Team Rubicon. Prior to that, her career spanned nearly a decade working in corporate learning and development, entertainment, and pro sports. Kara earned a BA in English and Theatre from Elizabethtown College and graduated summa cum laude from Penn State University with a master’s degree in instructional design. Kara lives in San Diego, CA, with her curmudgeonly English Labrador Retriever.
Mr. Bendis is an entrepreneur, corporate executive, venture capitalist, investment banker, innovation and technology-based economic development leader, international speaker and consultant in the technology and healthcare industries. He currently serves as the founding President and CEO of Innovation America (IA), a national public-private partnership focused on accelerating the growth of innovation economy in America. As one of the most recognized experts in the field of innovation economy, Mr. Bendis has served on numerous distinguished boards and task forces including the White House U.S. Innovation Partnership Advisory Task Force, the Small Business Innovation Research Committee, the National Association of State Venture Funds board; State Science and Technology Institute, and the Ernst and Young Entrepreneurial Institute as a national/regional Judge.
Mr. Bendis has provided global consulting services to over 16 countries and 22 states, several cities and regions, along with international organizations including the United Nations, NATO, UK Trade and Industry, European Commission, French Embassy, the German Marshall Fund, The Canadian Consulate, METI, AKEA, the International Science Parks and Innovation Expert Group and other global entities. Mr. Bendis is a frequent consultant and speaker to 16 International innovation based economic development organizations, as well as over 20 states, regions and cities throughout the U.S. He was voted one of the Top 5 Speakers on innovation economy in 2012.
Zachery Jiwa was recently selected as among the first class of Innovation Fellows for the US Department of Health and Human Services where he is focused on designing the infrastructure for Medicaid eligibility under new rules defined by the Affordable Care Act.
Prior to joining HHS, Zac served as the Chief Technology Officer and Health IT Coordinator for the State of Louisiana under appointment by Secretary of Health, Bruce Greenstein, in the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH). At Louisiana DHH, he oversaw Federal and State initiatives from the HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009) as well as driving Innovation initiatives for the department.
Mr. Jiwa has served the Health IT community his entire career with leadership roles for both hardware and software vendors in addition to public and private sector provider and payer organizations. In his previous role at Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group he led Business Development for Connected Health focused on Electronic Health Record and Health Information Exchange solutions.
As the Healthcare Product Manager for Motion Computing, he led product strategy for the Motion C5 Mobile Clinical Assistant helping bring a new hardware platform to clinicians in the healthcare market. As a CIO for ‘Specially for Children at Children’s Hospital of Austin, he focused on deployment of EMR and telehealth technologies to the ambulatory pediatric practices of Central Texas as well as coordinating a smooth transition to the campus of the new Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas in the Spring/Summer of 2007. While living and working in Austin, TX, Mr. Jiwa also served as President of the Austin HIMSS Chapter where he provided leadership and guidance to the Texas Health Information Technology Advisory Committee and initiated coordination of the first, HIMSS sponsored, Texas State HIT Advocacy Day held in 2009.
Mr. Jiwa began his career as an implementation manager for an ambulatory Practice Management/EMR company where he helped thousands of physicians and clinicians adopt technology and improve care. Mr. Jiwa holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Oklahoma State University and has studied Marketing at the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL.
Saturday, March 9
