The tech gov advisory council

Darian Rodriguez Heyman is a renowned fundraiser, social entrepreneur, and best-selling author. As Executive Director of Craigslist Foundation, he launched the Nonprofit Boot Camp. He authored Nonprofit Management 101 and Nonprofit Fundraising 101 and was Editor-in-Chief at Blue Avocado.

Heyman co-founded Social Media for Nonprofits, Nonprofit Fundraising Masters, and the GenderSmart Investing Summit. He is a part-time Executive Director at Numi Foundation, a sought-after fundraising consultant, and a keynote speaker. His environmental work includes serving as a Commissioner for the Environment in San Francisco and supporting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

Previously, Heyman co-founded and sold the digital ad agency Beyond Interactive and co-produced the Power to the Peaceful festival as DJ Hey Man!.

Alvina Antar is focused on scaling Okta for durable growth and is responsible for enabling a seamless customer and employee experience. Alvina leads Okta’s Business Technology Organization. Prior to joining Okta in 2020, she spent six years as Zuora’s first-ever CIO, enabling business growth from $30M to $300M and taking the company through a successful IPO in 2018. Alvina is an active member of her community, having co-founded the Silicon Valley CIO Women’s Network, as a member of the Girls in Tech Board of Directors, and on the board of BUILD. She also serves on the public board of directors of Couchbase. Alvina lives in Menlo Park, California, with her husband and three children.

“Helping tech experts bring their expertise to a board role just makes so much sense. It’s an area we really haven't focused on as a professional community.” 

Amy Sample Ward (they/them) is driven by a belief that technology should be accessible and accountable to everyone, especially communities historically and systemically excluded from the digital world.  Amy’s most recent book is The Tech That Comes Next: How Changemakers, Philanthropists, and Technologists Can Build an Equitable World co-authored with Afua Bruce. Amy is active locally and globally in supporting, learning from, and contributing to the power of other organizers and leaders. They are the chair of the Portland Elections Commission, a board member for The Cottonwood School of Civics and Science, a Steering Committee member for Invest in Open Infrastructure, and a formal and informal advisor to a number of nonprofit, technology, and digital inclusion initiatives.

"Changing the way we use, develop, and fund technology for social change is possible, and it starts with you."

Erik Arnold (he/him) has a passion for applying technology solutions to the nonprofit sector and joined Microsoft in 2017 as the Chief Technology Officer for the Tech for Social Impact team in Microsoft Philanthropies. In this role, he leads the commercial solution strategy for nonprofits and the United Nations. Erik also leads the Microsoft Philanthropies programs for digital enablement and the company’s cloud software donation strategy. Prior to Microsoft, Erik served nine years as the Chief Information Officer at PATH, an international nonprofit focused on global health, and 15 years at a privately held Bill Gates startup. Erik is active in local, national, and international technology communities. He sits on the board of directors of Seattle Goodwill Industries, and on the technology advisory boards for a variety of social impact organizations in both the public and private sectors.

“I have the privilege to work with so many nonprofits with so many cool missions. I do this work because my team unlocks the potential for these organizations to use digital technology to run efficiently and be more effective in delivering mission impact.”

Erran Berger (he/him) leads engineering for LinkedIn’s complete product portfolio including Consumer products, Advertising and Enterprise products, and Trust. His team builds the platform that enables 830 million professionals worldwide to connect to opportunity and creating customer value to the tune of almost $14 billion in revenue in FY22. Erran serves on the board of JVS, the Bay Area’s leading job training nonprofit helping people to build skills, find jobs, and achieve self-sufficiency. 

“There’s a lack of understanding of the potential of tech to scale nonprofits. As a board leader, I’m thinking, how can I help you scale in a way that’s more than just financial donations? I’m passionate about social impact, and this is a way to roll my sleeves up with something I know well.”

Jim Fruchterman (he/him) is a serial tech and social entrepreneur, who has already proven how technology can change entire fields in the social sector. He was the founder and CEO of Benetech for nearly 30 years, delivering large-scale change in partnership with hundreds of organizations as part of social enterprises addressing education, disability, human rights, and the environment. In addition, he has advised hundreds of diverse social enterprises on the use of technology and data. He previously founded two successful for-profit Silicon Valley tech companies in the machine learning/artificial intelligence field, and is an active angel investor in and board member for several companies. Jim has been widely recognized for his social change work, including being selected as a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Schwab Social Entrepreneur Award, and the Caltech Distinguished Alumni award.

“It’s about social return.... If we go to a donor and ask them to invest in tech so helplines can connect to twice as many kids with the same number of staff, that sounds like a pretty good return on investment. That’s what technology does in business. Why shouldn’t it be doing the same things in these fields?”

Oliver Hurst-Hiller (he/him) runs Product, Engineering, and Data at DonorsChoose. During his tenure, the org has gathered $1.5B in donations from 5M+ donors to bring 2M+ classroom projects to life. Teachers at more than 87% of America's public schools have posted projects on the site. Fast Company named DonorsChoose one of the World's 50 Most Innovative Companies.

Prior to joining the team in 2006, Oliver managed product engineering projects for Microsoft's Bing search engine. He also helped start Microsoft Live Labs, an applied research laboratory for Internet technologies, and is the co-inventor of 23 issued U.S. patents related to Internet search technologies.

Oliver co-founded and co-chaired CTOs for Good and the San Francisco CTO Club. He is a board director at Fast Forward, a nonprofit that invests in entrepreneurs who are building technology to scale social impact. He has a Computer Science degree from Brown University and serves on its Advisory Council on Computing & Information Technology. In 2011, the Microsoft Alumni Foundation honored Oliver with the Integral Fellows Award.

“I’ve seen so many board members with tech backgrounds do this well. If you find someone with the right profile–someone who has seen patterns of challenges and can give you a cross-cutting view–it’s a really powerful partnership. Across the sector, the lack of tech expertise on boards is a hindrance. It comes up a lot.”

Satwik Seshasai (he/him) has served as the Chief Technology Officer of five successful impact-driven for-profit companies, participated in tech-related program development at the UN, WEF, Gates and USAID and has served as a tech-focused Board Director of three non-profits. His interest in leveraging technology for impact began as a PhD student in MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society where he participated in Abu Dhabi’s launch of Masdar, the first city built on sustainable principles. After a decade in engineering leadership at IBM culminating in the launch of the IBM SmartCloud SaaS platform, he took on the CTO role at NextDocs, a company focused on bringing therapeutics to market sooner and safer. Alongside GiveDirectly founders, he then helped start Segovia (LSE:CAPB), a B2C payments platform focused on sub-Saharan Africa. Through Segovia, he partnered with USAID, Gates Foundation, Save the Children, International Rescue Committee and others to scale the use of direct cash programming in international development, and co-authored World Economic Forum’s Humanitarian Cash Principles. In addition to an engineering leadership role at Compass Real Estate (NYSE:COMP), his more recent CTO roles were at Spring (ecommerce seller platform), Clearco (>$1b funding for underrepresented business founders), and now Atria Health (scaling preventative primary care and health optimization). In his non-profit Board Director roles, he has focused on using his technology and commercial background to help build scaled platforms in non-profits such as Women’s Campaign International (economic and political involvement of women) and Building Markets (inclusive economics for small businesses).

“Non-profits often operate in far more complex and challenging contexts than traditional startups or scaled businesses. Anyone who has been successful in scaling a technology company should consider stretching those same technology, product and go-to-market muscles in a non-profit board role if they are looking to prepare for greater professional roles while scaling their own personal impact on the world.”