Entrepreneurs who are scaling an idea with an intended social impact face multiple challenges. Not only do they need to deliver value to their customers and a profitable business model, but also significant and sustainable social benefit. Ann Mei Chang, author of Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good, delivers a sharper call to action, along with a simple and understandable model for social innovation. Ann Mei challenges us to engage a bigger vision of change while starting smaller and learning faster.

Using Lean Startup principles, Ann Mei will offer concrete tools for early-stage entrepreneurs. She will spend the first part sharing her story and practical tips we can use in starting our own social ventures. About halfway through the session, we will open for questions and answers so that you can gain insights vital to you and your startup work.

Ann Mei is a leading advocate for social innovation and the former Chief Innovation Officer at USAID. She draws on her extraordinary experience as an executive across the tech industry, nonprofits, and the U.S. government to offer a unique perspective on tackling the most pressing social challenges of our times.

Join us on April 9, 10 am Mountain Time, for this engaging session!

The first 50 individuals who register for this event and attend will receive a free copy of Lean Impact!

Ann Mei Chang – Bio

Ann Mei Chang is a leading expert on social innovation who brings together unique insights from her extensive work across the tech industry, nonprofits, and the US government. As Chief Innovation Officer at USAID, Ann Mei served as the first Executive Director of the US Global Development Lab, engaging the best practices for innovation from Silicon Valley to accelerate the impact and scale of solutions to the world’s most intractable challenges. She was previously the Chief Innovation Officer at Mercy Corps and served the US Department of State as Senior Advisor for Women and Technology in the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues.

Prior to her pivot to the public and social sector, Ann Mei was a seasoned technology executive, with more than 20 years’ experience at such leading companies as Google, Apple, and Intuit, as well as at a range of startups. As Senior Engineering Director at Google, she led worldwide engineering for mobile applications and services, delivering 20x growth to $1 billion in annual revenues in just three years.

Ann Mei earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Stanford University and is a member of the Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellows’ class of 2011. She has been recognized as one of the “Women In the World: 125 Women of Impact” by Newsweek/The Daily Beast in 2013, “23 most powerful LGBTQ+ people in tech” by Business Insider in 2019, and “20 Top LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs, Executives and Thought Leaders” by Global Shakers in 2019. She is a keynote speaker who has been featured at TEDx MidAtlantic, SxSW, Social Good Summit, SOCAP, and Lean Startup Week, as well as numerous nonprofits, foundations, and government agencies.