2019 Speakers
Thank you to all of our 2019 speakers and presenters! Our 2020 speakers will be announced by December 20, 2019!
Gio Benitez, Keynote Speaker
ABC News Correspondent
Gio Benitez is an ABC News correspondent and host of Fusion's edition of "Nightline" based in New York. He reports for all ABC News programs and platforms including "Good Morning America," "World News Tonight with David Muir," "Nightline" and "20/20." Benitez is an award-winning reporter and has covered a wide range of stories for the network, including the Orlando nightclub massacre, the Boston Marathon bombing, the search for escaped convicts from a New York maximum security prison, controversial religious freedom laws that were deemed discriminatory in Indiana and Arkansas, the Alabama child held hostage underground in an eight-day standoff, the American mother stuck in a Mexican jail, and nearly every major snow storm that swept the nation during the winters of 2013 and 2014. Before joining ABC News in 2013, he was a reporter for WFOR, the CBS owned-and-operated TV station in Miami, where he covered the 2012 Presidential election and reported extensively on the Trayvon Martin case. In January 2010, Benitez traveled to Haiti to cover relief efforts following the devastating earthquake. His return flight to Miami was turned into a rescue mission, as he traveled with injured Haitian evacuees to the island of Curaçao. In June 2009, he was the first reporter to ever shoot a TV story entirely with an iPhone. Benitez is the recipient of two regional Emmy Awards and is an eight-time nominee. Most notably, he was nominated for his investigative series on alleged police brutality which resulted in two Miami officers being forced to turn in their guns and badges. Before becoming a reporter, Benitez was an investigative producer at WFOR and worked on stories involving Medicare fraud, public safety and government corruption. He started at the station as an Emma L. Bowen Foundation work-study scholar. His first on-air job was actually on the radio, on the nationally-syndicated consumer electronics show, "Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline." Benitez was born and raised in Miami and fluent in both English and Spanish. He is a graduate of Florida International University's School of International and Public Affairs with a degree in sociology and anthropology.
ABC News Correspondent
Gio Benitez is an ABC News correspondent and host of Fusion's edition of "Nightline" based in New York. He reports for all ABC News programs and platforms including "Good Morning America," "World News Tonight with David Muir," "Nightline" and "20/20." Benitez is an award-winning reporter and has covered a wide range of stories for the network, including the Orlando nightclub massacre, the Boston Marathon bombing, the search for escaped convicts from a New York maximum security prison, controversial religious freedom laws that were deemed discriminatory in Indiana and Arkansas, the Alabama child held hostage underground in an eight-day standoff, the American mother stuck in a Mexican jail, and nearly every major snow storm that swept the nation during the winters of 2013 and 2014. Before joining ABC News in 2013, he was a reporter for WFOR, the CBS owned-and-operated TV station in Miami, where he covered the 2012 Presidential election and reported extensively on the Trayvon Martin case. In January 2010, Benitez traveled to Haiti to cover relief efforts following the devastating earthquake. His return flight to Miami was turned into a rescue mission, as he traveled with injured Haitian evacuees to the island of Curaçao. In June 2009, he was the first reporter to ever shoot a TV story entirely with an iPhone. Benitez is the recipient of two regional Emmy Awards and is an eight-time nominee. Most notably, he was nominated for his investigative series on alleged police brutality which resulted in two Miami officers being forced to turn in their guns and badges. Before becoming a reporter, Benitez was an investigative producer at WFOR and worked on stories involving Medicare fraud, public safety and government corruption. He started at the station as an Emma L. Bowen Foundation work-study scholar. His first on-air job was actually on the radio, on the nationally-syndicated consumer electronics show, "Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline." Benitez was born and raised in Miami and fluent in both English and Spanish. He is a graduate of Florida International University's School of International and Public Affairs with a degree in sociology and anthropology.
Speaker Bios
Tamar Gargle
Director of News Operations and Broadcast Graphics, ABC News
Tamar Gargle is the Director of Graphics Operations at ABC News. She oversees graphics technology and manages the artists that create the packaging and information graphics in ABC News broadcasts such as World News Tonight with David Muir, Good Morning America, 20/20, Nightline and Special Events. She has over 25 years of experience in televison. After graduating from Kenyon College, she became assistant to Carl Bernstein, the Watergate journalist and author. In 1993 she began at ABC and has worked in various production capacities at the news desk, special events and graphics. She is actively involved in coverage of major breaking news stories such as 9/11, The Comey and Cohen testimony to Congress, The Mueller Report and the Royal Wedding. Tamar has been involved in covering 13 national elections. She has won four Emmys, two DuPont Columbia Journalism Awards and two Peabody awards for her work at ABC.
Ignacio Torres
Producer, Nightline
Ignacio Torres is a producer for the national show Nightline on ABC News. An Emmy award winning producer whose work expands from extraordinary medical procedures to the issues around immigration across Europe and Latin America. Over the years Ignacio has been involved in a number of exclusive interviews including, the most recent US interview with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, Chelsea Manning's first interview after military prison among others. His work pertaining to violence against women in Honduras and race relations in the United States has been nominated by the academy in the last few years.
Ignacio has a degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He also studied Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of California Davis.
Rob Marciano
ABC News Senior Meteorologist
Rob Marciano is the ABC News senior meteorologist of ABC’s “World News Tonight” and the weekend edition of “Good Morning America.” He joined the network in September 2014 and reports across all ABC News broadcasts and digital platforms.
Since joining the network he has reported on nearly every natural disaster to hit the United States. Marciano has covered tornadoes, floods and blizzards; even erupting volcanoes surrounding towns in Hawaii. Most recently he reported from North Carolina ahead of Hurricane Florence and from southern California during the deadly wildfires. On the ground before, during and after landfall, Marciano covered the 2017 hurricanes that devastated Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. During ABC News’ coverage of the Great American Eclipse, Marciano was live on the Oregon coast at the start of the path of totality.
Kaari Casey
Program Academy, The Junior Academy
Kaari Casey is the program manager for the Junior Academy, an elite group of problem solvers made up of talented students, STEM experts and companies around the world dedicated to designing innovative solutions to global challenges. Through this program, students and mentors connect with one another via LaunchPad, the Academy's own collaboration platform, and work towards developing solutions which address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Kaari joins the Academy from the City Parks Foundation, where she spent 4 years developing STEM programs for New York City youth. She has extensive experience in environmental and conservation-based education and has worked with a variety of organizations, including the Wildlife Conservation Society, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, and the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation. Kaari received her BS in Secondary Education and Biology from Penn State University and her MA in Biology from Miami University.
Aisha Green
Web Developer, STAE
Aisha Green is a front end developer with an affinity for the responsive web. She believes in building meaningful products that real people will use. Away from her laptop, she can be found around like-minded people in tech or in failed attempts at headstands in various yoga studios. Aisha is currently a software engineer at Stae.
Amy Brandt
Regional Education Manager, SteelCase
Amy’s career began as an educator and administrator in K-12 education. She started working at Steelcase ten years ago as an Education Consultant. In this role she focused on educator research and support to transform learning spaces. Her position evolved into forming the team that pioneered Steelcase’s Education initiative in New York. Amy is inspired by working closely with innovative schools in the K-12 and Higher Education communities across New York. She is thrilled to be able to share her passion for teaching and learning with the local Steelcase team as their Regional Education Manager.
Daniel Fenjves
Director, Upperline Code
Daniel is the founder of Upperline Code, an NYC-based education company dedicated to training the next generation of teachers and students in programming and computer science. Over the past two years, we’ve taught over 500 students to code and trained 100 instructors in the pedagogy and technical competencies of effective CS teachers. We focus on building amazing culture, teaching real-world technical skills, and pushing students outside of their comfort zones to develop self-efficacy and confidence.
Maya Georgieva
Director of Digital Learning, The New School
Maya Georgieva is the Director for Digital Learning and leads the XReality Center at The New School. As a futurist and storyteller, Maya works to engage the community and provide strategic leadership in creating an institutional culture and capacity for innovative design with emerging technologies. She works with academic teams and faculty across the five colleges Parsons School of Design, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, the College of Performing Arts, The New School for Social Research and the Schools of Public Engagement. Maya is a member of the EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Expert Panel for Higher Education. Maya is the recipient of the 2014 Campus Tech Education Futurist Award. She is the co-author of the EDUCAUSE Review Transforming Higher Education Immersive Learning Series.
Maya is also the co-founder of Digital Bodies. DigitalBodies.net is repeatedly voted in the Top Ten of EdTech’s 50 Must-Read Higher Ed Blogs and frequently cited as a must-read website for news and analysis of VR, AR, and emerging technology developments. Maya has worked with both K-12 and Higher education institutions to foster pedagogical innovation and student-centered learning. Her work is featured at EDUCAUSE Review, EdSurge, the New Media Consortium, SXSWedu, Campus Technology, EdTech Magazine, and Edutopia.
Emory Craig
CoFounder + Partner, Digital Bodies
Emory Craig is the Cofounder and Partner at Digital Bodies, a consulting group and popular website for news and analysis of immersive technologies. Digital Bodies helps business, education, and nonprofit organizations understand and implement augmented and virtual reality. As a futurist and writer, he is fascinated by the ways VR and AI will transform human experience and concerned by the potential ethical challenges. An innovative leader in new media developments, he focuses on the media skills, organizational strategies and the global vision we will need to live in the future where experiences are available on demand, and the boundary between the real and the virtual disappear. A leader in the VR community, his background spans business, higher education, and the art world.
Cristina Morandi
Senior Product Manager, Datalogue
Cristina is a senior product manager at Datalogue, a new company in the technology and data management space that has developed a platform baed on machine learning (ML)/AI to improve and measure data operations. At Datalogue, Cristina is responsible for establishing product division and working across the engineering, customer success, and sales teams to define and execute product vision. Cristina attended Florida Atlantic University and graduated in 2010 with a degree in Geoscience and certifications in Geographic Information Systems GIS and Environmental Studies. While in college, Cristina interned for Morandi Engineering and Construction and worked briefly with Environmental Security International as a GIS analysts and business representative.
In May 2010, Cristina was asked to join the GIS at Mobile Incident Command Center to support response operations and planning for BP. She served as the Metadata lead for the BP response to the Deepwater Horizon incident where she managed teams of field analysts and the Geoportal platform. In 2014, Cristina was named the Data and Information Management Lead for BP America and managed the team responsible for environmental, claims, and business data management operations, applications, processes and delivery.
Tamar Gargle
Director of News Operations and Broadcast Graphics, ABC News
Tamar Gargle is the Director of Graphics Operations at ABC News. She oversees graphics technology and manages the artists that create the packaging and information graphics in ABC News broadcasts such as World News Tonight with David Muir, Good Morning America, 20/20, Nightline and Special Events. She has over 25 years of experience in televison. After graduating from Kenyon College, she became assistant to Carl Bernstein, the Watergate journalist and author. In 1993 she began at ABC and has worked in various production capacities at the news desk, special events and graphics. She is actively involved in coverage of major breaking news stories such as 9/11, The Comey and Cohen testimony to Congress, The Mueller Report and the Royal Wedding. Tamar has been involved in covering 13 national elections. She has won four Emmys, two DuPont Columbia Journalism Awards and two Peabody awards for her work at ABC.
Ignacio Torres
Producer, Nightline
Ignacio Torres is a producer for the national show Nightline on ABC News. An Emmy award winning producer whose work expands from extraordinary medical procedures to the issues around immigration across Europe and Latin America. Over the years Ignacio has been involved in a number of exclusive interviews including, the most recent US interview with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, Chelsea Manning's first interview after military prison among others. His work pertaining to violence against women in Honduras and race relations in the United States has been nominated by the academy in the last few years.
Ignacio has a degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He also studied Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of California Davis.
Rob Marciano
ABC News Senior Meteorologist
Rob Marciano is the ABC News senior meteorologist of ABC’s “World News Tonight” and the weekend edition of “Good Morning America.” He joined the network in September 2014 and reports across all ABC News broadcasts and digital platforms.
Since joining the network he has reported on nearly every natural disaster to hit the United States. Marciano has covered tornadoes, floods and blizzards; even erupting volcanoes surrounding towns in Hawaii. Most recently he reported from North Carolina ahead of Hurricane Florence and from southern California during the deadly wildfires. On the ground before, during and after landfall, Marciano covered the 2017 hurricanes that devastated Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. During ABC News’ coverage of the Great American Eclipse, Marciano was live on the Oregon coast at the start of the path of totality.
Kaari Casey
Program Academy, The Junior Academy
Kaari Casey is the program manager for the Junior Academy, an elite group of problem solvers made up of talented students, STEM experts and companies around the world dedicated to designing innovative solutions to global challenges. Through this program, students and mentors connect with one another via LaunchPad, the Academy's own collaboration platform, and work towards developing solutions which address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Kaari joins the Academy from the City Parks Foundation, where she spent 4 years developing STEM programs for New York City youth. She has extensive experience in environmental and conservation-based education and has worked with a variety of organizations, including the Wildlife Conservation Society, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, and the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation. Kaari received her BS in Secondary Education and Biology from Penn State University and her MA in Biology from Miami University.
Aisha Green
Web Developer, STAE
Aisha Green is a front end developer with an affinity for the responsive web. She believes in building meaningful products that real people will use. Away from her laptop, she can be found around like-minded people in tech or in failed attempts at headstands in various yoga studios. Aisha is currently a software engineer at Stae.
Amy Brandt
Regional Education Manager, SteelCase
Amy’s career began as an educator and administrator in K-12 education. She started working at Steelcase ten years ago as an Education Consultant. In this role she focused on educator research and support to transform learning spaces. Her position evolved into forming the team that pioneered Steelcase’s Education initiative in New York. Amy is inspired by working closely with innovative schools in the K-12 and Higher Education communities across New York. She is thrilled to be able to share her passion for teaching and learning with the local Steelcase team as their Regional Education Manager.
Daniel Fenjves
Director, Upperline Code
Daniel is the founder of Upperline Code, an NYC-based education company dedicated to training the next generation of teachers and students in programming and computer science. Over the past two years, we’ve taught over 500 students to code and trained 100 instructors in the pedagogy and technical competencies of effective CS teachers. We focus on building amazing culture, teaching real-world technical skills, and pushing students outside of their comfort zones to develop self-efficacy and confidence.
Maya Georgieva
Director of Digital Learning, The New School
Maya Georgieva is the Director for Digital Learning and leads the XReality Center at The New School. As a futurist and storyteller, Maya works to engage the community and provide strategic leadership in creating an institutional culture and capacity for innovative design with emerging technologies. She works with academic teams and faculty across the five colleges Parsons School of Design, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, the College of Performing Arts, The New School for Social Research and the Schools of Public Engagement. Maya is a member of the EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Expert Panel for Higher Education. Maya is the recipient of the 2014 Campus Tech Education Futurist Award. She is the co-author of the EDUCAUSE Review Transforming Higher Education Immersive Learning Series.
Maya is also the co-founder of Digital Bodies. DigitalBodies.net is repeatedly voted in the Top Ten of EdTech’s 50 Must-Read Higher Ed Blogs and frequently cited as a must-read website for news and analysis of VR, AR, and emerging technology developments. Maya has worked with both K-12 and Higher education institutions to foster pedagogical innovation and student-centered learning. Her work is featured at EDUCAUSE Review, EdSurge, the New Media Consortium, SXSWedu, Campus Technology, EdTech Magazine, and Edutopia.
Emory Craig
CoFounder + Partner, Digital Bodies
Emory Craig is the Cofounder and Partner at Digital Bodies, a consulting group and popular website for news and analysis of immersive technologies. Digital Bodies helps business, education, and nonprofit organizations understand and implement augmented and virtual reality. As a futurist and writer, he is fascinated by the ways VR and AI will transform human experience and concerned by the potential ethical challenges. An innovative leader in new media developments, he focuses on the media skills, organizational strategies and the global vision we will need to live in the future where experiences are available on demand, and the boundary between the real and the virtual disappear. A leader in the VR community, his background spans business, higher education, and the art world.
Cristina Morandi
Senior Product Manager, Datalogue
Cristina is a senior product manager at Datalogue, a new company in the technology and data management space that has developed a platform baed on machine learning (ML)/AI to improve and measure data operations. At Datalogue, Cristina is responsible for establishing product division and working across the engineering, customer success, and sales teams to define and execute product vision. Cristina attended Florida Atlantic University and graduated in 2010 with a degree in Geoscience and certifications in Geographic Information Systems GIS and Environmental Studies. While in college, Cristina interned for Morandi Engineering and Construction and worked briefly with Environmental Security International as a GIS analysts and business representative.
In May 2010, Cristina was asked to join the GIS at Mobile Incident Command Center to support response operations and planning for BP. She served as the Metadata lead for the BP response to the Deepwater Horizon incident where she managed teams of field analysts and the Geoportal platform. In 2014, Cristina was named the Data and Information Management Lead for BP America and managed the team responsible for environmental, claims, and business data management operations, applications, processes and delivery.