Judges and Mentors

2023 Full Proposal Judging Resources

Join the Big Ideas Network!

The Big Ideas network includes hundreds of individuals and organizations who support the contest in various capacities. Learn more about the academic and industry professionals in the Big Ideas Network below and apply today!

Judges

Each year, we look for 300+ judges to help us review submissions for each of our two contest rounds. Judges have the opportunity to preview and provide feedback on students’ innovative ideas, and help us to determine which teams move on as finalists and are ultimately selected as winners. Visit our judges page to learn more about becoming a judge!

Mentors

Starting in mid-February, Big Ideas finalists are carefully matched with mentors from our mentor pool who have relevant skills and expertise to their project. Mentors are professionals from a set of diverse fields, ranging from business and finance expertise, to entrepreneurship experience, to technical expertise in one of our category areas, and more. Together, finalists and mentors work to refine the team’s project ideas, explore what it will take to implement it, and ultimately develop a 9-page “final proposal,” due April 2024. Visit our Mentor page to learn more about how to be included in our mentor pool!

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Big Ideas Judge & Mentor Network?

Judge and Mentor Network

Abigail Manz

Impact Strategy Manager

Smart Data Foundry

Adam Wilson

Founder / CEO

Polyform Studio

Adara Citron

Senior Principal Analyst

California Health Benefits Review Program, UC Berkeley

Alejandro Maldonado

CEO

At HUM

Alexandra Orozco

Associate Director International Partnerships

UC Riverside

Alicia De Toffoli

Senior Advisor, Corporate Social Impact

Tides Foundation

Amanda Brief Frankel

Brembo Inspiration Lab Manager

Brembo

Andree Sosler

Global Lead, Market Development and Product Introduction

FHI 360

Anuj Dron

Product Manager & Technology Leader

Amazon

Ashwin Kavasseri Venkitaraman

Safety Engineer

Rivian Inc.

Ben Manilla

President and Owner

BMP Audio

Bharat Singh

Planning Manager

County of San Mateo

Beth Ferguson

Assistant Professor

UC Davis

Bianca Riello

Innovation Strategist

UC Davis

Brad Barbeau

Retired Profesor

CSU Monterey Bay

Brittany Powell

Policy Analyst

University of Global Health Equity

Brinda Wilta

Chief Scientific Officer

ProbioTech USA

Cathy Farmer

Co-founder/Investor/ Advisor/Autism Advocate

Self-employed

Chandra Shukla

Data Scientist

AIG

Christelle Scharff

Professor

Pace University

Danesh Tavana

General Partner

Carroll Project LLC

Dariush Zahedi

Executive Director

AMENA Center, UC Berkeley

Dave Weiner

Program Director, Bay Area NSF I-Corps

UC Berkeley

David Cooper

Parnter

DAF Capital

David Ochi

Executive Director

CSUDH Innovation Incubator

Deepa Vora

CEO

CitizenGrown

Devang Gaun

Product Manager

ADOBE

Di Lacey

VP WesternU Oregon

Western University of Health Sciences

Diane Wang

CEO

Sweetgum

Dickson Mushabe

CEO

Hostalite

Divya Sripathy

Data Analyst

Intel Corporation

Dona Maria Jose

Senior Software Engineer

Salesforce

Elizabeth Crocker

Founder, President

Emerald Venture Partners

Edwin Gommers

President & CFO/COO

Shoe Crazy Wine

Ireoluwa Obtaoki

Head of Business Development

Yango Delivery

Erblin Ribari

CFO

Dua.com

Ethan Skowrosnki

Senior Internal Tooling & Support Engineer

PagerDuty

Gary Geschwind

Mentor

SCORE

George Anwar

Lecturer

UC Berkeley

Giovanni Alcantara

Software Engineering Lead

Meta Platforms

Gustavo Guida

Founder

Nossa Labs

Greg McNutt

Technical Director

Pure Storage, Inc.

Guillaume Signorino

Head of International Relations & Sustainable Development

Université PSL

Hannah Eaves

Head of Product

Distributed Media Lab

Hemant Vaidya

Director Biotech Industry Immersion and Lecturer

UC Davis

Hisham Zawil

Director, Private Sector Partnerships

World Food Program USA

Inder Singh

Senior Fellows & Entrepreneur in Residence

UC Berkeley

Ioana Aanei

Associate Director

Scribe Therapeutics

Ipsita Basu

Staff Product Manager

Shopify

Ishaan Malhi

Senior Researcher

Google Deepmind

Ivan Low

Assistant Director

Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts

Jack Rolo

Founder & CEO

Polygon

James Wire

Consultant

Self Employed

Jay Chikobe

Senior Associate

Resonance

James Canton

CEO & Chairman

Institute for Global Futures

Jasmine Burton

Founder

Wish for Wash

Jean-Christophe Quillet

Innovation

Stämm Bio

Jeffrey Ullman

Profesor

Stanford University

Justus Ashaba

Senior Consultant - Digital Health

Landsat ICT solutions

Julieta Ross

Co-Founder and CEO

Okee Labs

Kaitie Schmitz

Director Outreach, Global Investors

ISSB / IFRS Foundation

Kirk Shirley

Head of Strategic Partnerships - Americas

CAB International (CABI)

Laura Abrams

Artist and Writer

Retired

Laura Paonessa

Latam Community Leader

Amani Institute

Laurie Goldman

Strategic Advisor

The ClimateMusic Project

Levi Bridges

Freelance Journalist & Podcast Producer

Luke Latimer

Cofounder & CTO

Zestbio Inc

Madalina Bouros

Co-founder

AllGrow

Maria Mortati

Principal

Mortati Experience Design

Maria Alvarez

VP, Communications and Development

Hively

Mark Ely

Principal

Ely Ventures

Marjorie Weingrow

Career Strategist, Author

Workshop Presentations and Coaching

Max Aaronson

Principal

A Tierra Realty

Max Solohchasnkly

Project Leader

Boston Consulting Group

Mayank Taneja

Director, Product Management

Visa

Michael Lindenmayer

Partnerships

Tata Trusts

Mimi Kaplan

Executive Analyst

Department of Water Resources

Narendra Gowda

Senior Engineering Manager

Walmart Global Tech

Nikki Stief

Lead User Researcher

Indigo

Omar Zhan

Co-Founder

Surfaice

Otto Thav

Consultant

THAV LLC

Paul Ellingstad

Managing Partner

PTI Advisors

Popin Bose Roy

Senior Product Manager

Amazon

Pramod Gavade

Staff System Engineer

AirBnB

Rafique Mustafa Shaikh

Provincial Civil Servant

Provincial Government of Sindh, Pakistan

Rahul Nayak

Emergency Medicine Resident Doctor

Stanford Health Care

Rachel Sibley

Faculty

Singularity University

Rajan Trivedi

Director of Product Management

Chegg

Robert Girling

Professor Emeritus

Retired

Robert Ssekitoleko

Lecturer/Head of Biomedical Engineering

Makerere University

Raoul Pilcicki

Founder & CEO

Multiple Ventures

Roxanna Samii

Communication Strategist

Freelance Consultant

Rubayat Khan

Chairperson

Jeeon Foundation

Sakshi Jain

Chief Growth Officer

Loop Solutions

Sandeep Chandna

Senior Engineering Manager

Google

Saeed Elnaj

CTO

Healthkey Technology

Saira Qureshi

Solution Leader

McKinsey & Company

Sara Dean

Assistant Professor

California College of the Arts

Saurabh Gupta

Director

Blue Pencil Strategies P Ltd

Sean Paavo Krepp

Google Maps Data Ops, Board Advisor, Startup Advisor

Google

Sean Burns

Discovery Hub

UC Berkeley

Shalini Gopalakrishnan

Founder

Metaverse University

Shantanu Kumar

Senior Software Engineer

Amazon

Shashank Srivastava

Senior Vice President - AI

Smarsh

Skylar Economy

Director & Producer

Conde Nast (Architectural Digest)

Shirley Li

Program Manager

Plug and Play

Sheldon Ng

Vice President

Charles River Associates

Stephen Honan

President

Frontier Allies

Steven Horowitz

Principal

Ovidian Group

Sidharth Ramsinghaney

Director of Strategy and Operations

Twilio

Stacey King

Associate

California Innovation Fund

Susan Lundy

District Director

Norcal Coastal SCORE

Thomas C. Hayes

Book Collaborator, Editorial Coach

Thomas C Hayes Associates LLC

Tony Dykes

Managing Director

EnChroma

Tori Lemcote

Investor

HawkTower

Visakh Sankar

Senior Manager

Yashima Jain

Program Manager

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Yun Fu

Associate Director Innovative Finance

Milken Institute

Yuvaraj Selvaraj

Engineering Manager

Apple