Author: jbadmin

Chris Motley is Founder & CEO of Mentor Spaces. The organization helps high-performing, Black students and young professionals navigate the road to success through mentorship with experienced and influential leaders.

Mr. Motley’s Story:

I recognized that mentorship is the most transformation experience one can have. For underrepresented talent entering the workforce – one of the best tools we can provide is mentorship from corporate employees already in the workforce.

Describe the most significant influence that led you to your line of work.:
I was born on the South Side of Chicago to a 13 year old single mother. I was able to navigate my life to an Ivy League University, Goldman Sachs, the Kellogg School of Management, and now as an entrepreneur. My mom was my first mentor and taught me how to communicate with others so that they would want to support my goals. My current business is reflective of the mentorship I’ve received from so many people throughout my life that gave me the confidence and social capital necessary to achieve my goals.

What do your family, friends and colleagues say about your accomplishments?:
They would say that I’ve always been an entrepreneur since my first business as a barber. They would also say that everything I focus on has always been in service to others.

Tell us about something that made you grow the most as a leader.:
Failing. My team and I built a job matching product for underrepresented talent that no one used. We recognized we were solving the wrong problem. I had to make the hard decision to scrap everything we’d done until that point and start from scratch…sacrificing millions of dollars of investment. It also meant that I had to make the tough decision to realign the team through a significant change. Some people chose to leave. It wasn’t until later that it became clear we were better for it. Mentor Spaces was launched in the summer of 2020 amid the global pandemic and was received well by the market.

Share your ideas for mentoring the professional development of young entrepreneurs.:
I built it in our product Mentor Spaces – which is a technology solution that scales mentorship so that it is neither overbearing or time consuming. The best ideas for mentoring the professional development of young entrepreneurs center around creating a safe space for them to have conversations with those in the know. That is the essence of my company, Mentor Spaces.

Sean Wynn is Co-founder of Cure Crate, a unique wellness experience through best-in-class CBD products delivered monthly. Cure Crate donates a portion of their proceeds to The Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to cannabis criminal justice reform.

Mr. Wynn’s Story:

Tell us your innovation story: I created a way to effect change in Cannabis criminal justice by providing personalized CBD to people not traditionally spoken to by Cannabis companies. We donate a portion of our proceeds every month to Last Prisoner Project which is just the beginning of our commitment to social justice.

Describe the most significant influence that led you to your line of work: I think it was the injustice I have seen on a daily basis in the Cannabis business, especially as it related to the recognizing of black and brown sacrifice and punishment at the hands of unjust laws. The larger influence was to bring natural and personalized wellness to everyone at first through CBD, but the plans are to expand into non CBD products in the coming months.

What do your family, friends and colleagues say about your accomplishments?: They’re incredibly proud of them. A large part of the reason we started was to help our relatives who often asked us what CBD was and how to acquire the best products, so the success I have found pursuing that path is a welcome development for them.

Tell us about something that made you grow the most as a leader: I have always been a leader, but this is the first time that I have had multiple people working for me and it’s been really eye opening and an incredible experience. Understanding that the words I say are just as important as the things I do and that I set the culture of this company has been a growing experience.

Share your ideas for mentoring the professional development of young entrepreneurs. I started a non profit called Amplified Voices which aims to provide employment opportunities to students from HBCUs specifically in the entertainment industry.

Irewole Akande is Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of City Health Tech. Through user centered design, first class technology, and community engagement, City Health Tech is committed to promoting disease prevention in cities around the world. Their device, OPAL, is their first step to standardize community health education, promote healthy handwashing habits, and collect data to provide valuable insights to help communities live healthier.

Mr. Akande’s Story:

Three years ago, I was attending an IoT conference as an IoT Electronics engineer. Midway through, a young sophomore from Northwestern walked up to me to discuss my expertise in IoT products. After our conversation, he said to me: “95% of people do not wash their hands properly, the correct amount of time to was hands for is 20 seconds with soap, water and the right technique. However, most people only wash for 5 – 7 seconds which means 95% of people are vectors of diseases into their communities.” I thought it was a fascinating problem, so I went home and timed my handwashing. As a Nigerian, handwashing is a huge part of our culture but even with that, I washed for only 12 seconds. With that, I chose to collaborate and dove into the problem, we read a myriad of journals, articles, studies on the impact of handwashing on community health and safety. Our research showed that there are over 1 billion cases of the common cold a year, 48 million food borne illnesses and over 1 million cases of healthcare acquired infections a year. So we set out to do two things: “How might we get people to wash their hands properly?” “How might we show the impact of handwashing on the spread of diseases.” After over a year of designing, iterating and testing, I invented Opal, a connected device that sits beside a faucet, detects a user and then engages them with content for the duration of their handwashing. Subsequently, the device collects duration data and sends it to a cloud server for hygiene analytics insight.

Describe the most significant influence that led you to your line of work
Curiosity. I am genuinely curious about how technology can be used to solve existing problems in ways that have never been envisioned before. I don’t believe that the world we are in is the best it can be, and for that reason, I want to use technology to make it better. Building the future of disease prevention technology is the first step in that journey.

What do your family, friends and colleagues say about your accomplishments?: My family, friends and colleagues are immensely proud and motivated by my achievements. Growing up in Nigeria, it was easy for one write off the impact someone like me would have on the world. But my persistence, drive and excellence has served to show all that know me that it is possible to live far beyond your wildest dreams.

Tell us about something that made you grow the most as a leader: Failure. There is no better teacher than failure. Failure is the immediate feedback loop that evaluates the capacity to achieve one’s goals. In my own case, I was called to lead at a young age and even though I achieved success, I discovered that one who thinks he’s leading but has no one following is merely taking a walk. Failure at leading taught me the importance of galvanizing people’s individual goals to achieve a collective goal.

Share your ideas for mentoring the professional development of young entrepreneurs. The most important way to mentor young entrepreneurs is by giving them the ability to think differently about problems. The question “WHY?” is too often answered with the words: “That’s just the way it is.” That answer is unacceptable. It breeds mediocrity, stifles imagination and tampers with the very commitment to making our world a better place. I believe the correct response should be, “You have an opportunity to discover, go for it!” By thinking about problems differently, more young entrepreneurs are motivated to discover and solve problems rather than embolden the status quo.

Patrick Pennie is Founder, President & CEO of EmCyte Corporation. After more than 20 years of innovation and development, EmCyte Corporation is widely recognized as the standard bearer of Autologous Platelet Rich Plasma and Progenitor Stem Cell Biologics, with a product portfolio that meets the highest achievable performance outcomes in point of care regenerative medicine.

Mr. Pennie’s Story:

My story starts in 1987 as an open heart critical care registered nurse in New York City where I dedicated myself to caring for military veterans who suffered with heart disease and other associated complications. I performed this work at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, NYC. In addition to this work I have also worked as a field nurse for an agency that deployed investigational medicines for HIV patients. This agency worked in collaboration with research scientists in the development of a treatment for HIV.

After years of clinical service I went on to further my education and clinical experience and was accepted to the inaugural program for extracorporeal cardiopulmonary sciences and perioperative blood management and Barry University in Miami Florida. There I became a certified clinical open heart perfusionist in 1993. This field required a strong clinical and physiological understanding of blood and blood components. I attained my first job as an open heart perfusionist at Lee Memorial Health Park in Fort Myers, Florida shortly after graduating, and it is through this experience I was able to conceive the idea of using a concentrated form of platelet growth factors derived from the patient’s own body to heal diabetic and other types of chronic non-healing wounds.

This extraordinary idea came to me in 1999 after randomly reading about the use of small doses of recombinant growth factors to treat wounds. The recombinant version was expensive and largely abandoned for inefficacy. However, I thought the treatment would be viable if a powerful dose of the growth factors came from the patients own body instead of from a lab. From this concept, I developed one of the first autologous regenerative medical treatments for chronic non healing wounds. This is referred to as activated autologous platelet rich plasma therapies.

The treatment was largely successful. However, it required large machines (autotransfusion machines) to process large amounts of donated blood (350-500mL) from the patient in order to prepare the PRP treatment sample. It had to be done in an inpatient setting because the patient had to be monitored during and after the blood donation and the machines were not portable. After seeing the success of the therapy, I knew physicians would more widely use this therapy if it were a point of care treatment that could be done in a same-day outpatient setting. So in 2000, I developed one of the first tabletop platelet rich plasma processing systems where a physician could effectively treat the patient with a powerful PRP treatment sample from only 60mL of donated blood. This system was called the Secquire Cell Separator and was cleared by the FDA under 510(k) K024080 in 2003.

From there I went on to develop the technology used to prepare point of care platelet rich plasma and have introduced the concept of PURE platelet rich plasma in 2012. This was a new form of PRP that was devoid of harmful contaminants that was until then, a typical part of the PRP formulation. This included inflammatory, glycemic and hemolytic substances. Our PURE PRP devices had technology that was able to remove these substances while maintaining a powerful active ingredient which are the platelet and cytokine content. Today we lead the market with the most effective and powerful form of PRP for clinical application. The system is called the PurePRP SupraPhysiologic Concentrating System.

I have also developed systems for concentrating progenitor stem cells from bone marrow and adipose tissue, along with minimally invasive devices used to collect a purer sample of parenchymal bone marrow.

Describe the most significant influence that led you to your line of work: I have come across this field organically. It was not planned or even imagined early in my career. However, I was inspired by the epiphany of 1999 where my life had changed after reading that one article about recombinant PDGF. This sparked something inside of me as I already felt like I was positioned to take this concept in a completely new direction.

What do your family, friends and colleagues say about your accomplishments?: Most are astounded by my perseverance throughout the years. I have stuck with something that I felt passionate about and was determined to see this to fruition as I knew it was a therapy that could impact the lives of millions of people. It was simple yet very effective, had little down time for active patients and was curative rather than palliative. Most are proud to know or be affiliated with me in some way as they have witnessed the journey..

Tell us about something that made you grow the most as a leader: Humility and compassion are the most important qualities manifested as a leader. The work is still a service to humanity, and if I continue show these qualities I would stay grounded as an advocate for patients. This garners the respect that allow me to be relatable to so many.

Share your ideas for mentoring the professional development of young entrepreneurs. I think that young entrepreneurs should be bold and embrace their god given gifts. They should understand society and how they can use their talents to enhance the lives of people in their communities and throughout the world. They should think on how to integrate and utilize their talents so it will have sustainability and be financially rewarding. Once they have made these determinations then they should jump in. Their passion would carry them through the challenges they will face.

To date, what project is your greatest success? What is the story behind that innovation? The greatest success is the PURE SupraPhysiologic Concentrating Systems I have developed for preparing platelet rich plasma and bone marrow concentrating treatment samples. The formulation is very effective for a host of treatment applications. The preparation is very well tolerated by patients and exceeds the clinical threshold for efficacy. I am proud of these systems and am happy to have been able to make the millions in investment for R&D towards its development. I am rewarded everyday that I get a story about how our devices have changed lives.