Asia (Aceyaa) Mohamed is the founder of Premier Starter and Managing Partner at Noma Capital. Ms. Mohamed dedicates her time to educating, empowering, and supporting the minority community nationwide. It is her goal and passion to close the racial equity gap and the financial literacy gap in America. In support of that goal, she founded Premier Starter, which helps improve financial literacy among immigrants and underrepresented individuals, fosters an entrepreneurial mindset, and works directly with entrepreneurs to help them obtain funding. In addition, she launched the venture capital firm Noma Capital to invest into African and African diaspora founders with her team. Furthermore, based on Noma Capital’s need assessment, Ms. Mohamed created and launched the Noma Tech Incubator Program to help the founders get investment ready, without taking any equity or charging any fees, tailored to the specific experiences and struggles that early-stage African and African diaspora founders face when building their startups. Ms. Mohamed has an incredible network spanning the African diaspora across the United States and has a significant track record of supporting that network to both start and accelerate their journey from ideation Connect with Ms. Mohamedto company growth. The CONNECT Network is immensely grateful for the invaluable focus, deep knowledge, and incredibly relevant experience Ms. Mohamed brings to the Steering Committee.

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Connie Garzon, M.B.A., C.B.A. is the Director of the Volusia County Business Incubator, a former adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Stetson University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and a highly effective entrepreneurial ecosystem builder. She has received several awards from different organizations, including the African American Entrepreneur Association’s Advocate of the Year award and she was named one of the Most Influential Women in Business in the Flagler/Volusia Counties in Florida, US. Her Business Incubator is part of the broad network of the University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program, and as a mixed-use facility serves a wide variety of early-stage businesses. As a native of Colombia and an MBA graduate from Mexico, she has an incredibly deep knowledge of the Hispanic market in Central Florida and a vast network with key partners in Latin and Central America. She combines this with her clear understanding of the lean startup methodology and the business model canvas as well as her expert background in finance to help build high-growth international companies that contribute to the economic development of their communities. The CONNECT Network is immensely grateful to have Ms. Garzon’s influential experience and strong focus on Hispanic communities on the Steering Committee.

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Stephen C. Ekker, Ph.D. is an engineer, an educator, an entrepreneur, and a professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Mayo Clinic in Rochester with a research laboratory focused on groundbreaking gene-editing techniques. Dr. Ekker is the Dean of the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the founder of the Mayo Clinic Office of Entrepreneurship, one of the organizations behind the CONNECT Network. He is also the founding member of the life science innovation pitch competition Walleye Tank, and has started various life science and biotechnology companies around the applications of gene-editing technologies. Dr. Ekker has started the Integrated Science Education Outreach (InSciEd Out) program, committed to rebuilding pre-K to K12 science education, which now has outreach hubs throughout the United States, in India, and in Ghana. He has a proven success record of merging entrepreneurship and life science education, creating the next generation of leaders in the biosciences with an entrepreneurial mindset. The CONNECT Network is immensely excited to have Dr. Ekker’s broad experience and detailed expertise on both the education and the application of bioscience entrepreneurship on the Steering Committee.

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Amanda Leightner, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Collider, a non-profit in Rochester, MN, that activates, connects, and empowers local early-stage starters and helps them succeed. Dr. Leightner has an extensive entrepreneurial background with a strong focus on community building. She has founded and accelerated various startups and foundations, including Life Science Nexus, Rochester Rising, Fresh Kola Farms, and Collider. Furthermore, Dr. Leightner was the first full-time member of the Mayo Clinic Office of Entrepreneurship where she expanded the entrepreneurial education content from a single course to a series of courses that form the foundation of the current Clinical Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program and created a platform for women entrepreneurs to grow through the Women’s Leadership and the WE-SPARK programs.

Dr. Leightner’s focus has always been on making (life science) entrepreneurship more accessible to the public through innovative events, education, activity space and storytelling to help foster an inclusive, diverse, and healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem for all, with zero barriers to entrepreneurship for anyone with a great idea and a passion to see it grow. The CONNECT Network is very excited to have Dr. Leightner’s focus on removing barriers to entrepreneurial access and education on the Steering Committee.

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Tim Nelson, M.D., Ph.D. is an entrepreneur with special skills in curing congenital heart defects. He is a physician scientist trained in medicine and cardiac developmental biology, and driven to innovate with available technology with the goal of new product development. Dr. Nelson is the Director of Research and Innovation at Mayo Clinic in North-West Wisconsin and builds bridges between innovative researchers, entrepreneurial clinicians, and talented and ambitious students at Mayo Clinic and the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire. Furthermore, he is a Medical Advisor to the J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation and the founder and president of the Board of Directors of HeartWorks, a non-profit startup focused on developing cell-based cures for congenital heart disease. He leads cross-functional teams to challenge the status quo and enables the transition from yesterday’s ‘crazy science and engineering’ to today’s solutions that make traditional processes obsolete, and impact people and communities at scale. The CONNECT Network is thrilled to have Dr. Nelson’s expertise and guidance on the Steering Committee.

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