His singular ability to re-create full songs without instrumentation, sing a chorus, and provide the musical melody simultaneously, all while providing a plethora of sound effects on a whim, creates an inimitable visual and sound experience.
Rahzel is most popularly known as member emeritus of hip hop’s cutting edge band, The Roots, and has lent his vocal talents to musical artists of all genres. His work has touched audiences in over 350 cities, across 40 countries.
He is a consummate collaborator, working with leading artists including Angelique Kidjo, Beastie Boys, Björk, Bobby McFerrin, Common, John Legend, Lou Reed, Maroon 5, Mix Master Mike, Philip Glass and Snoop Dogg, to name a few. In a career that transcends music, Rahzel eschews trends in favor of redefining the boundaries of vocal expression.
In 2011 he was named to Inc and Forbes 30-under-30 and became the Fast Company Master of Design for his work founding Massive Health, a consumer health and big data company. The company was acquired by Jawbone, where he was VP of Innovation.
Before that, he founded Songza.com (acquired by Google) and helped build the web at Mozilla as head of user experience.
He is passionate about the role of innovation, entrepreneurship, markets and system investing as a theory of change. Sanjeev has worked in the intersection of sustainability, technology and health in many regions, including Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. He has invested over $500 mm in venture and growth stage firms throughout his career.
Sanjeev began investing as a co-founder of the life sciences practice of the IFC, the $20 billion private investment arm of the World Bank. His previous investment roles include CLSA Capital Partners, Global Environment Fund, World Bank Group’s IFC and JPMorgan. Sanjeev is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
In 2018, he transitioned from his role as co-director of the Dream Defenders and now travels the country training and organizing where “the movement” hasn’t touched.
He is the co-founder of Miami’s Smoke Signals Studio – a community based radical artistic space – with his partner, poet Aja Monet. Smoke Signals Studio is a space where those invested in using art, sound and music as a meeting place for transformation and liberation can come to create together.
He is a nationally recognized educator, strategist, trainer, speaker and cultural critic. He has spoken at colleges and conferences around the country and was a featured speaker at TedxWomen and SXSW in 2019.
Agnew is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and a Board Member for Planned Parenthood Action Fund and a National Surrogate for Bernie Sander 2020 campaign for President.
Josh studied global health and bioethics at Stanford University, where his qualitative research focused on pediatric HIV/AIDS in Malawi. He is an Ashoka Fellow, PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, Echoing Green Fellow, and Rainer Arnhold Fellow, and he served on the Board of Directors for IntraHealth International. Josh was selected by Devex as one of 40 Under 40 Leaders in International Development, received the Truman Award for Innovation from the Society for International Development, and was named by Forbes as one of the world’s 30 top social entrepreneurs. In 2016, he received a Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award.
He is the international security contributor to the NPR news program “Hear and Now,” and his comments and analysis have appeared in the New York Times, New York review of books, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and numerous other national and international media outlets. His recent publications include “Laser Enrichment and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” and “Stopping North Korea, Inc.: Sanctions Effectiveness and Unintended Consequences.”
Before coming to MIT, Dr. Walsh was Executive Director of the Managing the Atom project at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a visiting scholar at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Jake’s career spans more than a decade in the data science sector as a statistician and computer scientist. He has worked as a data scientist for The New York Times R&D Lab and was a research scientist studying machine learning and probabilistic modeling tasks with NASA, the Office of Naval Research, and other government agencies. A PopTech Social Innovation Fellow and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, he was also noted as one of LinkedIn’s Next Wave Top Professionals 35 & Under in 2017 and his efforts have led to DataKind being named one of Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Nonprofits for 2017. Jake holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Statistics from UCLA.
Cannon’s professional life as a designer has been quite varied. For the last ten years he worked with non-profit organizations and for-profit enterprise to drive social innovation. Previously, he worked as a builder and carpenter; as a co-founder of two award-winning architecture practices; as a web strategies and software interface designer; as well as a studio furniture maker and a strategist.
Alex Kingsbury has been with The Times and a member of its editorial board since 2018. Previously, he sat on the editorial board of The Boston Globe and was deputy editor of The Globe’s Ideas section. Before that, Mr. Kingsbury was a senior associate producer at WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station, for the programs “On Point With Tom Ashbrook” and “Radio Boston.” From 2004 to 2011, he was an editor at U.S. News & World Report covering beats including higher education, the Iraq War, and the intelligence community. Born and raised in New England, he holds a B.A. in history from George Washington University and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.