FOUNDER & CEO

Riya is a freshman at Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, with a passion for helping local small businesses. During the pandemic, she joined a task force to address the challenges faced by small businesses, creating digital content and recommendations to support them. Riya further developed her skills through an internship at BankUnited and entrepreneurship programs at Wharton and Columbia. She founded Phoenix SMB Consulting to provide pro-bono digital consulting services to small businesses, bringing together digitally-savvy high school students to gain real-world experience while helping local businesses thrive.

DESIGN & CONSULTING DIRECTOR

Ishaan is a current sophomore at Edgemont High School. Ishaan is a talented graphic designer and Python coder with two years of experience honing his skills through coursework and freelance work. He specializes in creating unique logos that help businesses rebrand and establish a strong identity across in-store displays, social media, and marketing materials. Ishaan is passionate about using design to drive business success. In addition to his design work, he is deeply interested in artificial intelligence and its potential to solve global challenges, such as cancer detection and the housing crisis.

CONSULTING DIRECTOR

Kate is a junior at Edgemont High School with a strong interest in helping local businesses. Last year, she joined the Scarsdale Youth Business Alliance, where she helped with creating social media campaigns and played a role in organizing fundraising events. Through these experiences, she developed strong digital marketing, planning, and community outreach skills. Kate excels in creating engaging content that helps businesses connect with audiences, as well as grow their customer base. Outside of her business interests, she is passionate about sustainability and exploring ways to integrate eco-friendly practices into business models.

PARTNER

Co-founder & CTO of QiqoChat. Lucas Cioffi is a West Point grad, software engineer, entrepreneur, and combat veteran. He is CTO at Qiqo, a platform for online communities, events, and marketplaces. He graduated from the US Army Ranger School and served five years as an Infantry officer in the US Army, including one year in Sadr City, Iraq.

After completing military service in 2006, Lucas created a brick & mortar digital printing shop outside of Fort Cavazos to address the inefficiencies he saw as a company executive officer related to marking military vehicles. He was able to sell that company for a modest amount within two years. He moved to DC to found and lead a startup for online, large-scale deliberation around topics of national importance. He ran that company for six years and the team earned some notable clients such as the US State Department. To promote the startup from ‘09-’11 he created a conference series in partnership with federal agencies around the Open Government Initiative; this ultimately led to his interest in community building which is at the core of his current company, QiqoChat. He started Qiqo in 2012 and incubated it as a side project for seven years. When the pandemic hit, he and his wife were able to work on it full time, serving 195,000 people in online conferences over the past three years. With conferences going back in-person, the company is back in startup mode and creating a new platform for online marketplaces.

PARTNER

Co-founder & CEO of QiqoChat. Sandra Nam is the Chief Executive Officer for QiqoChat. Trained in human-centered design and project management, her goal is to advance the real-world impact of empathy tech and community building.

Prior to becoming CEO, Sandra was a licensed landscape architect and designed and managed projects across the United States and abroad - complex urban, institutional, and cultural projects. Sandra has received numerous awards. Her work has been recognized by the Virginia Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), and she was the recipient of the 2012 University Olmsted Scholar Award by the Landscape Architecture Foundation.

Sandra designed and organized CUT | FILL 2020, the first Open Space unConference for landscape architecture. The participant-led event drew over 650 students, professionals, and academics on QiqoChat to discuss critical issues in the field and determined action initiatives and plans for making change during a global pandemic and social upheaval. She continues to provide this community of designers space for open discussions and opportunities to make change for the public realm.

At QiqoChat, Sandra leads the effort to serve the needs of associations, universities, and local and global non-profits such as the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, New Jersey Department of Children and Families, Duke University, Ecological Landscape Alliance, and American Public Garden Association.