Grace Gong is the founder of Smart Venture Media and the host of two well-known VC podcasts: Smart Venture Podcast (SVPpro.com) and Venture with Grace, a daily show. She is an angel investor in the AI sector, a super angel & venture scout for Alumni Ventures, Advisor at Berkeley SkyDeck. 

Her podcasts have featured high-profile guests such as C-level executives and VPs from companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Sephora, Dunkin' Donuts, Chipotle, Adidas, Pepsi, Instagram, Deloitte, Reddit, DoorDash, Pinterest, Cisco, Salesforce, NVIDIA, Snowflake and more. Additionally, she has interviewed Managing Partners from top funds, many of whom have appeared on the Forbes Midas List, as well as unicorn founders from companies like Craigslist, Square, Loom, and Glean. Grace regularly posts about technology, venture capital, and entrepreneurship and has been recognized as a LinkedIn Top Voice in Finance. She is also a #1 Bestselling author in the VC category on Amazon New Release. Before founding Smart Venture Media, she worked in venture capital and private equity. If you share her interests, feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn @GraceGong.


2025: Spoke at AWS, Seattle Startup Summit, event collab w/ various funds. Hosted Smart AI Leadership Summit and Smart AI 100 Summit SmartVentureMedia.com (10M+ impressions/ yr) Companies/ funds we have worked with including Microsoft, Snowflake, Sequoia, Vercel, Alumni Ventures, Amazon AWS, Auth0 among others.
2024: Venture with Grace daily live podcast (top 10%) features top GPs, LPs, execs, and founders. Angel investing in the AI space. 1.5M+ impressions in 7 days end of 2024.
2023: Spoke at LinkedIn HQ, ads clients: VC funds, startups, big tech.
2022: LinkedIn Top Voice in Finance, LinkedIn's creator accelerator fellow; clients including big tech & unicorn startups, speaking engagements: Dell, Microsoft
2021: CEO of Smart Venture Media (monetized, joined VC fellowship)
2020: Podcast - Smart Venture Podcast (top 1.5% among 3.4M podcasts globally, listeners in 100+ countries)
2019: PE 
2018: VC  
2017: Book 2 - How To Be A VC (No.1 new release on Amazon VC category; ft. 22 investors on the Forbes Midas List - investors who invested in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Apple, etc) 
2016: Book 1 - The Last Key To Success (ft. 21 founders on Forbes 30 under 30)
2014: Master's + PE
2013: UIUC

🤓 svppro.com
🚀 Stay connected: https://linktr.ee/gracegong115
💼 Book an ad on my podcast | Book me to speak at your conference/ events: 
grace@smartventurepod.com
💰Book to chat with me: https://intro.co/gracegong

Grace Gong

CEO CLUB is officially live! 

20 handpicked founders and VCs in the room: Founder who raised $100M at seed/Series A. VCs who backed the hottest companies in Silicon Valley like Higgsfield and Micro1. Big tech SVP. W26 Y Combinator companies we knew would be the ones to watch.

Mid-dinner, a founder pulls out his laptop—because the work doesn't stop.
That's CEO CLUB.

Michelin-trained chef. Private venue. One minute you're talking about Disneyland, the next you're solving a bug so your customer can process million-dollar transactions.

This isn't another founder dinner where people swap LinkedIn profiles and ghost each other by Tuesday.

It's a curated series connecting the sharpest founders with the VCs writing meaningful checks and the builders who need what you're making. Breakout sessions. Real intros. A community that actually picks up where dinner left off.
You weren't in the room. But next time? That could change.

↓ Apply below ↓

CEO CLUB by Venture with Grace.

None of this happens without our incredible partners Vanta and WilmerHale.
 
Thank you for believing in this vision and making CEO CLUB possible. 🙏

#CEOClub #VentureCapital #FounderDinners #SiliconValley

Just saw Guy Kawasaki in Hawaii.

The guy who made the Macintosh a religion before anyone called it “evangelism marketing.”

40+ years in tech and still going.
That’s the game. Longevity isn’t about one big win. It’s about showing up for decades.

2026 is going to be wild for Smart Venture.
Can’t announce what we’re building yet, but it’s the biggest thing we’ve ever done.

More soon. ☀️

#VentureCapital #Startups #AI #Marketing #Entrepreneurship

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My top takeaways from Denise Persson, CMO at Snowflake:

Sales and Marketing are “one brain in two bodies.” The classic friction between these departments is a growth killer. At Snowflake, they functioned as a single unit. Marketing doesn’t "hand off" to Sales; they co-pilot the entire revenue journey.

Kill the MQL; focus on Pipeline. Stop celebrating 20,000 leads if they don’t convert. Denise’s team measured success by qualified meetings with the specific accounts Sales actually wanted. Align your metrics with business outcomes, not department vanity.

Say “Yes” before you’re ready. Denise accepted a Global Head of Marketing role at 27 while feeling completely unqualified. Don’t wait for the "perfect" moment of readiness. If a leader you respect bets on you, bet on yourself and learn on the fly.

Positioning must be “Believable” for the stage. Snowflake didn't start by claiming to be a "Data Cloud"—no one would have believed a tiny startup. They started with "Data Warehouse built for the cloud." You earn the right to a massive category by winning a specific, high-pain wedge first.

Verticalize to win the Enterprise. To scale from millions to billions, you must stop "selling technology" and start "selling business outcomes." Speak the specific language of finance, healthcare, and retail. Generalists get ignored; specialists get hired.

AI is about “Hyper-Personalization at Scale.” AI won't replace great marketers, but it will replace the manual drudgery. The goal is a closed-loop process that serves the right message to the right person in real-time, without a human pulling every lever.

Preserve a “Truth-Telling” circle. Success creates an echo chamber. You need a board of advisors (or a partner) who will ground you and tell you the painful truth about your strategy. Feedback is a gift you have to earn through radical trust.

None of it matters—and that’s liberating. We’re on a blue marble drifting through space. Play the sport with everything you’ve got—be intense, be world-class—but never forget it’s just a sport. That perspective is the backstop that makes the intensity sustainable.

Full pod link in first comment. 

#VentureWithGrace #Snowflake #GTM #MarketingStrategy #TechLeadership #SaaS

10pm work call. Walking out of the airport. Rainbow waiting.

January 1st.

Everyone’s posting their crazy goals today. I’m thinking about something different.

You don’t need the perfect plan on day one.
You just need to walk through the rain.

The rainbow shows up when it shows up. Not before. Not because you manifested it or built the perfect strategy deck.

Because you kept walking.

2026 isn’t about the goals you set today. It’s about what you do when it’s 10pm and you’re tired and it’s raining and you still show up.

The rainbow shows up when you keep walking.

#Entrepreneurship #StartupLife #FounderJourney #VentureCapital #2026

Never thought I’d be so important that people are DMing me to “go back to work” 😂

I’m on vacation til Friday. But let’s be real - work doesn’t wait.

I work through every vacation. Last one? 10 days before our conference, grinding til 2 AM every night.

I don’t believe in work-life balance.
If you want to build something that matters, you have to go ALL IN.

But here’s what I DO believe in:
Building something so meaningful that “work” stops feeling like work.

When the mission is clear, vacation becomes optional.

The grind becomes a choice, not a burden.

That’s the difference between building something you tolerate and building something you can’t stop thinking about.

#founder #startup #entrepreneur #business #ceo

Allison Baum Gates is a General Partner at SemperVirens VC, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in healthcare, fintech, and enterprise SaaS. An experienced technology investor, author, and speaker, she has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from global LPs and backed more than 70 companies—with nine unicorns, 24 exits, and 10 board roles among them. Previously, she co-founded Fresco Capital, invested at Trinity Ventures, and was an early team member at General Assembly, acquired by Adecco for $413 million. A Harvard graduate and former Goldman Sachs trader, Allison has lived and worked across five countries, lectures at Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley-Haas, and is the author of Breaking into Venture (McGraw-Hill, 2023), a guide to understanding and entering the VC industry.

Topics: 

- Pattern recognition at scale: what actually separates durable venture returns from hype cycles

- Building and managing institutional LP relationships across geographies and fund vintages

- Board dynamics, power, and governance in venture-backed companies from seed to exit

#VentureCapital #InstitutionalInvesting #BoardGovernance #StartupScale #SmartVenturePodcast

Allison Baum Gates, SemperVirens GP on Future of Work & HR Tech

How to land a whale 🐳 in B2B sales.

You don’t chase it.
You don’t rush it.
You don’t scare it away.

Whale watching made this painfully obvious.

The biggest deals surface when buyers are ready — not when your quarter needs help.

#B2BSales #EnterpriseSales #Startups #Founders #GoToMarket

I've chatted with 200+ AI founders backed by a16z, Sequoia, Lightspeed and other top VC funds on my podcast and at my dinners. Here's what actually happens in 2026.

I'm joining Matt Wolfe (800k+ YouTube subs), Jeremiah Owyang (GP at Blitzscaling Ventures), and Chappy Asel from The AI Collective for a forecasting session where we're actually putting money down.

What we're betting on:
→ Who's the best AI lab by Dec 31st: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or xAI?
→ Does anyone claim AGI in 2026?
→ Will AI close a $50k+ deal on its own?
→ Can AI actually ship code without breaking everything?
→ What are we all missing?

Here's what I know: The gap between AI demos and actual revenue is massive. 

Every founder I talk to is building agents. Almost nobody's buying them at scale yet.

That changes in 2026. Or it doesn't.

Hosted by our friends at The AI Collective (150k+ AI builders), Kalshi (regulated prediction markets), and Roam (AI-powered virtual HQ).

See you there.

#AI #AIAgents #AGI #TechPredictions #Startups

David Zeng is Co-Founder and CTO of Beacons AI, the Y Combinator-backed all-in-one platform powering 9M+ creators with AI-native tools for link-in-bio pages, websites, email marketing, ecommerce, and monetization across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more—helping solopreneurs turn brand deals, affiliates, and digital products into sustainable businesses without tech headaches. A Stanford PhD in signal processing and machine learning whose medical imaging research deployed globally in hospitals, David previously led ML at Azumio (launching Calorie Mama AI) and interned on computer vision at Google, bringing hardcore AI engineering to the $250B creator economy where Beacons handles unique creator mixes on every major US social network.

Topics:
  - Using ML signal detection to spot viral patterns before platform algorithms react.
 - AI link-in-bio 3x's conversions – predicts TikTok/IG/YouTube audience overlap
 - Why the creator economy needs AI-native tools, not more dashboards

 #CreatorEconomy #SaaS #Startups #YC #TechInvesting

David Zeng, Beacons CTO on AI Tools for Creator Economy

Joseph Ros is a Partner and General Manager at Entrepreneur First(EF), the pioneering global platform that invests in exceptional individuals before they have an idea or co-founder. Based in San Francisco, Joseph has backed early-stage technology companies across AI, biotech, robotics, hardware, and climate tech in markets including Singapore, India, Europe, and North America. At EF, he leads talent investing and follow-on capital while driving EF’s global pipeline that connects top technical talent from Europe and India to Silicon Valley. Before joining EF, Joseph was a founder and self-taught engineer, building and scaling consumer web products that reached millions of users across industries like gaming, legaltech, and edtech.

Topics: 
- Talent-first investing: Why backing individuals before ideas produces outlier companies
- How EF evaluates founders at day zero (signal, grit, and technical edge)
- Building global founder pipelines: Europe & India as the next AI power centers

#VentureCapital #TalentInvesting #EarlyStageVC #AIStartups #GlobalFounders

Joseph Ros, Partner at EF on Talent-First Investing & Global Scale

Distribution for startups 101.

Stripe didn’t buy growth — they embedded into platforms that already had users.

#startups #founders #distribution #growthstrategy

entering my villain era 😈

#2026 #founder #ceo

🎉 Week 102 Recap — Venture with Grace  

Week 102 explored cutting-edge AI infrastructure, VC investment strategies, GTM mastery for SaaS, causal AI innovations, and usage-based billing revolutions — unpacking commercialization, diligence, scaling, and growth in tech.

Week 102 lineup:

Deepak Prasad, Qualcomm Director: Qualcomm's US tech deals, long-term technical advantage, cloud-to-edge diligence

Priya Ramachandran, Foster Ventures Founder: GTM for international SaaS, proving PMF for cross-border founders, operator investor eval

Ray Wu, Alumni Ventures Managing Partner: Global AI & SaaS investing, corporate venture lessons from HP & Cisco, building startups across markets

Abby Kearns, former CTO of Alembic Technologies on AI and OpenSource: Modernizing Puppet to cloud-native, causal AI for marketing ROI, scaling global eng teams

Scott Woody, Metronome CEO: Usage-based billing as core infra, scientific modeling in SaaS, Dropbox-scale lessons for startups

Week 102 delivered battle-tested insights on turning research into VC-backed reality, diligencing edge tech, and fueling SaaS growth amid 2026 shifts. The big theme: Builders and investors are redefining infrastructure for an AI-driven world.

See you live next week for more exciting episodes! 👋

#VentureWithGrace #AI #startups #founders #vc

Vignesh Ravikumar is a Partner at SIERRA Ventures. Vignesh Ravikumar joined Sierra Ventures in 2013 and focuses on investments in Enterprise SaaS, Vertical SaaS, and Digital Health/Healthcare IT. Vignesh has a background in M&A transactions for enterprise software companies, having worked at AGC Partners, a Boston-based investment bank. Vignesh holds a BS in Management Science (cum laude) and a Minor in Math from UC San Diego. 


Topics: 
- Underwriting AI-heavy SaaS when infra, pricing, and competition shift
- Pricing and packaging playbooks for AI-native SaaS at seed/Series A
- Vertical SaaS 2.0: deep workflow, compound products, and moats

#VentureCapital #EnterpriseSaaS #VerticalSaaS #DigitalHealth #HealthcareIT

Vignesh Ravikumar, Dhanush Ram and 5 other attendees

Vignesh Ravikumar, Sierra Ventures Partner on Enterprise & Vertical SaaS

Aaron Cannon — CEO of Outset — on Venture with Grace, sharing how AI is reshaping the pace and depth of research.

Aaron walked through how this approach unlocks faster understanding without sacrificing nuance, helping teams learn more, sooner, and make better decisions with confidence.

Episode is live now — a compelling look at how AI can accelerate research and insight at scale. Link in Bio.

#AIResearch #UXResearch #ProductDiscovery #QualitativeResearch #QuantitativeResearch

Scott Woody is Co-Founder and CEO of Metronome, the leading usage-based billing platform empowering SaaS companies to model flexible pricing strategies, iterate rapidly without engineering bottlenecks, and turn billing into a growth engine amid 2026's shift from seats to consumption models. With prior stints as CTO at Metronome since 2019 and Director of Engineering at Dropbox where he scaled core infrastructure for 12 million+ users, Scott brings hands-on builder credentials from co-founding Foundry Hiring—an ultra-simple ATS that handled full-stack from marketing to code. A Stanford grad whose computational biology research spanned protein folding simulations, DNA mutations, and motor protein assays, he bridges academic modeling rigor with enterprise software at scale, having engineered Dropbox's evolution from startup to public giant before tackling SaaS monetization's biggest pain point.

Topics
- Why usage-based billing is becoming core infrastructure, not a finance feature
- How a scientific modeling background shaped a SaaS infrastructure founder
- Lessons from Dropbox-scale systems applied to early-stage startups

#UsageBasedBilling #SaaSGrowth #PricingInfrastructure #FounderInsights #BuildInPublic

Scott Woody, Metronome CEO on Usage-Based Billing & SaaS Growth

How to build distribution for your startup (without burning cash).

Nike didn’t hire Kim Kardashian. They partnered with her company SKIMS. 

Here’s how. Follow me so your startup doesn’t die.


#startups #founders #distribution #businessstrategy #entrepreneurship

Aaron Jacobson  — Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) — on Venture with Grace, spotlighting the next major frontier in cybersecurity.

As devices, applications, and data become more secure, identity is emerging as the critical layer left to solve. With agents operating across systems, knowing who has access — and proving it in real time — matters more than ever.

Aaron shared why identity sits at the center of modern security and how real-time verification will define the next generation of protection.

Episode is live now — a sharp conversation on cybersecurity, identity, and what comes next. 

#Cybersecurity #Identity #EnterpriseSecurity #VentureCapital

Howard Wright — VP at NVIDIA — on Venture with Grace, sharing a simple but powerful leadership habit.  

Being fully present when someone is speaking sounds obvious, but in a world full of notifications and constant distraction, it’s a rare skill. Howard framed deep listening as a sign of respect — and of quiet confidence.  

He shared how leaders who truly listen build stronger trust, make better decisions, and lead with humility.  

Episode is live now — a thoughtful reminder on presence, leadership, and the power of listening.

#Leadership #ActiveListening #Management #ExecutivePresence

Lior Susan  — founder & CEO of Eclipse — on Venture with Grace, sharing a framework for spotting the next wave of disruption.

To find industries ready for transformation, Lior looks bottom-up: study how work actually gets done, layer in the macro forces at play, and examine the technologies powering the ecosystem today.

He pointed to how e-commerce reshaped logistics as a reminder that when technology meets the right market conditions, entire industries can change — raising the question of what’s next.

Episode is live now — a thoughtful conversation on innovation, venture investing, and identifying inflection points.

#VentureCapital #Innovation #Disruption #EmergingTech

Nick Martin

I’m Nick—an educator, technologist, and social entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in global development, tech for good, and social innovation.

As founder and CEO of TechChange (techchange.org), I lead a mission-driven team that designs hybrid courses, training programs, and convenings for organizations tackling global challenges—from digital health to climate resilience to financial inclusion.

I’m also a LinkedIn Top Voice, posting 6x/week about jobs, fellowships, coaching resources, scholarships, and tools for the social impact space.

In 2025, my goal is to help 100,000+ people and organizations connect meaningfully through learning, leadership, and community.

Stay connected:
• impactsource.ai – 7,000+ curated social impact jobs with salary info, filters, and a talent network to match with hiring orgs
• impactcoach.com – 50+ vetted executive and career coaches for global development, philanthropy, and mission-driven leadership
• nickatnoon.substack.com – Weekly newsletter with curated jobs, fellowships, and tools—sent Sundays at noon ET
• bit.ly/3vlXnkF – LinkedIn Learning course: “Build a Social Impact Career” (30-minute crash course)
• getkolab.ai – Kolab: A new platform for immersive, collaborative digital convenings.  Get early access now. 

***

What we do at TechChange:
We help leading organizations scale learning and build community. Our team delivers high-impact hybrid experiences—live cohort courses, leadership journeys, on-demand programs, and global forums.

We specialize in complex, high-touch learning programs that blend tech, facilitation, and storytelling. Services include instructional design, platform hosting, video production, translation, and participant engagement.

Flagship projects:
• Global Digital Health Forum – gdhf.digital
• FinTech Impact Forum – ftif.org
• Digital Health Training Program – digitalhealthtraining.org
• Custom programs for USAID, CRS, WHO, the World Bank, and more

We also advise on strategy and innovation for training and convening models.

*** 

Outside of Work
I spend time birdwatching in Costa Rica, surfing the Pacific, or working on my vocal range in singing lessons. These passions keep me grounded and curious.

Let’s Connect
If you’re hiring, building, learning—or just exploring ideas—send a message. Always happy to help or collaborate.

Founder and CEO

TechChange builds beautiful and engaging online learning and convening experiences on topics that matter.

*** CALL FOR SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS AND CONSULTANTS ***

Friends, TechChange is expanding our expert and consultant roster as we gear up for a busy slate of projects in 2026.

We’ve already got a TON of interesting work lined up this year… and we’re intentionally building out our consulting business to support organizations doing digital transformation, digital strategy, and applied AI work across a range of sectors.

That means we’re looking for more great people.

If you’re building (or expanding) your consultancy practice and want access to more project-based opportunities, take a few minutes to add yourself to our expert database.

We’ve already hired a bunch of folks from it. Planning to do a lot more of that in 2026.

I know it’s a rough market out there. I know many of you are stitching together work, exploring pivots, or just looking for something steadier. Hopefully this helps connect some dots and gets more people working on solid, meaningful projects.

We work with trainers, facilitators, and convening experts across sector and deep subject matter experts who can jump into real-world projects.

We’re especially interested in folks with experience in:
– Global development
– Digital development / ICT4D
– Climate & sustainability
– Social impact or social enterprise
– Health or agriculture
– Education or philanthropy
…or adjacent fields where tech, policy, and impact collide.

Add yourself to our expert database here (takes 4 mins):

https://lnkd.in/gnY9m_34

Know someone looking for consulting work or project-based roles? Tag them below or send them this post.

Sharing is CARING.

Bridge builder | CEO @ TechChange | Prof @ Columbia | Top Voice (325K+)

*** CEO Opportunity at Girls Who Code ***

One of my favorite organizations is hiring a new Chief Executive Officer — and I wanted to make sure this landed in this network.

The search firm leading the process actually reached out to me directly… which says a lot about how thoughtfully they’re approaching this next chapter.

The role is live on ImpactSource, and I’m sharing it here as well because I know so many incredibly talented, mission-driven leaders who could be a great fit.

Girls Who Code is looking for a visionary CEO to lead a ~$21M organization with 75+ staff, a strong balance sheet, a trusted brand, and a fiercely loyal community of students, alumni, educators, and partners.

📍 NYC (hybrid)
💼 Chief Executive Officer
💰 $364K–$416K + benefits
🗓 Priority deadline: Feb 16

--> Full role details + application info:
https://lnkd.in/e-_DEF2X

Nick’s Take: This is a rare opportunity to help shape the future of an organization that already has real scale, deep credibility, and cultural relevance. The next CEO won’t just be a steward of what exists, they’ll be charting what comes next. Thinking seriously about what skills matter in an AI-shaped world… how tech education evolves beyond “learning to code”… and how partnerships across philanthropy, industry, policy, and community can work better together. Really really hoping someone from this network steps into this role. If that’s you — or someone you know — please take a look and share it along.

Tag someone who should see this 
Happy to help connect dots if useful.

Sharing is CARING.

Open article: Jobs at Girls Who Code | ImpactSource by impactsource.ai

*** Saturday cool job alert! ***

Sharing a couple of really strong education roles at Anthropic that I’m genuinely excited about... especially for the many teachers, educators, and education system builders in my network.

These are foundational program manager roles sitting on the education side of the house, helping shape and grow:
--> Global education initiatives
-->  US K–12 work

They’re looking for folks with:
- Deep education expertise
- Partnership + ecosystem experience
- Entrepreneurial, high-agency energy
- Comfort being technical and hands-on

If you’ve spent years in classrooms, school systems, NGOs, edtech, or global education programs, and you’ve been wondering how (or if) that experience translates into AI companies… this is a very real on-ramp.

--> Global education role: https://lnkd.in/gfBbnNRX
--> US K-12 role: https://lnkd.in/gq886B3M

Nick’s Take: Last fall I shared a role on the social impact team at Anthropic and was honestly blown away by how many incredible people from my community applied. This one's for the educators, program leaders, system builders... folks who don’t always see themselves reflected in “AI jobs,” but absolutely should.  Anthropic seems to be taking education seriously as core infrastructure. I know a ton of people in this network who would be excellent fits, and I really hope some of you go for it.

Friends, I’ll be sharing a ton of jobs this month and next as I try to help place folks from my network into great roles.. so follow me if that’s useful.

And hiring managers/employers: if you want help spreading the word, let me know. Lots of promotion options via ImpactSource dot AI.

Tag someone.
Send this to an educator friend quietly thinking about a pivot.
Sharing is CARING

Open article: Program Manager, US K-12 Education by job-boards.greenhouse.io

Who’s looking for a consulting role in sales + BD right now?

My team at  TechChange is ramping up our business development efforts this year…and we’re looking for some exceptional humans to join us on that journey.

We’re hiring Proposal Development & Business Development Consultants Hourly, remote, flexible… and genuinely interesting work.

At a high level, this role is about owning the full proposal lifecycle:
--> Early strategy and ideation
--> Program design and writing
--> Proposal project management including compliance and submission

You’d be a close thought partner to our leadership and delivery teams… bringing structure, momentum, and clarity the moment a bid drops.

A few signals this might be you:
--> 7+ years in proposal development / BD
 --> Strong writer and strong organizer
 --> Comfortable driving timelines and nudging senior folks when needed
 --> Experience with international development or tech-for-social-good work (global health a big plus)
 --> Uses AI tools thoughtfully to draft, synthesize, edit, and manage complexity
 --> Calm under pressure, low-ego, gets things done

Nick’s take: OK very biased on this one. But seriously friends, this is a great role for someone who wants to sit at the intersection of strategy, writing, and execution and actually own the process, not just contribute a slice of it.
We’re a small, senior, globally distributed team doing work across events, training, digital advisory services, and some newer experiments (including our collaboration platform, Kolab). The work is varied, the pace is real, and the expectations are high, but its a great team that supports each other and take pride in doing things well.

If you like autonomy, clarity, and working with smart humans who don’t love bureaucracy… this tends to be a very good fit.

Details:
 --> Compensation: $60–70/hour (commensurate with experience)
 --> Remote; flexible engagement 

If this sounds like you  or someone in your network I’d genuinely love to see applications come in from my beloved LI community. Historically, folks from this network tend to do really well in these roles.

Full role details + how to apply: https://lnkd.in/egUA4hz9 

Tag someone who should see this.

Sheerin Vesin is the hiring manager and happy to answer questions via DM.

Sharing is CARING

*** FINAL CALL FOR ABSTRACTS ***

For the ICT4D Conference 2026... Deadline is January 30th (three days from now)
 
If you’ve been meaning to submit something to ICT4D…This is the moment.

We’re closing the call for abstracts and shaping the agenda now — and we want it grounded in what practitioners are actually dealing with in the field. 

Reminder This year’s conference is organized around three core themes plus a dedicated hands-on learning track. 

A few highlights to help you sense where your work might fit:

DATA: Charting the Future of Data in Development & Humanitarian Response

We’re looking for sessions that grapple with questions like:
 → Where is AI genuinely helping — and where is it creating new risks?
 → How do we get better at data sharing, integration, and interoperability across orgs?
 → Who holds power in data collection and use, and how do we design more ethical, inclusive approaches?
 → How do we protect critical data systems in moments of disruption?
Why this matters: data-driven work only delivers impact if it’s trustworthy, ethical, and accountable — especially in fragile contexts.

FUTURE: Shaping Tomorrow — Building Equitable & Sustainable Digital Futures

This track focuses on what comes next as the sector shifts:
 → Digital localization and putting local institutions in the driver’s seat
 → Youth as builders, not just users, of digital systems
 → Digital public infrastructure as a foundation for inclusion and sustainability

Why this matters: funding models are changing fast, and the future of digital development depends on who leads, who benefits, and who decides.

IMPACT: Delivering on the SDGs in a Fragile World
We’re especially interested in applied work across:
 → Climate resilience and adaptation
 → Food systems and agriculture
 → Digital health and health system transformation
 → Emergency response, from geospatial tools to digital finance

Why this matters: when resources shrink but challenges grow, digital approaches are one of the strongest levers we have to sustain impact.

PRACTICAL DEMONSTRATIONS & INTERACTIVE LEARNING
Very much an ICT4D classic.
 → Short demos of tools in action
 → Deeper workshops for skills, problem-solving, and co-creation
 → Peer-to-peer learning from practitioners actively testing and iterating

Why this matters: it’s not just about ideas — it’s about what actually works (and what doesn’t).

Formats we welcome:
 → Workshops
 → Case studies
 → Research + evidence
 → Practitioner talks
 → Panels and debates

 Submit by January 30. Tag someone who should apply. Save this so you don’t forget. Share with your network

Drop questions in the comments or DM me — happy to sanity check ideas.

ICT4Dconference dot org

Let’s build an agenda that feels practical, rigorous, and future-facing… together.

Sharing is CARING

taplio

The Battle

Grace Gong

Nick Martin

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taplio

The Battle

Grace Gong

Nick Martin

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Grace Gong's LinkedIn Performance

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