May Samali
Associate, Urban Innovation Fund
May Samali serves as Associate at the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in transformative urban technology and empowers entrepreneurs solving our toughest city challenges. Prior to this role, she served as Director at urban ventures accelerator Tumml, running the program and working closely with the organization’s portfolio companies. May has also worked as a strategy consultant at a boutique venture firm in Sydney, as an attorney at an international law firm and as Deputy CEO at the world’s largest university-based social impact consultancy.
She earned her MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School and her economics and law degrees from the University of Sydney. She is a John Monash Scholar, New World Social Enterprise Fellow, Gleitsman Leadership Fellow and a delegate at the Australian American Young Leadership Dialogue. May’s work in urban innovation and social entrepreneurship has been featured in a wide range of outlets, including TechCrunch , Stanford Social Innovation Review , Philanthropy News Digest , Living Cities and the San Francisco Chronicle .
My Sessions
Power Boost: Capitalizing Underrepresented Techpreneurs
Natalie Cofield
Christopher Gray
Jessica Norwood
May Samali
Melissa Bradley
Description: Startups created by people of color and women currently receive less than three percent of all venture capital in the United States. This discussion will examine the challenges of securing capital for underrepresented techprenuers and how some are choosing to solve the problem by creating their own platforms.