ANDREA CARAFA

Andrea Carafa is a San Francisco Bay Area–based technology and higher education leader who most recently directed the Blackstone LaunchPad powered by Techstars, taught technology innovation and entrepreneurship, and advised startups and academic leaders as entrepreneur in residence at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Over his career, he has contributed to the commercialization of frontier technology and has built companies, cross-sector partnerships, and higher education and innovation initiatives to help address sustainability, health, and societal issues. He has been recognized through membership roles and honors including World Economic Forum Global Shaper, member of the Fast Company Impact Council, member of the Partnership on AI, MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 ambassador and judge, fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and delegate to the United Nations Science, Technology and Innovation Forum for the SDGs.

 

Previously, Andrea was affiliated with Stanford, where he taught technology innovation and entrepreneurship, conducted research, built programs and strategic partnerships, and advised startups. He also lectured at the University of Milan Bicocca, served at the European Commission and Grenoble-EM as Marie Curie fellow in emerging technology, and was a visiting fellow at Bocconi and CERN. He created and chaired the Impact Entrepreneurship Initiative at President Obama's Global Entrepreneurship Summit, and co-created an EU Knowledge Alliance focused on entrepreneurship, connecting Stanford with several European universities and partners. He also inspired and helped CERN build CollSpotting, a data analytics platform designed to spot emerging technology trends, accelerate R&D collaboration, and streamline technology transfer from research labs and companies to society. Andrea was the founder and CEO of the consumer tech startup ArtsUp, the sustainable food biotech startup Vita, and the sustainability innovation studio GYE. As a former civil society representative with "special consultative status" at the UN, he built a coalition advocating for the creation of the SDGs. He has been a speaker at summits hosted by organizations such as the World Economic Forum, UN, and The Economist, and his work and ideas have been featured in publications including Reuters, Fortune, and Fast Company.