Session: Running a social change platform in times of pandemic and war from a CTO perspective
The pandemic and now the war have created a lot of challenges. As a technology leader, I believe this is the opportunity to stand up for the social justice, and inspire people to utilize technology to create bigger impact.
Bio
Elaine Zhou is the Chief Technology Officer for Change.org, the world’s largest nonprofit-owned platform for social change with more that 600 million users worldwide.
As Change.org’s technical leader, Elaine leads a global engineering team of 70 & growing to drive Change.org to the forefront of Responsible AI, to elevate the platform capability and scalability utilizing distributed cloud infrastructure, and to engage repeat users through accessibility and delightful experience.
Prior to joining change.org, Elaine was the CTO at Vidado.ai, an Oakland AI startup that was later acquired by SS&C (NASDAQ: SSNC), dedicated to use Artificial Intelligence to help organizations unlock critical insight trapped in handwritten documents to drive their operations and strategy. Previously, Elaine was the SVP of Product Development overseeing engineering and product development at Clean Power Finance (CPF), a renewable energy startup backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures.
Elaine’s 20+ years of experience includes technology strategy, AI research and development, software product development and process improvement. In her free time, Elaine can be found traveling to some far flung island, paddleboarding Richardson Bay, hiking a local peak or discussing life in a startup over milk tea with her husband, Ken.