Do you want to learn about free, valuable resources available to inventors and entrepreneurs? Are you eager to be inspired and informed by successful innovators? If so, tune in to the 2022 Hispanic Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program, coming Wednesday, October 12, from 1-4 p.m. ET.
This free event is open to all. Don't miss this chance to learn from successful Hispanic innovators about their creative and business journeys. You’ll also hear from experts about resources and funding that can help you on your own journey.
Subtítulos en español disponibles. This program will have live captions in Spanish.
The “Hispanic Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program” series is presented by the USPTO’s Office of Innovation Outreach.
The 2023 Hispanic Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program is coming in October.
For more information, please contact HispanicInnovation@uspto.gov.
Agenda
(All times ET, subject to change)
October 12
Time | Topic | Speaker |
---|---|---|
1 – 1:03 p.m. | IntroductionProgram welcome and overview. | Carlos Gutierrez, Innovation Outreach Specialist – National Programs, Office of Innovation Outreach, USPTO |
1:03 – 1:15 p.m. | USPTO leadership greetings | Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO |
1:15 – 1:45 p.m. | Fireside chatLearn from a Latina founder’s success at taking medical innovation from concept to marketplace. | Dr. Maria Artunduaga, Founder and CEO, Samay Health Moderator: Marivelisse Santiago-Cordero, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner for Patents, USPTO |
1:45 – 1:50 p.m. | Break | |
1:50 – 2:35 p.m.
| PanelInspiring the innovation of the future: Hear from Hispanic inventors about their experiences with IP and entrepreneurship. | Lawrence Chavez, Founder and CEO, EveryDay Contacts, Inc. Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, CEO and Co-Founder, AOA Dx Byron Rojas, President and Founder, EASYMETERING, LLC Moderator: |
2:35 – 2:40 p.m. | Break | |
2:40 – 3:40 p.m. | PanelResources and tools: Hear from community stakeholders about their programs and resources | Paul Nguyen-Ba, Patent Pro Bono Team and Staff Attorney, Office of Enrollment and Discipline, USPTO Erick Page-Littleford, Senior Technology Policy Advisor, Office of Innovation and Technology, Office of Investment and Innovation, U.S. Small Business Administration Ruth Shuman, Program Director, I-Corps Program, National Science Foundation Moderator: |
3:41 – 4 p.m. | ClosingExplore resources and tools available from federal organizations, including specific programs promoting Hispanic Innovation. | Paola Agudelo, Primary Patent Examiner, Office of Innovation Outreach, USPTO |
Speaker biographies
(Provided by participants)
Paola Agudelo, Primary Patent Examiner, Office of Innovation Outreach, USPTO
Paola Agudelo is a Primary Patent Examiner on detail to the USPTO’s Office of Innovation Outreach (OIO), where she helps create and coordinate outreach and intellectual property awareness programs. Prior to working with OIO, Agudelo served as an outreach coordinator with the Director of the Texas Regional USPTO.
A civil engineer, Agudelo worked as a structural design engineer for construction firms before joining the USPTO. She is originally from Colombia and lived in New York City for more than 10 years before moving to the Washington, D.C., area in 2012, where she joined the USPTO. Agudelo currently resides in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two kids. She enjoys traveling with her family and being a proud cheer and band mom.
Dr. Maria Artunduaga, Founder and CEO, Samay Health
Dr. Maria Artunduaga is a Colombian-born physician-scientist and inventor with 50+ prizes and publications in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
She decided to leave a career in plastic surgery to found Respira Labs. She's raised $3M in non-dilutive and VC funds to bring to market the respiratory health device Sylvee, which features a wearable patch that constantly monitors and informs users of their lung health.
Lawrence Chavez, Founder and CEO, EveryDay Contacts, Inc.
Lawrence Chavez is the Founder and CEO of Everyday Contacts, a company bringing a new contact lens to market, that keeps doctors and patients together through a consumer-friendly subscription model and a high Dk daily lens. He is also the Co-founder of Latinos en Optometry, an organization designed to support Latino optometry students and be a conduit between the Latino community and the eyecare industry. Chavez is an entrepreneur and has been involved in several startups, and he previous served as Venture Partner at Flywheel Ventures.
Carlos Gutierrez, Innovation Outreach Program Manager, Office of Innovation Outreach, USPTO
Carlos Gutierrez started his career with service in the United States Marine Corps working in the field of logistics. He completed two tours overseas, one of which was in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Persian Gulf. Subsequently, Gutierrez held roles in the private sector, including several years as an Executive Team Leader with Target retail stores and Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at The University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley.
Additionally, Gutierrez holds a U.S. patent, was the founder of several companies, and has served as an advisor for several nascent-stage tech startups. He has written and managed grants that have been awarded a total of $1.73 million.
Gutierrez has served with several agencies within the federal government, including the Department of Energy, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the Small Business Administration. Gutierrez also previously served as the Director of the Texas Veterans Business Outreach Center.
Gutierrez has a background in business development and program management in the private sector, state government, federal government, academia, and non-profit spaces. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in management from The University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix, and a Master of Science in technology commercialization from The University of Texas at Austin.
Russell Lopez, Chief Communications Officer, USPTO
Russell Lopez is the Chief Communications Officer of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). He is responsible for the development and implementation of strategic communications for the USPTO in coordination with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the White House, and he supports and advises the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO.
Prior to joining the USPTO, Mr. Lopez served as communications director for the California State Lottery, a position to which he was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown. He began his 18 years of California public service as a senior deputy press secretary for Governor Gray Davis. After that, Mr. Lopez worked as communications director in the offices of state senators who chaired the committees of Public Safety, Health and Human Services, and Education. He also served as communications director for the Office of the State Controller.
Paul Nguyen-Ba, Patent Pro Bono Team and Staff Attorney, Office of Enrollment and Discipline, USPTO
Paul Nguyen-Ba is a Staff Attorney for the Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and a member of the Patent Pro Bono Team. His duties include investigating allegations of practitioner misconduct, developing the USPTO patent bar registration examination, providing underresourced inventors access to pro bono assistance, and facilitating outreach to USPTO stakeholders. Prior to joining OED, Nguyen-Ba worked as a patent examiner at the USPTO during law school and thereafter as a patent attorney in several intellectual property law firms. He received his Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from George Mason University.
Erick Page-Littleford, Senior Technology Policy Advisor, Office of Innovation and Technology, Office of Investment and Innovation, U.S. Small Business Administration
Erick Page-Littleford serves as Senior Technology Policy Advisor for the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Office of Investment and Innovation. This role leverages his significant experience supporting the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, including serving in principal roles executing innovator engagements, program evaluations, and implementing congressional and administrative policy.
Prior to joining SBA, Page-Littleford served as a program manager, with a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, leading a team supporting the Department of the Navy’s SBIR and STTR programs. Page-Littleford earned his Bachelor of Science in public policy and his Master of Science in science, technology and public policy from Rochester Institute of Technology. He is also certified by the Project Management Institute as a Project Management Professional and by the Scrum Alliance as a Certified Scrum Master.
Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, CEO and Co-Founder, AOA Dx
Oriana Papin-Zoghbi is the CEO and Co-founder of AOA Dx, a Y Combinator-backed biotech company focused on early-stage ovarian cancer detection. She has a proven record in women’s health and driving product launches in new markets, including launching nationwide HPV screening in East Africa and novel diagnostics in maternal fetal medicine. Papin-Zoghbi has received numerous awards in entrepreneurship for her work in women's health, including the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center MassNextGen Award and The Wave Summit's Emerging Women Founder in Bio Award. She has international experience, having both worked and lived in various geographies and has focused her career in increasing access to care for women globally.
Marivelisse Santiago-Cordero, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner for Patents, USPTO
Marivelisse Santiago-Cordero is a Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioners for Patents at the USPTO, where she provides management advisory services and assistance. Prior to that, Santiago-Cordero served as a Supervisory Patent Examiner and Technology Center Operations Manager in the USPTO’s Communications Technology Center, where she was responsible for overseeing a staff of patent examiners in the network printing area. Santiago-Cordero has helped the USPTO increase IP accessibility to a larger demographic. She led a series of information webinars in Spanish that provided IP information to underrepresented Spanish-speaking inventors.
In 2004, Santiago-Cordero joined the USPTO as a patent examiner after earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, where she graduated summa cum laude. Since joining the USPTO, she has been instrumental in the mentoring, development, and training of new patent examiners. In her role as a patent examiner, she led quality enhancement meetings for the telecommunications area. Santiago-Cordero is also actively involved with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, a USPTO professional affinity group. Santiago-Cordero was awarded the USPTO’s Bronze Medal award for superior performance in 2019. Some of her favorite pastimes include traveling, walking, and spending time with her son.
Byron Rojas, President and Founder, EASYMETERING, LLC
Byron Rojas, President and Founder of EASYMETERING, was born in Ecuador, leads a high-tech company in the advanced metering industry, and graduated from the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral in 1996. Rojas has a telecom and electronics engineering degree, is skilled in cellular platforms, and is an experienced solutions architect, product creator, entrepreneur, and leader with more than 25 years of experience working in the information technology, services industry, and electric utilities.
EASYMETERING offers smart meters using commercial and private long-term evolution (LTE) bands for the U.S. market and, currently, EASYMETERING provides advanced metering services to electric utilities and energy vendors in some Latin American countries.
Ruth Shuman, Program Director, I-Corps Program, National Science Foundation
Ruth Shuman joined the National Science Foundation (NSF) in August 2009. She is currently serving as Program Director for the I-Corps Program. She was the former Program Director for the Biological Technologies topic area in the SBIR/STTR Program. Before coming to NSF, she was the Founder, President, and CEO of a successful venture-backed life science company, Gentra Systems, Inc., that developed, manufactured, and sold products for genetic testing and research to clinical and research laboratories worldwide. Following Gentra’s acquisition, she held various consulting/advisory positions with startup companies, and she was CEO-In-Residence for Life Science with the University of Minnesota’s Venture Center, evaluating the business potential of university-developed technology. Shuman began her career as a faculty member at North Carolina State University and was a pioneer in the development of gene transfer and genetic engineering technology. Her area of technical focus at NSF is biological and biomedical technologies, and she has a keen interest in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in the area of genetics and cell biology.
Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO
Kathi Vidal serves as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) – America’s Innovation Agency.
As the chief executive of the USPTO, she leads one of the largest intellectual property (IP) offices in the world, with more than 13,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $4 billion. She is the principal IP advisor to the President and the Administration, through the Secretary of Commerce, and is focused on incentivizing and protecting U.S. innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. She leads an agency whose mission is to help American workers and businesses compete and collaborate, especially in ground-breaking technologies and across all demographics. As Director of the USPTO, Vidal is working to expand American innovation for and from all, and to bring more ideas to impact, including serving as the Vice Chair of the Council for Inclusive Innovation (CI2), alongside Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo and the Council members.
And don't forget:
The USPTO offers inspirational and educational events, open to all, that feature successful innovators from a wide variety of backgrounds. Come learn about intellectual property, innovation, and valuable resources available to independent inventors, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and underrepresented or underserved populations at our "Innovator events for everyone" webpage: www.uspto.gov/innovationforall.
If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable accommodation, please submit your request to the contact information above.
The content and opinions shared by our guest speakers during this program are neither those of the USPTO nor an endorsement of any persons, products, programs, or policies mentioned therein.
Accessibility accommodation
If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable accommodation, please submit your request to the contact information listed above.