MIMS 2024 Final Project Showcase: Program

Updated Schedule

Updated Schedule

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Judges

Room 202

Saghar Boukani (MIMS ’14)

With over 15 years of analytical and product leadership at technology and biopharma companies including LinkedIn and Genentech, and as the co-founder of an AI-powered sustainable fashion platform, Saghar Boukani merges industry expertise with entrepreneurial innovation. During her time in Silicon Valley, Saghar has developed impactful products and spearheaded significant transformations, from inventing and launching the LinkedIn Recruiter Index to implementing multimillion-dollar information systems.

Her new venture connects consumers with sustainable brands in exciting new ways, and reflects her commitment to using technology for social good.

Beyond her professional life, Saghar is an artist and a nature lover who practices mindfulness and stays active. She is a staunch advocate for social and environmental justice and, as an Iranian woman, passionately supports the Women Life Freedom movement.

Owen Otto (MIMS ’07)

Owen is a senior UX design manager at Google, where he’s worked for 17 years. He started as an intern during his I School days, and has since led teams in various areas, including Google Play, Material Design, and Cloud. In 2017, he moved to Switzerland with his family for three years to lead the design team for YouTube’s creator tools. He now lives in Berkeley, has twin daughters at Berkeley High, and plays guitar in a Latin dance band called Cumbia Paradiso. Owen has fond memories of his own MIMS final project — for which he traveled to India to do user testing with kids — so he’s excited to be back as a judge.

Pratibha Rathore (MIMS ’16)

Pratibha Rathore is a tech lead, applied research scientist at Meta’s Enterprise AI org. She has over a decade of experience in data science and machine learning and has led projects in multiple domains such as trust and safety, legal, finance and enterprise security. She focuses on applying generative AI, machine learning, statistics, and operations research to build step-level gains in automation, productivity, and efficiency across the product portfolio of enterprise products. She holds a bachelor’s in electronics engineering and MBA from India and a MIMS degree from the UC Berkeley School of Information. Pratibha is a big champion of diversity and inclusion at Meta and believes that every individual brings a unique perspective and value to the table. She is actively involved in efforts that strive to create an environment where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued.

Room 210

Siddharth Agrawal (MIMS ’15)

Siddharth is a seasoned product manager currently working at Amazon, where he leads a team responsible for building visual components and foundational tools for designers and developers across the org. This empowers cross-functional Amazon teams to seamlessly deliver a cohesive, accessible, and inclusive shopping experience for customers. Siddharth holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and began his career as a software engineer, contributing to the development of LTE technology at Cisco Systems. After completing his master's at the I School, Siddharth transitioned into product management, leveraging his engineering background to drive the successful launch and scaling of transformative products at both tech startups and industry-leading enterprises. His diverse product portfolio has spanned impactful innovations in data storage, data compliance, data security, and observability solutions.

Brad Andrews (MIMS ’07)

Brad joined Google after graduating the MIMS program and has happily pursued his career journey there as an software engineering manager ever since. He has led teams throughout the technology stack, from site reliability engineering for Gmail (when it was still a beta product!) through to mobile app development leadership for Google Maps (when it passed its 15th anniversary). He also led development teams in Google Cloud, focusing on the reliability and scalability of Google’s infrastructure. Brad currently is leading a team to apply artificial intelligence to make Google’s backbone network more reliable and less costly to operate.

Brad has focused on a few themes throughout his career. One is aligning people and teams to each other and to an organization’s goals. He has observed that the difference between success and failure can be due to misalignment or lack of a well-understood strategy. A second theme has been focusing on user and developer experiences. By attending to the needs of whoever is using a product or framework, he and his teams ensure that they are building the right thing. A third theme is engagement with and empowerment of underrepresented communities in the technology field. At Google, Brad has led or participated in numerous diversity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives in order to better serve underrepresented members of our community. By ensuring that everyone thrives, he knows that we build healthier teams and better products.

Prior to Google and his MIMS degree in 2007, Brad worked at UC Berkeley building out the residential network including the first WiFi network in the UC Berkeley residence halls Brad received a B.A. in psychology from Stanford University in 1998. He lives in San Francisco with his partner, two kids, and lazy dog Oscar.

Diana Stepner (MIMS ’04)

Diana, from Silicon Valley, is a product leader with over 15 years guiding technology teams globally. Her career spans startups like E.piphany and Cheapflights (acquired by Kayak), as well as SimplePractice, alongside roles in enterprise organizations such as Salesforce, Monster, and Pearson. Additionally, she has worked in digital agencies like Razorfish (Publicis) and done consulting at Epsilon. Diana prioritizes people in her approach to product management, emphasizing innovation, being a dot-connector and coaching individuals through their product journey. Her academic background includes a MIMS from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Boston University.

Suhaib Syed (MIMS ’15)

Suhaib is a senior interaction designer at Google, working on making Android ecosystem devices work better together. He has 12 years of experience working at the intersection of people and technology. He previously worked as a principal interaction designer at SAP Labs where he got the opportunity to research and design 3D user interfaces, AR applications, and a platform for designing enterprise applications.

He’s married to another I School graduate, Robyn Perry, and they together have two young and adorable children. He cherishes his I School memories.

His mother-in-law thinks he knows everything and he can contribute thoughtfully to a conversation about anything except sports (yes, not even cricket). Outside his day job, he loves to undertake serious learning adventures and be a dad. He followed up his I School education with a crash course in cultural anthropology at Stanford. He is looking forward to learning about the creative and brilliant exploits of the latest batch of soon-to-be I School graduates.