New Fellows, New RDV!

Earlier this year, we wrote about our renewed commitment to fostering responsible innovation on campuses across the nation. Our team set out to find the best and brightest students across the notion to join us as the newest members of the RDV family.

After meeting hundreds of students across dozens of schools, we couldn’t be more excited to share the newest cohort of Rough Draft Fellows!

Venture Fellows

Alexis Coates, HBS

My childhood curiosity turned into an engineering career in applied R&D and product development. After receiving a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a research focus in human-robot interaction from the Georgia Institute of Technology, I joined The Boeing Company in Los Angeles. Hands-on experiences in deep technical areas like spacecraft and launch systems, computer vision, autonomy, and customer support allowed me to create human-centric disruptive mobility concepts and systems that pushed the future of aviation. Now in my first year at Harvard Business School, I’m seeking alternative ways to shape the innovation ecosystem.

I joined RDV to join a community of people committed to investing in the future by taking big bets in the present. As an early-stage investor at Rough Draft Ventures, I am excited to promote equitable access to capital for mission-driven student founders.

Keren Duque, UC Berkeley

Originally from the Philippines, I moved to the United States to study at UC Berkeley. I was actually supposed to major in chemical engineering, but felt strongly pulled to Berkeley’s rich ecosystem of tech entrepreneurship. At Berkeley, I’ve explored these interests through Sigma Eta Pi, an entrepreneurship fraternity where I’ve met a handful of incredible student founders. I’ve also interned at Planet Labs, a satellite imaging company, was Head of Operations at Groundwork.so, and was a fellow at Womxn Ignite, an incubator for women in tech.

I’ve experienced first-hand how hard it is to a) run a company, b) raise funding, c) balance school and d) have a social life as a student founder. I’m excited to join RDV to support student founders from the ground up!

Maurice Gilbert, Florida A&M

Growing up in Ocala, FL, a rural but quickly developing area within central Florida, I witnessed firsthand how access to capital has the potential to transform communities. In my first year in college I joined BLK Capital Management, successfully ran for the student senate, and pledged Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity. Recently, I’ve chartered a chapter of Scholars of Finance, a nonprofit organization with goals to create a future where all finance leaders steward the world’s capital to serve the greater good, and interned with Roark Capital Group, a private equity firm in Atlanta, GA.

I am as excited as ever to leave a positive impact on society. By joining Rough Draft Ventures, I have the ability to further my interests and and develop along with a team dedicated to providing young people the tools to continue transforming the world.

Rani Kubersky, NYU Stern

Hi! I am a first-year MBA at NYU Stern School of Business. I began my career at Anthos Capital while an undergraduate at WashU. Prior to business school, I also co-founded a syndicate community called 4P Ventures, where I invested in early-stage companies including Leda Health, Couplet Coffee, Brij, and Debbie. At NYU, I am a Venture Fellow at the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute and sit on the boards of the PE/VC Club and the Entrepreneurship & Startup Organization.

I am passionate about supporting women and folks who have been traditionally underrepresented in startups. I am interested in healthcare, fintech, the circular economy, and web3. I am excited to leverage both my network at NYU and professional experiences to support exceptional founders with RDV.

Claudia Meng, Yale University

I am a senior at Yale studying Ethics, Politics and Economics with a certificate in Data Science.  I have experience investing in software at Advent International, health tech at KKR, and prior to that was an impact investing intern at Better Ventures. On campus, I co-chair the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking’s Student Advisory Board, working to build a vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystem at Yale.

I joined RDV to partner with student founders who love what they’re building. Through RDV, I am most excited by the opportunity to help student founders access the capital they need to scale, and connect with the right resources to make great ideas even more powerful.

Mohith Mothukuri, Columbia University

Hi, I’m Mohith! I’m a junior at Columbia University studying Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering. I have a strong interest in robotics, industrial design and computer graphics. Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of working on several frontiers technologies, including drones for national security, smart wearables for cyclists and martial artists, and low-cost prosthetics for amputees in developing regions. With so many technologies finally ripe for commercial and industrial use – from computer vision to additive manufacturing – it’s an awesome time to be an engineer and an even better time to be working on moonshots.

Having worked on my own startup and having been involved in startups and venture throughout my time at Columbia, I joined RDV to empower student founders to bring their ideas to life and learn what it takes to build a great company.

Emily Pate, MIT Sloan

As a second year MBA student at MIT Sloan, I have emphasized re-shaping analytical skills honed as a naval intelligence officer into ones that can be applied to venture capital. I joined the Navy after graduating from Harvard College in 2016 with a degree in Applied Mathematics. It was the adventure of a lifetime and included a round-the-world deployment. I am passionate about leveraging everything I learned in the Navy from being scrappy enough to locate the information critical to key operational assessments to managing and assessing team dynamics in tense, chaotic environments – not too different from the startup experience.

RDV attracted me as a way to gain hands on experience and autonomy as an investor beyond even what a traditional internship can provide. I am excited to dive into sectors like consumer and sports technology, especially as a former competitive rock climber. I am thrilled to be an RDV Fellow this year and working with a stellar team equally passionate about supporting student founders.

Jenny Wang, MIT Sloan

I’m a first-year MBA candidate at MIT Sloan. In college, I fell into entrepreneurship and technology while studying Business and International Relations. I joined Citi Ventures (venture arm of Citibank), expecting to learn from successful founders and the metrics necessary to achieve growth-stage scale. And I did, but more importantly, I witnessed the synergies resulting from partnering with the same category-defining startups that had disrupted the industry. To me, venture investing is about helping to realize “what could be” and working with those that see the world differently.

Armed with this buy-side exposure, I joined a Natural Language Processing (NLP) startup where I led the development and go-to-market of solutions for the F50. As an RDV fellow, I’m excited to leverage these unique perspectives to help student founders commercialize their inventions from the very first draft!

Tim Wu, Stanford University

I grew up in Calgary, Canada but am currently optimizing for sun at Stanford (’22 → ’23) studying BioE and MS&E. Through undergrad, I have spent time in pharma, venture, hedge funds, non-profits, consulting, and various startups trying to understand how technology can be packaged and productized for end consumers. Recently, I spent my gap year building new business lines at Carbon Health – the 2nd fastest growing private company in the US (2021). The RDV community interfaces with a community of impact-driven founders + fellows who understand that implementation is just as important as the product or technology.

Alan Xie, Harvard Business School

I’m a first-year MBA student at Harvard Business School with a professional background in product management. Although I studied computer science in undergrad and grad school, I actually wrote my first line of code as a college sophomore. As a self-identified humanities person, I see artistic creativity and technology as two sides of the same coin, and I spend a lot of time reading books and newsletters about pretty much everything. I’m currently interested in consumer social, new media and user-generated content, and enterprise productivity SaaS (plus the metaverse).

In the past, I’ve served on a corporate philanthropic board, been elected to local public office, and developed an original TV pilot. I’ve worked as a software engineer at both a cybersecurity startup and litigation finance fund; I’ve also been a PM at Microsoft and a founder in the entertainment analytics space. I’m excited to join Rough Draft because I believe that successful startups are built on the backs of successful founders, and we’re uniquely positioned to identify and cultivate those people.

Max Zang, Northeastern University

My name is Max Zang and I am a Junior at Northeastern University studying Finance and Entrepreneurship. I am originally from South America, was born in Chile and my parents are from Argentina, and moved to Miami when I was 10.

I have previous experience working in biz dev at a seed-stage startup, consulting at BCG where I focused on tech transformations and organizational restructuring, and venture at IDEA: Northeastern’s Venture Accelerator, where I wrote 10-30k non-equity checks into Northeastern student founders.

I joined RDV to promote entrepreneurship and encourage leadership across the Northeastern campus and I’m super excited to connect with amazing student founders in Boston and across the country.

Kasey Zhang, Northeastern University

Hey there! I’m Kasey, a current third year at Northeastern University studying Business Administration. I’ve been heavily involved with the Entrepreneurs Club on-campus; last spring, I ran the university’s official venture incubator & startup pitch competition. I got my start in entrepreneurship completely by chance – I was a professional esports coach for a couple years before co-founding an esports startup in early 2020. After the company was acquired, I joined Glasswing Ventures (early-stage VC firm) in Boston as an investment analyst!

I’m interested in a variety of sectors ranging from creator economy & gaming all the way to deep tech & AI/ML. I’m joining Rough Draft Ventures to invest in and provide support for students much brighter than myself!

Basecamp Fellows

Jack McClelland, Boston College

I’m a Boston College senior studying Computer Science and Finance with experience at a dozen venture-backed and unicorn startups including CrowdStrike and Eightfold as well as eight VC firms including Accel and Battery Ventures. I first became interested in entrepreneurship after co-founding a startup in high school with two friends. I’m most interested in DeFi, FinTech, software, security, and developer tools startups!

I’m hyped to join RDV at a time where we’re re-imagining what our group can do – and I hope to contribute by running some creative projects.

Priyanka Kumar, Harvard University

I am a Junior at Harvard University majoring in Economics with a secondary in Computer Science and am a Coca-Cola Scholar and Blankfein Family Goldman Sachs Scholar. I am also the Vice President of Harvard Undergraduate Capital Partners, an organization that partners with VC clients totaling $27B AUM on sourcing and due diligence projects. During my freshman year, I started the HUCP Innovation Fund to support early-stage entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds by providing equity-free grants of up to $10K and thousands of dollars in partnership credits to any Harvard-affiliated founder.

I am also very passionate about robotics and spent two summers at General Electric’s Research and Development Robotics Group creating crawler robots and drones for the inspection and maintenance industry in the aviation and energy sectors. Outside of robotics, I care a lot about creating better access to education for individuals from all backgrounds; I spent the past summer at Acceptitas, an early-stage education technology startup!

I joined RDV to help student founders achieve their goals and meet some of the most passionate young entrepreneurs out there! I’m most excited to help them with their go-to-market strategy and support founders from diverse backgrounds.

Alex Chin, Harvard University

Hi I’m Alex! I’m a senior at Harvard studying computer science and math with a minor in education. I see startups as one of the best tools to improve the world, and I’m particularly excited about solving problems in education, machine learning, and structural inequality.

I’m excited to build community at RDV to empower student founders and investors to continue to create awesome change.