We discussed a few things including

1. Their career journeys

2. Miami ecosystem

3. Austin/Texas ecosystem

4. Trends, opps and challenges for entrepreneurs and startup communities

5. Outlook for 2026

Melissa Medina has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, operator, investor, community leader and philanthropist. A native to Miami, she is CEO & Co-Founder of eMerge Americas with a mission of helping transform South Florida into a global tech hub.

The eMerge Americas signature event, launched in 2014, is a global tech conference held annually at the Miami Beach Convention Center - this year's event is on April 22-24. With Melissa’s leadership, the eMerge Americas conference now attracts more than 20,000+ attendees from over 50 countries. In addition to the annual conference, eMerge organizes year-round executive summits, innovation challenges, startup pitch competitions, masterclasses, webinars, a world-class global accelerator program, as well as publishes venture activity and investment insights reports.

Melissa is also a Partner at Medina Ventures, an early-stage venture fund, as well as the President of the Medina Family Foundation, which has a mission to fund local initiatives that focus on mentoring children and empowering families. Melissa was named by the South Florida Business Journal as one of the “2023 Power Leaders in Technology.”

Melissa also sits on the Board of The Miami Foundation. She is passionate about transforming Miami into a global technology hub and supporting Miami-based non-profits who seek to empower tomorrow’s leaders. Most importantly, Melissa is a mother and most passionate about her 5 children.

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Experienced in economic development, public policy, and venture capital, Paul O'Brien puts a focus on shaping the systems that enable entrepreneurship and innovation. He leads legislative and coalition strategy for Founder Institute, around issues impacting startups, capital formation, and civic infrastructure, and as publisher of Startup Economist.

With a passion for media innovation and investment, Paul seeded MediaTech Ventures, a media industry venture development group. Former Venture Partner in Meaningful Ventures, O'Brien is Founder and Director of Funded House and Director of Founder Institute for Texas. Historically, a seasoned marketer with an early career at Yahoo! and HP.

From there, Paul led the early growth of startups such as Outright.com (Acquired by GoDaddy), Zvents (Acquired by eBay’s Stubhub), and MicroVentures (Venture Capital). Paul has an unusually strong technical background considering the role he tends to play today; he built websites in the '90s and continues to engineer and produce content at seobrien.com. He was featured in the book, Online Marketing Heroes, and frequently speaks at startup and media conferences.

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We discussed a few things including:

1. Your career journeys

2. Gitte's biotech venture

3. Garnet's venture capital firm

4. Discuss effects of federal policies on innovation ecosystem

5. Discuss outlook for 2026

Garnet Heraman is a serial entrepreneur and investor with 25 years experience at the intersection of innovation + technology. Originally from the island nation of Trinidad & Tobago, he was educated at Columbia University (BA), NYU (MBA) and The London School of Economics.

As a dotcom entrepreneur Garnet had 3 exits, 1 of which was to a publicly traded company. As an investor, he is co-founder and managing partner of Aperture® Venture Capital, a seed stage fintech fund backed by 7 different Fortune 500 corporations.

He is also an LP in other VC funds such as NY InsurTech Fund II and the Berkeley Skydeck Fund, as well as a prolific angel investor. Garnet is highly sought after as a startup technology expert, appearing in over 30 business publications and at events on 5 continents.

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Gitte Pedersen is a scientist, CEO, company builder, and investor with a mission to improve health and sustainability. RNA enthusiast. Focused on helping cancer patients survive through better diagnostics and treatment navigation tools.

Serial entrepreneur. Advised several small and medium-sized biotech companies and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, bringing in +$1B deals to Danish Biotech companies. Advised the European Commission on evidence-based innovation and investment policies.

Won numerous prizes and awards and raised $8M+ in grants. Worked at Novo Nordisk in several management positions, inventing, developing and bringing multiple products to market worldwide.

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We discussed a few things including:

1. Their career journeys
2. Carta
3. Archangel and Techstars
4. Current trends
5. Outlook for investing for 2026

Hamza Shad is an insights manager at Carta, where he analyzes data on startups and the venture capital ecosystem. He leads Carta's quarterly State of Pre-Seed report on early-stage companies and has spoken at Startup Grind, 500 Global, SOSV, the World Bank, and more.

Previously, Hamza conducted research on entrepreneurship in emerging markets at Endeavor. He holds a bachelor's in economics and political science from the University of Chicago and a master's in international development from University of Oxford.

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Mellie Chow is an Engineer turned Entrepreneur / Operator turned Angel Investor / Venture Capitalist with over 25+ years of experience across multiple industries including telecommunications & cable, utilities & power generation, banking, healthcare, government, and food.

She is a Board Advisor at Techstars Toronto Accelerator and a Venture Partner at Archangel Network of Funds, Axion Fund, ventureLAB EIR and University of Delaware - Horn Entrepreneurship - Venture Acceleration Lab mentor.

She is also an adjunct professor at New York University SPS and Elizabethtown College of Competitive Product Strategy. She holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering (University of Waterloo), an MBA (Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management & Schulich).

#podcast #AFewThingsPodcast