Community & Guest List

Bobak Emamian is the CEO of Prolific Interactive, a mobile product agency based in Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Durham. Through an innovative approach to creating products, Prolific has delivered mobile experiences for leading brands including SoulCycle, American Express, Saks Fifth Avenue, TB12, Gap, CrossFit, and Sephora. Founded in 2009, Bobak's mix of technical capabilities and business acumen has been integral in Prolific's rapid growth. He graduated from the School of Business at Quinnipiac University, where he studied Entrepreneurship. He also played on Quinnipiac's baseball team, where he met co-founder Eric Weber.

Brandon is the CEO and Founder of Parkes Philanthropy, a social impact consulting firm, managing over 90+ years of collective experience. Parkes Philanthropy is dedicated to equip the non-profits, corporations and individuals with the ideas and resources and support they need to positively impact the world.

He previously served as a Senior Consultant for Bridge Philanthropic Consulting LLC, nations largest African-American fundraising firm. Prior, he was the Nonprofit Engagement Manager at CariClub, an AI tech company that connects young professionals to leadership roles on nonprofit boards.

He has formerly worked in a corporate philanthropic capacity for companies such as Morgan Stanley and Toyota.

Through these professional titles, he gained experience supporting effective philanthropic strategy that increases social impact, external/internal engagement and nonprofit capacity building. He was humbled to be named one of CauseArtists’s “20 Inspiring African Americans Impacting the World Through Social Impact & Social Innovation,” named one of Startup Boost’s NYC 33 under 33, and has been featured in several publications such as Black Enterprise, Blavity, Nonprofit Technology News, and Blacks in Technology. It’s Brandon’s passion to empower any constituent looking to make a positive social impact on the world.

Brooke Brown is a female entrepreneur in the DMV area. She is the mid-atlantic battle of the bottle Champion (mixology competition). Her business Top Shelf Mixology, Mixology & Bar Consulting offers alcohol certification, mixology classes, bartending services and bar consulting.

Björgvin Benediktsson is an audio engineer, musician, and entrepreneur from Iceland currently living in Tucson, Arizona. He is the best-selling author of Step By Step Mixing: How to Create Great Mixes Using Only 5 Plug-ins. He helps home studio musicians make better sounding music by teaching them how to record and produce themselves at www.audio-issues.com. In addition to being an audio educator, he is an expert in online impact through authority building, thought leadership and email marketing at www.BBenediktsson.com

Buwa Binitie is the CEO and Founder of Dumas Collective where he directs the acquisition, development, management, and financial activities of the firm. Under the development division Dantes Partners, Mr. Binitie obtained extensive tax credit financing experience (LIHTC, NMTC and HTC) and has closed on financing from nearly every public capital source available including HOME, HPTF, NSP, CDBG and NIF. Mr. Binitie maintains a narrow focus on creatively structuring deals that strive to address the need of his clients, community stakeholders as well as various government agency partners. By narrowly focusing on efficiently financing community development transactions, Mr. Binitie has been successful in adding value beyond the numbers. His career is underscored by a commitment to creating and preserving affordable and workforce housing. Since founding Dantes Partners, Mr. Binitie and the collective have closed nearly $1.6 billion of unconventional real estate transactions that utilize low-income tax credits, new market tax credits, tax-exempt bonds, and various other forms of alternative financing. Mr. Binitie is the former Chairman of DC Housing Finance Agency Board of Directors and a Board Member of DC Building Industry Association.