Vicky Wu Davis, Founder & Mother Hen (as dubbed by her students)
Vicky Wu Davis is an entrepreneur, educator, activist, angel investor, and mom. Through her various roles, Vicky works to bridge disparate communities, cultivating genuine appreciation for diversity, which in turn fosters innovation and promotes the proliferation of diversity in all areas of leadership.
Inspired by the birth of her older son, Vicky channeled her prior decade of tech (videogames, mobile tech) and social (orphans/foster care) entrepreneurship experiences to create yCITIES (Creating Impact Through Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainability). Vicky has also been an angel investor for almost a decade, investing primarily in early-stage tech and medical innovation companies through Beacon Angels and TBD Angels.
Vicky has been a mentor at MIT’s Venture Mentor Services for the past 18 years, which supports innovation and entrepreneurial activity throughout the MIT community, and is the Co-Founder of “A Seat at the Table”, aimed at redefining leadership representation when important conversations take place. She also sits on the Advisory Board for Gordon College’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.
Vicky often speaks about innovation, diversity, and education reform (such as Opening Keynote for the 2016 MA Annual STEM Summit, and Keynote for the 2016 Empower Schools Conference). Vicky’s entrepreneurial and educational leadership has been recognized numerous times over the course of her career, such as the Kauffman Foundation for “Entrepreneurs Giving Back”; 2004 Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” Honoree; Red Herring’s cover story “Young Moguls: 20 Outstanding Entrepreneurs Under 35” in 2005; 2015 WomenUp Honoree as a local woman of influence; 2015 Bostinno’s Fifty on Fire nominee; 2016 Boston Women of Influence Honoree; a 2016 GK25 Boston’s Most Influential People of Color Honoree; and 2016 Mass Technology Leadership Council’s Distinguished Leadership Awardee. She is often quoted in various founder how-to books, including the recent “LAUNCHING WHILE FEMALE: Smashing the System That Holds Women Entrepreneurs Back”.
When Vicky’s not working, she can be found with her 3 kids playing ball or playing games. She loves everything about baseball, including coaching Little League, and is an avid dancer and boxer.
Andrew Holmes, Learning Design Support & Product Engineer, yCITIES alum
Andrew Holmes is a recent graduate from Olin College, a project-based engineering school that emphasizes teaming experiences and engineering that starts and ends with people. He has specialized in designing for a diverse range of people including older adults, dancers who use wheelchairs, gastroenterologists, factory workers at a textile mill, and professional CAD users.
Andrew got his start as an engineer during middle school, with the help and support of his engineering/technology teachers, building 3D printers and integrating them into the classroom. As a sophomore in high school, he participated in yCITIES’ M2M Bootcamp, a startup clinic that emphasizes problem identification, (in)validating hypotheses through a discovery process and leveraging entrepreneurial principles to impact the community. That’s when he realized the potential for engineers to make a difference and have a real impact. Olin was the perfect place for his newfound entrepreneurial spirit and excitement for engineering.
While Andrew was a student at Olin, he still kept in touch with yCITIES and served as a student mentor in both the M2M Bootcamp, as well as the L3 Innovation Challenge (a design-thinking-meets-hackathon bootcamp). Now a working professional at 3D design company Onshape, he adds guest instructor for the L3 Innovation Challenge, and Skunkworks (yCITIES’ prototyping lab) mentor to his existing mentoring role at yCITIES. Given his history as a yCITIES student, and now full circle as a mentor/instructor, Andrew has a unique lens to the student journey of innovation and entrepreneurial leadership…he will be using that lens to document the journey of student innovators through a series of blog posts.
In his spare time, you can find Andrew fixing up an old 1980s Mercedes with his friends for a 24-hour endurance race, or nerding out about all things Nintendo.
Joanna Lin, Marketing and Community Relations Director, yCITIES alum
Joanna Lin is an enthusiastic founder, changemaker, and junior at Boston Latin School. She finds joy in learning about, coming up with, and taking action on new ideas, initiatives, and solutions to solve society’s issues. Passionate about creative and graphic design, she founded and currently oversees Aurea Co. Prints, a wall art Etsy shop with over 5,000 sales. With interests in advocacy, Joanna teaches ESOL learning at her local immigrant English learning program, co-directs the Workforce and Economic Development Committee of Boston’s Mayor’s Youth Council and is an editor for the News section of her school’s newspaper.
She first discovered her interests in entrepreneurship and impact-making through yCITIES bootcamps (L3 Innovation Challenge and M2M Bootcamp) and loved the yCITIES world so much that she attended three. Through yCITIES, she met a diverse group of passionate and action-oriented youth with a shared goal of making the world a better place, who challenged and uplifted each other — something that she had never before experienced.
With a focus on content-creating and sharing about yCITIES to different communities, Joanna is excited to share to the world how yCITIES is helping entrepreneurship become more inclusive, open, and impactful.
In her free time, you can find Joanna playing French horn and mini crosswords, designing graphic art, studying Roman Culture for her Certamen team, reading, hanging out with her orange cat, or following the Marvel timeline. She also loves to dance.
Davidson Guerrier, Alumni Relations & IG Media Lead, yCITIES alum
Born in Cambridge, MA, and raised in Miami, Florida, Davidson graduated from Boston Public Schools and is now studying Mechanical Engineering at Wentworth College.
What draws Davidson to entrepreneurship is the fact that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, and that you can live out your passion by being an entrepreneur. Davidson has a strong passion for changing and improving what’s around him. He has the vision to help those who can not help themselves or do not know how to. He is also an advocate for youth voice, and a calling to help “awaken” his peers to the importance and impact that young people have within society. He has spent a lot of time observing himself and those around him, and during this journey, he came to understand that our lives are ripe for the future but rotten for the present. What does he mean by that? Today marks the start for tomorrow. What you decide to do today literally decides what happens tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Our lives are like a chain of events — whatever happens today dictates how tomorrow goes. So why not write your own story?
Davidson likes to recall Benjamin Franklin’s quote, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!”, reminding himself (and inspiring those around him) to plan for success. Davidson is currently a manager-in-training at Chase Bank (while studying at Wentworth College), and continues to actively explore entrepreneurial initiatives. Davidson is Founder of Imperialpix, a photography business, and is co-founder of Regal, a company focused on the progression of youth. He is also working on growing an e-commerce venture. Davidson loves to be part of the yCITIES, with its many opportunities for education, and its community of amazing people who he believes will rock the existence of everyone around them. When Davidson is not pursuing his entrepreneurial ambitions, he indulges in his many hobbies. He is an avid musician (piano, guitar, drums), loves basketball, and is a car enthusiast.
Megan Balani, Alumni Relations, yCITIES alum
Megan Balani is a junior at Boston University pursuing a degree in Sociology and Entrepreneurship. She got her start in entrepreneurship when she was a senior in high school participating in yCITIES’ M2M Bootcamp (formerly known as Youth CITIES’ March to May Bootcamp). For her, having a community where she can go back to recover, learn, recharge, and have support from is essential to her life and development as a strong, well-nurtured character. In yCITIES, she found people who challenged the fabrics of truth within our society through discussion and made her comfortable with her own skin color. This was a space where she finally felt valued for her ideas and curiosity. The challenging environment stretched the fibers of her “cocoon of comfortability” and has continued until this day to develop her into a person who can understand and empathize with people and work together to find a solution to their issues.
She has a vision for a business that sells clothes that are more size-inclusive towards people of color since fashion has continued to marginalize them. While fleshing out the idea, she gets insights and inspiration from two places: the BUild Lab at BU and Charcoal Magazine, an on-campus magazine for people of color. At the BUild lab, she spends time researching the need, attends networking nights at the lab, and builds connections with the mentors they provide. With Charcoal, she is a content creator and web designer who writes and uploads articles biweekly. It has given her a creative outlet to write what’s on her mind. Here is an example of one of her articles: https://www.charcoalmag.co/post/sports-and-suits-the-power-of-visualizing
In her free time, she enjoys reading spiritual books, going to networking events on campus, attending orchestral concerts, playing tennis, and trying out new restaurants in Boston.
Kyle Langely, Mentorship Manager
Kyle Langley is an environmental scientist from South Africa with a passion for renewable energy and sustainability. With a master’s in environmental science from Rhodes University, he has generalized in a variety of subjects ranging from sociology to geomorphology and hopes to continue learning and perhaps even specialize one day. Kyle spent a year in Thailand as an exchange student for Rotary, where he fully immersed himself in the language (speaking fluent Thai) and culture while hunting for temples in the jungle. An avid world traveler, he has also spent significant time in Zambia, Cambodia, and Singapore.
Kyle came to the United States in 2019 when his wife started her MBA at Sloan. He then got involved with the MIT community, organizing the MIT Sustainability Summit, the MIT 100k competition, as well as serving as an elected official in the student governing body.
After attending a yCITIES Mini-hack at the CIC/VentureCafe, Kyle got hooked on variety of problem-solving opportunities that was offered. Recognizing that he could draw upon his own experiences as a founder of a digital startup in South Africa while shaping young lives, Kyle has been with yCITIES ever since.
In his spare time, Kyle loves to metalsmith.
Emma Boyd, Bootcamps Lead Mentor, Newsletter Committee, yCITIES Alum
Emma Boyd is a college freshman majoring in Political Science and minoring in Italian, with the intent of going into politics or law. She has been involved with yCITIES since seventh grade, when she participated in and won the L3 Innovation Challenge. Ever since then, a lifelong interest in entrepreneurship, and its virtually limitless applications, ensued. After three years as a competitor, and four years as a student mentor, she views yCITIES as a space for the countless young people with boundless passion and unique ingenuity that provides them with the connections and mentorship necessary to follow through on their untapped potential. The program is one in which differences contribute to the diversity of thought and the confluence of wildly different worldviews and experiences mesh together to create a community of intellectual collaboration and invaluable connection.
In college, Emma has worked to apply the concepts highlighted at yCITIES to real life: she worked for State Senator and gubernatorial candidate Annette Taddeo in her freshman fall, ghostwriting her speeches, drafting press releases for legislation, and managing social media accounts to best reflect the senator’s image. Her speeches have been given in the Florida Senate and her writing is on the Senate website. Here is an example of one of the press releases she worked on, covering a bill protecting workers’ rights: https://www.flsenate.gov/Media/PressReleases/Show/4031
This internship was a challenge, but was greatly facilitated by the skills and experience gained at yCITIES. Concepts like stakeholders, the Circle of Resources, and strong communication skills are crucial in politics. Trying to pass legislation hinged on personal connections and make-or-break speeches relied on knowing the target demographic being addressed. Although entrepreneurship and politics are wildly different, the intersectionality between the two is crucial, and provides an example of just how applicable yCITIES is to real-world applications.