Meet the 2021 Women Who Empower Innovator Award Winners

Binja Basimike, BHS’12, MPH’14 | Kivu Venture Capital

A known leader, innovator, and adventurer, Binja Basimike has hit the ground running after landing in her current home of Congo to develop Kivu Venture Capital. This VC firm’s goal is to create a network of female African foodpreneurs who can identify the most lucrative, sustainable, and nutritious fish; help alleviate poverty and malnutrition in their own lives and in their communities; and grow their personal brands so other women and girls can see the fishing industry as one in which they can thrive. By supporting this unique group, Basimike’s goal is to create a legacy of African entrepreneurship, as well as change the perspective of what women can accomplish.

Camille Martin, PhD’20 | Alexandria Growth Brands

Camille Martin is reimagining the future of consumer goods one industry at a time. Her journey started with co-founding Seaspire, a company that focuses on bringing new ingredients to the market to treat cosmetic and chronic skin conditions. As a first-time founder, Martin was able to obtain $1 million in funding with the support of countless resources and experienced mentors. She now wants to leverage her ever-growing network and skillset to create a more equitable environment for entrepreneurs through her latest venture, Alexandria Growth Brands. Martin is focused on growing the businesses of a diverse group of entrepreneurs who, like her, are finding solutions to common problems.

Natasha Ibori, SSH’18 | Uwana Energy

Women in the energy industry are few and far between, but Natasha Ibori is looking to change that. Through Uwana Energy, a company focused on the importance of human connection, Ibori is adding her own flare to the male-dominated field. When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life and proved how intertwined connection and energy truly are, Uwana Energy helped Nigerians receive free or reduced-cost electricity, allowing them to overcome their scarcity mindsets and return to prioritizing their mental health, finances, productivity, digital connections, families, and more.

Cassie Choi, BHS’13 | Pair Team

Cassie Choi has always had a passion for healthcare and knack for serving others. Her years in medicine run the gamut, from working as an ER tech and critical care nurse to serving as director of operations for a health technology company. These experiences allowed Choi to realize that her passion lay in helping vulnerable populations and improving primary care practices, so she co-founded Pair Team with a friend who felt the same. Pair Team is a platform with a mission to simplify healthcare by creating more meaningful relationships between patients, providers, staff, and administrators, providing more support for everyone involved in the process.

Jameson Johnson, AMD’19 | Boston Art Review

A lover of storytelling and collaborating, Jameson Johnson founded the Boston Art Review, a publication to foster conversations around a diverse selection of writing, art, and perspectives, during her time at Northeastern. Johnson’s goal in creating the Boston Art Review was to bridge the gaps between coverage, criticism, and community engagement in Boston, ultimately creating a platform that gives voice to people who are often underrepresented in this space.

Emily White, AS’05 | Collective Entertainment

Emily White revolutionized voter turnout in an unprecedented fashion. What started with the #ivoted hashtag and showing polling place selfies to enter concert venues has turned into the iVoted Festival, one of the biggest digital music festivals ever, with hundreds of artists performing via webcast throughout the country. This undertaking, which changed the game for voter participation, would not be possible without White and her 200-volunteer team, comprised of 92-percent female, non-binary, POC, and/or LGBTQ+ individuals.

Thai-Anh Hoang, DMSB’06 | EmBeba

When Thai-Anh Hoang was on an international vacation, and her toddler got a severe rash, the ointment she had brought along did not suffice. A friend gifted Hoang’s family with a homemade remedy consisting of ingredients that grew in their garden. The rash cleared up—and Hoang’s wheels started turning. Through her brand, EmBeba, she has merged generation-tested remedies with technology to create clean, effective, easy, safe, and fun products, while launching a support system for families dealing with skin issues like the ones she faced with her toddler.

Deborah Keane, BHS’86 | California Caviar Company

When Deborah Keane asked her daughter what an innovator was, her daughter described the term as somebody who loves her job, does greater good for others, and keeps setting new goals with no limits. And Keane couldn’t agree more, as someone who founded the first sustainable and woman-owned caviar company in the U.S. Her business, the California Caviar Company, is run by her and other fearless women, many of whom are minorities, single-moms, and/or abuse survivors. Together, they make sure that the California Caviar Company is practicing what it preaches, sparking change, and seeing success after thoughtful, persistent work.

Gabrielle Whittle, E’21 | Relevé

Gabrielle Whittle sees engineering as a perfect outlet for combining her curiosity for math and science with her passion for the arts and creative expression to effect positive change. Her knowledge and interests laid the groundwork for founding Relevé, a brand that centers on the empowerment of women through comfortable and fashionable shoes. With Relevé, Whittle is becoming the woman she aspired to be in her college admissions essay, someone who feeds her artistic spirit, but also solves real-world problems, like the infamously painful women’s high heel.

Mya Brown, DMSB’21 | Jet Noire

After suffering an immense loss and going through the motions to cope, Mya Brown felt ready to create a positive disruption in the fashion industry and built Jet Noire. Brown’s goal with Jet Noire is to integrate environmental health, social equity, and economic vitality through fashion. All of Brown’s pieces are built on a triangle sliding scale, meaning a Jet Noire item can be a shirt today, a pair of pants tomorrow, and a bag the next day. Uniquely, they are also constructed to be deconstructed, just as Brown knows life can be sometimes.

Khailah Griffin, DMSB’22 | UnorthoDOCx

A childhood filled with many moves taught Khailah Griffin to constantly look at the big picture. And though she always saw herself as more of a problem solver as opposed to an inventor, her venture, UnorthoDOCx, is nothing short of an innovation. The goal of UnorthoDOCx is to empower and diversify individuals in the field of medicine, show those who are interested in medical professions that there’s room for everyone in the medical world, and encourage people to unapologetically take an unconventional path to become a medical professional, like Griffin did herself.

Molly Beck, DMSB’09, MS’22 | Messy.fm

Savvy, smart and spirited, Molly Beck has always loved building, inventing, and having her hand in various entertainment revolutions. Once an avid blogger, Beck realized that the podcast revolution was starting up and decided to capitalize on that. Her company, Messy.fm, is offering podcasting software solutions to companies looking to fill the gap between their internal communication and the rising trend of the thin line between entertainment and infotainment.

Shital Waters, Khoury’23 | BluePlanetAI

When Shital Waters went off to college, she saw so many women were changing the world, and she wanted to be one of them. Inspired by stories, guidance, and advice provided by these women, and her belief that looking after oceans needed to be a priority, she founded BluePlanetAI. Her company focuses on tackling the challenges of harmful algae blooms using a drone. Today, Waters aspires to involve women in tech entrepreneurship and to create systems like hers that positively effect the environment.

Michelle Calderon, DMSB’21 | Addition Beauty

Michelle Calderon credits her success to her diversified career journey, which includes her venture, Addition Beauty, being selected to be part of Northeastern’s NSF I-Corps program. This program puts a strong emphasis on customer discovery, which allowed Calderon to study what women want in terms of personal care products related to fertility and pregnancy. Based on her research, Calderon is using Addition Beauty to launch the first sustainable color cosmetic line that doesn’t have harmful chemicals that affect pregnant women and their developing children, empowering women to make safer choices during this critical point in their lives.

Aniyah Smith, DMSB’21

A desire for representation served as a catalyst for the entrepreneurial journey of Aniyah Smith, a self-described born leader, lifelong learner, and creative thinker. Through her venture, Smith is looking to build her beauty brand, Push Beauty, to be inclusive, representative of a culture she wishes she had in the industry years prior, and a story of confidence and self-expression that everyone can see themselves in.