User:ID19165328/sandbox

= Deena Shakir = Deena Shakir is a venture capital investor and Partner at Lux Capital, where she invests in emerging technologies with a focus on digital health and AI for analog industries. Deena was previously a Partner at GV, a New Business Development Executive at Google, and a Presidential Management Fellow in Secretary Clinton’s office at the U.S. State Department during the Obama administration. A Forbes contributor, Shakir is also a frequent speaker, podcast guest, and has been featured in TechCrunch , The Wall Street Journal , Fortune and Crunchbase , among others.

Education
Shakir earned a joint Bachelors of Art with honors in Social Studies and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard and an MA from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.

Early Life
Shakir was born to Iraqi immigrants and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area before attending Harvard for her undergraduate education. She has been financially independent since the age of 18, and self-funded her undergraduate and graduate degrees through a variety of merit scholarships and part-time jobs, including co-founding her first internet company while still in college. Shakir was elected by her peers to deliver the Harvard 2008 Class Day speech: "From Baghdad to Boston: Dropping the Global H-Bomb" which was received with acclaim.

Career
After a brief career in journalism anchoring a bilingual Arabic-English news show for Al-Arabiya and interning with the BBC, Shakir served as a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. State Department under Secretary Clinton, where she led public-private partnerships and helped launch Global Entrepreneurship Summit. She was previously an Aga Khan Fellow at The Aspen Institute and an advisor at USAID.

Shakir joined Google in 2012, leading product partnerships for civic innovation at Google.org. From 2012-2017, she led product partnerships for early-stage products in healthcare, machine learning, Fiber, jobs, and search at Google, and also directed social impact investments at Google.org before joining GV as a Partner in 2017.

Shakir joined Lux Capital as a Partner in late 2019. She has led Lux’s investments in H1, Allstripes , Shiru , Mos , and Neo.tax , among others. She is a founding VC member of the Valence Funding Network for Black entrepreneurs, and a public commentator on diversity and inclusion in venture capital and technology.

Board Roles
Shakir currently serves on the Boards of Directors of H1, Shiru , and Allstripes (fka RDMD). Shakir also serves on the Boards of several non-profits including Tarjimly, TechWadi, Technovation and AMIDEAST. She has also previously served on the boards of the Arab Film Festival, the Asian University for Women, and The Harvard Arab Alumni Association.

Honors
Shakir is a Kauffman Fellow (Class 23) and a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member. She was the first Arab-American to be accepted to the Mellon Mays Fellowship while an undergraduate at Harvard, and was also a Weissman Fellow, a Coca Cola Scholar, a U.S. Senate Youth Scholar, and an Al Neuharth Free Spirit Scholar.

Conferences

 * Social Innovation Summit: (2019, 2018 )
 * Pre-Money Conference: Failure Points (2018 )
 * J&J Webinar on Precision Medicine/Diversity & Inclusion (2020 )
 * Future of Food: (2020 )
 * Allraise VC Summit: (2020 )
 * TechWadi (2014 )

Select Podcast Features

 * Investing in Category Defining, Frontier Industries with Rina Onur (2020 )
 * Venture Stories: How COVID-19 is Transforming Digital Health with Erik Torenberg and Kristin Baker Spohn(2020 )
 * Something Ventured with Keith Lindstrom (2020 )
 * Venture Unlocked with Samir Kaji (2020 )
 * Strictly VC with Connie Loizos (2020 )

Select Profile Features

 * Forbes: “How This Lux Capital GP Went From The Obama Administration To Google To Investor—Plus, The Top 3 Characteristics Founders Should Look For In Investors” (2020 )
 * Technovation Herstory Interview (2020 )
 * Her Agenda Interview (2020 )
 * AllRaise Profile (2020 )
 * Golden State Lead By Example (2019 )
 * 10 Arab Americans to Watch (2017 )
 * Barakabits Profile (2014)

Select Commentary

 * TC Feature on Valence Network for Black Founders (2019 )
 * TC: Leading VC’s Discuss How COVID-19 Has Impacted the Future of Healthcare (2020 )
 * Digital Health: Lux Capital's Deena Shakir Sees Space and Frontier Tech Going Mainstream Right Now (2020 )
 * Why Elon Musk And Other Tech Billionaires Are Leaving Silicon Valley For Texas (2020 )
 * Orrick - we can’t lose ground (2020 )