*** Update! We've added serial entrepreneur Steve Newcomb, founder of Virgance (description below) and SF Green, to the panel to speak from a for-profit entrepreneur perspective ***

No need to state the obvious; things have changed.  In this new environment there are new questions, but one stands above them all: how do values-based businesses continue to build momentum and turn a down market into a real opportunity for change?

You are invited to an exclusive panel and mixer to learn about and share thoughts around what's changed and how to deal with it with -- specifically focused on engaging site users and consumers -- led and attended by some of the biggest changemakers in the Bay Area. 

Panelists
Premal Shah, President of Kiva.org
Kevin Jones, Principal at Good Capital
Steve Newcomb, Founder of Virgance (description below)

Schedule
Mixer, 7pm - 7:30pm
Panel / Q&A, 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Mixer, 8:30pm - 9:30pm

Cost
None. Rather than charge for admission, we're aiming to raise $400 through donations to cover costs of hosting these events, and to make a collective donation to Kiva.org, in the spirit of the holidays. Please bring cash or check to the event, or PayPal sahuja [at] stanfordalumni [dot] org in advance with what you'd like to give. 

Limited attendance
This is an invite only event with room for 80 attendees, so please RSVP so we know to save you a spot.

Our first event attracted some of the biggest names in social entrepenurship in the Bay Area (http://a2a.eventbrite.com), and our second event focused on developers who wish to "build4change" (http://b4c.eventbrite.com/).

We look forward to seeing you on the 15th!
--
sundeep ahuja, nikki serapio & ryan mickle

Panelist bios
Premal Shah, President of Kiva.org
As President, Premal leads Kiva's efforts to scale its partnerships and member base. Prior to Kiva, Premal was a Principal Product Manager at PayPal, an eBay company. During his 6 year career at PayPal, Premal drove a number of key initiatives including a year long project defining eBay's role in economically empowering the global working poor. A number of corporate initiatives have come out of this effort, including PayPal's support of Kiva. Prior to PayPal, Premal was a strategy consultant at Mercer Management Consulting in New York. Premal has had a long standing interest in microfinance. In 1997, he was awarded a grant from Stanford University to research microfinance in Gujarat, India. More recently Premal co-founded the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network and spent 2 months in India working to refine / validate Kiva's model. In 2006, Premal was a featured speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative and Global Microcredit Summit. Premal graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.

Kevin Jones, Principal at Good Captial
As a founding principal of Good Capital, Kevin leads market formation activities and advisor and portfolio company engagement. He has extensive private investment experience as both a limited partner and as an angel in a range of technology and social enterprises. Kevin’s former positions include CEO of Net Market Makers, an $18 million revenue online community and research and events company. Kevin built Net Market Makers into the largest brand in business-to-business internet commerce before it was sold to Jupiter Media Metrix in 2000. Five of his previous six businesses all achieved market dominance before he left or sold them. As a journalist, Kevin has been a columnist for Forbes and Business 2.0 magazines. He has been on the boards of Social Enterprise Alliance, the association of non profit social enterprises, and Social Venture Partners International, a network of engaged philanthropy circles. Kevin also led a malaria project in Swaziland and Mozambique, working with Jeff Sachs of The Earth Institute at Columbia University.  Early in his career, his reporting was instrumental in sending a Mississippi sheriff to prison on 53 counts of fraud.

Steve Newcomb, Founder of Virgance
Steve is a 38-year-old seasoned entrepreneur, who brings a wealth of web 2.0, startup, environmental and activism experience. Beyond being the founder of Virgance, he is currently the Chairman of the Board of one of the largest Facebook social gaming application companies, Chairman of the Board of Green Options Media, the founder of SF Green, the Bay Area “unconference” focused on green issues and technology, and a member of the policy committee at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, working on green issues. He is also well-known as a founder of Powerset, Promptu Mobile (now Promptu) and Loudfire (sold to Nokia undisclosed) and played an important role as an early employee in Proxicom (sold to DiData ~$440 million) and Eastern Energy Corporation (sold to Statoil for ~$2.4 billion).

What is Virgance? Virgance is a for-profit company that takes new activism ideas and uses the power of online social networks to scale each idea into a large-scale, citizen-powered global campaign to improve the world. Founded in May 2008, Virgance is releasing a series of products that focus on using online social networks to create positive social change.