Ansary Entrepreneurship Competition

CEO, TechUnited:NJ

Aaron Price is CEO of TechUnited:NJ, the region's largest community of innovators, entrepreneurs and investors, and is managing director of BetterFutureLabs, an AI venture studio.

Aaron is a serial entrepreneur and investor and has built several startups, including three successful exits in deliverU, effordables and Propelify – an innovation festival dubbed the "SXSW of the Northeast" by Forbes, which was acquired by TechUnited in 2019.

He has served as a tech expert for the Obama Administration, The Wall Street Journal and others. Aaron lives in Hoboken with his wife, their favorite startups – his daughters – and the family dogs, Moose and Milo.

Founder and CEO, XtremeLabs LLC

Ahmar Abbas is the Founder and CEO of XtremeLabs LLC, an educational technology company focused on delivering hands-on, experiential learning through virtual lab environments. He serves as CEO and as a board member, leading the company’s global growth and product strategy in the digital learning space.

Before founding XtremeLabs, Abbas held senior leadership roles across the technology and IT services industry. He was Vice President of Global Services at Digital Intelligence Systems (DISYS), where he drove new service offerings and global delivery strategy. He also served as Senior Vice President at CSS Corp., overseeing global infrastructure and cloud services.

Earlier in his career, he was Vice President of Managed Hosting Services at Blackboard Inc. and founder of Grid Technology Partners. He has also held senior roles at Ciena Corporation, Zaffire Inc., UUNet Technologies and Salomon Brothers.

Abbas is also an author of the book Grid Computing: A Practical Guide to Technology and Applications (Cengage, 2004) and has been featured in leading publications, including BusinessWeek, CIO and Red Herring.

Abbas has a BE in Electrical Engineering '93 and an MS in Telecommunications Management '06 from Stevens Institute of Technology. While at Stevens, Ahmar was the captain of the squash team and continues to play competitively. He is currently ranked 124th in the U.S. in his age bracket.

Managing Partner, Rallyday

Frank A. Corvino, a scientist, entrepreneur and executive, has dedicated the better part of two decades to being an industry leader, changing the way pharmaceutical and biotech companies conduct research for drug development and commercialization.

Corvino co-founded Genesis Research in 2009 and focused on developing an organization that was innovative in its delivery, client-centric, fun to work at and fun to work with. He built a results-oriented corporate culture through a leadership style that promotes authenticity, diversity of thought and personal growth and fulfillment. A quantitative scientist by training, with numerous publications in mathematics, physics, statistics and healthcare, he has advanced the way epidemiology, health outcomes, medical affairs and market access leverage real-world evidence (RWE) and stakeholder insights for decision-making.

Now, as a Managing Partner at Rallyday, Corvino leverages his entrepreneurial journey and five years as a private equity-backed CEO to connect with leaders on a level that most private equity executives can’t. He empowers leaders to go even bigger, create the most value for the most people and share the experience of a lifetime.

Corvino has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Stevens Institute of Technology and an MBA from Columbia Business School. He is a member of numerous professional societies including ACHE, ISPOR and YPO. He serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Genesis Research, sits on the Board of Advisors for the Stevens School of Business and mentors numerous emerging founders from the New York metro area. Outside of working hours, he can usually be found with his wife and three children. He also enjoys hobbies that keep him out of his comfort zone, like hot yoga, jiu-jitsu, sailing and snowboarding.

Partner (retired), Global Corporate Group, Reed Smith

Gerry DiFiore was a partner in Reed Smith’s Global Corporate Group and served as chairman of the firm's Securities Review Committee. He was a member of the firm’s Emerging Company Practice and its Opinion Committee. He has more than three decades of experience representing clients in equity and debt public offerings, M&A deals, private placements, VC and PE investments, joint ventures, financings, tender offers and similar transactional and governance matters. His experience includes SEC-registered public offerings and global offerings of companies listed in Hong Kong, spin-offs, restructurings and a variety of other transactions.

DiFiore worked in Reed Smith’s Hong Kong office for several years and has considerable experience in cross-border M&A transactions between China and the U.S. He also has considerable experience in advising public companies on their ongoing SEC reporting requirements, disclosure issues, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and corporate governance matters. He started his legal career at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission as a lawyer in the Corporation Finance Division.

DiFiore worked with companies in a variety of industries including life sciences, consumer products, technology/fintech, food and beverage, manufacturing, energy and real estate. He routinely worked with senior management and private equity firms and their portfolio companies in reaching strategic goals, assisting companies in all stages of the growth cycle from early-stage private companies to mature publicly traded companies. He has handled capital markets and M&A matters having an aggregate transaction value in excess of $20 billion.

Director, Plug and Play New Jersey

Tyler Lange is the director of Plug and Play New Jersey. He started his career as the eighth hire for Plug and Play's Silicon Valley Insurtech practice, which quickly grew to be the largest vertical in Plug and Play's global ecosystem. He led the East Coast market for the practice, working closely with partners across the insurance value chain including Cigna, The Hartford, Guy Carpenter and AXIS. Following this role, Tyler led insurance go-to-market for unicorn fintech startup Array before returning to Plug and Play to lead the firm's first Northeast accelerator, NJ FAST.

Management Consultant in Pharmaceuticals

Marybeth Lynch is an innovation orchestrator, executive coach and life sciences leader who helps senior executives accelerate drug development and make better decisions in complex, high-stakes environments. With deep experience across biotech and pharmaceutical organizations, she has led cross-functional programs that cut through ambiguity, align global teams and move critical R&D initiatives forward faster. Her work sits at the intersection of strategy and execution — where most organizations struggle and where she consistently delivers impact.

As the founder of her own management consulting and executive coaching practice, Marybeth partners directly with senior leaders to redesign operating models, elevate leadership effectiveness and translate strategy into results. She brings a practical, no-nonsense approach shaped by real-world experience inside major R&D organizations, with a growing focus on how AI can be applied to transform drug development and enterprise decision-making.

Marybeth holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Engineering Management and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and London Business School. At Stevens Institute of Technology, she was deeply involved across campus — from being RA of the Year to captain of the women’s volleyball team — an early signal of the leadership and energy she brings to her work today. She is proud to be both an entrepreneur and the mom of a spirited three-year-old and is known for combining sharp thinking with authenticity to help leaders turn ambitious ideas into tangible outcomes.

Chairman and Co-Founder, CloudPhotonix

Vivek Rajgarhia is a seasoned entrepreneur and intrapreneur with more than 30 years of leadership experience in the optical communications and semiconductor industries. He is the chairman and co-founder of CloudPhotonix, India’s only highspeed photonics company. Over the course of his career, Rajgarhia has founded two other optical technology companies and held senior executive roles at multinational corporations. His work has included building and scaling global businesses at Lucent Technologies Microelectronics (now Broadcom), OpNext (now part of Lumentum), MACOM and POET Technologies. He earned his Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. He and his wife, Huynh Nga Nguyen — a Stevens engineering alumna from the Class of 1990 — divide their time between New Jersey and Florida. They are proud parents of three. Outside of his professional work, Rajgarhia enjoys golf, pickleball and following professional soccer.

Executive Director, HELIX NJ

Sangeetha Ramsagar is a biopharma strategy leader with more than 20 years of experience across oncology, precision medicine and commercialization. She has led portfolio strategy and launches at companies that include Johnson and Johnson, Bayer and Flagship Pioneering, where she supported partnerships with Novo Nordisk. She has worked closely with MassBio, Merck Ventures, NSF, Nucleate Philly and BioNJ, bridging innovation ecosystems and early-stage biotech growth. She is currently executive director at HELIX in New Brunswick with Portal Innovations, a venture engine incubator providing capital access, fractional expertise and fully equipped lab space within a dynamic ecosystem anchored by J&J and Rutgers Cancer Center and Medical School

Senior Director, Firmwide Chief Data & Analytics Office, JPMorgan Chase

Linda Zhang is a senior director in the Firmwide Chief Data & Analytics Office at JPMorgan Chase, where she leads enterprise AI/ML and data platform engineering, building the foundation for intelligent, data-driven decision-making at scale.

A seasoned technology executive, she has led data and AI transformation initiatives across JPMorgan, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Citi. Linda is recognized for turning complex data ecosystems into strategic assets and for driving innovation from concept to enterprise-wide adoption.

She brings a forward-looking perspective on how AI and data are reshaping decision-making, with a focus on building scalable, governed systems that deliver lasting business impact.

A proud alumna of Stevens Institute of Technology, Linda holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering and a Master of Science in Computer Science from Stevens, as well as an MBA in Finance, Management and International Business from NYU Stern School of Business.