Samantha Stein

Class of 2011
San Francisco, California

Samantha Stein came to Lewis & Clark from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Throughout her time at L&C, Samantha worked to strengthen the sense of community, especially inclusive community, on and off campus through numerous groups, societies, and self-driven initiatives including; Student Alumni Ambassador (2010-2011); 

Anthropology & Sociology Department Tutor (2009-2011); Resident Advisor for Akin Multicultural Community (2009-2010); Pluralism and Unity Board Member (2010-2011); Ray Warren Multicultural Symposium Art Curator (Fall 2009 & 2010), and Steering Committee Member (2007-2010); Multicultural Fair Chair (2009-2010), and Regional Chair (2007-2008); and Board of Alumni (2017-Present). Samantha secured a Projects for Peace Grant and used it to found Tools for Tolerance Morocco, an international nonprofit focused on cross-cultural communication and technical skills training for disenfranchised Moroccan youth during the Arab Spring with Lewis & Clark students. Always agile, Samantha raised tens of thousands of dollars from individual donors, grants, as well as in-kind support from government and NGOs, and leveraged the above resources to build a technical center in Casablanca, develop the country’s first human rights educational curriculum, and reach thousands of individuals.

She started her career in Morocco, working with Dr. Oren Kosansky, on building and designing digital archival protocols for the Rabat Genizah Project. Today, she is the Director of Special Projects and Battlefield Editor at TechCrunch where she maps global entrepreneurial systems to find the best up and coming disruptors, who she mentors to help them launch successful startups. She is also the Curator for the San Francisco Global Shapers, a World Economic Forum initiative, and the founder of Hacktivision, which work with technologists to develop new tools for social good.

Previously, she led business development efforts at Keepsafe, a software company that makes digital privacy as easy as closing a door. As a member of the founding team of Vint, Samantha’s critical work, synthesizing user research into product features, informed its evolution from a marketplace to an enterprise software product that increases retention in the fitness industry. Prior to Vint, Samantha also served as a consultant to over 50 of USAIDs Tech and Innovation portfolio investments across MedTech, AgriTech, EdTech, and CleanTech. Her work helped innovators scale their businesses and secure additional funding from both government and private sources, including from venture capital firms and angels. A large part of her work consisted of leveraging intellectual property assets to secure additional funding for entrepreneurs.