NADA MILJKOVIC
Nada Miljkovic is the Interim Program Managing of UCSC’s Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development and has been a Crown College teaching ethics, entrepreneurship, creativity, and leadership. She is a founder, community builder, and artist who creates digital media, performances, and installations. She has been a lecturer at Crown College since 2015 teaching a wide range of subjects. She helped design and implement courses Crown 90: Startup Entrepreneurship Academy, Crown 91: Marketing for Good, Crown 92: Social & Creative Entrepreneurship, Crown 95: Business Assistance, and Crown 98: Digital Storytelling and Podcasting.
Nada is the co-founder and CEO of GetVirtual and founder of Artist on Art, LLC. She is the President of several nonprofit Boards; the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County, United Services Agency, Inc. and E.A.R.T.H. Lab, SF. She has several shows on KSQD the local community radio station. She lives on the Westside of Santa Cruz with her family.
NIKHILA CHERUKUTHOTA
Nikhila Cherukuthota is a GetVirtual co-founder and Crown College instructor. She teaches Crown 95: GetVirtual, a hands-on class that pairs college students with local businesses to provide them with website development, social media strategies, and training in those areas. She graduated from UCSC in Fall 2019 with majors in neuroscience and economics. She is pursuing law school this fall. In her free time, you can find Nikky watching an animal-related documentary or TV show, catching up on current events, or deepening her knowledge of music.
KATI GREANEY
Kati Greaney is originally from St. Louis, MO and came to UC Santa Cruz as an undergraduate in the Community Studies department and then returned as a graduate student in the Social Documentation program. She has always been passionate about storytelling and has a deep curiosity and passion for humanity. She has worked as a photographer and documentary filmmaker for the past decade and has been teaching at UCSC since 2017. Her work has taken her across the US, throughout Southern India, Cuba and Brazil. She is a mother of two living children and one who passed away. She is currently teaching at the college level, working as a freelance film producer, and working on building a business in honor of her son.
ALEXA LOKEN
Alexa Loken’s passion is helping people. In 2014, she started Loken Careers, her third company. Since then, she’s been inspired every day by the clients she speaks with that want to make a difference in their lives and move forward in their career path. A serial entrepreneur and do-gooder, Alexa’s career has had many twists and turns. She worked at Indeed.com as a certified career coach for software engineers in both the U.S. and Europe, started a cause-based marketing firm, co-founded a recruiting firm for women in tech, and began her career while working for environmental nonprofits.
She’s also an Entrepreneurship Professor (virtually) in the business schools at CU Boulder and UCSC, and previously taught at St. Edward’s University in Austin. She very recently took on an additional role as a half-time Executive Director for a nonprofit, and is a Board member at Social Venture Partners, Boulder County. She received her undergraduate degree from American University in Washington, D.C. and her Master’s in Media, Culture & Communications from New York University.
She grew up in the Bay Area, and has lived in DC, NYC, Hawaii, Austin and Boulder county. She and her family relocated at the end of 2021 to beautiful San Luis Obispo, CA where they walk and play along the beach and tide pools as often as possible. While she’s happy to coach anyone on “what they want to do when they grow up”, she particularly loves helping clients who are transitioning to a new industry, working with aspiring entrepreneurs, and people who are looking for a cause-based career to make a positive impact on the world.
Fun Facts: Alexa has two rambunctious dogs, a snuggly cat, and a curious toddler. She absolutely adores tea and public libraries. She’s been playing piano since she turned 30, and her and her husband built a tiny house in Austin. While in college, she was on the cover of USA Today about Generation Y “creating their own brand of social consciousness.
RICK VARGAS
When I started at Apple in 2000 we were a small group of creatives. The Gel iMac had just launched and one of my first assignments was to name and market what is now the iPod. We also were tasked with developing the look and feel of our first retail stores. That included the wide graphic panels, posters, screen content, signage, even the look and feel of the receipt. An explosion of products and services launched one after the next–iTunes Store, iMac, iPod Shuffle, iPod Mini, Mac Book Pro, iPhone, iPad and iPad mini. I worked on marketing many of these and more.
I also worked on a variety of films. These included motion graphics for the retail store, short documentary films for the web, launch films for our keynote presentations, and broadcast commercials. I've also led teams that developed and implemented a wide variety of cross platform creative strategies for our website, retail stores and social network.
ANDREA CARAFA
Andrea Carafa serves as Director of the Blackstone Launchpad powered by Techstars and as Rachel Carson College Lecturer at UCSC, and is a QB3 member. He was named a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and member of the Fast Company Impact Council, among others. He founded a consumer tech startup and a sustainability innovation venture, and conducted research and lectured about innovation at Stanford, CERN, Bocconi, and more.
Peter Koht joins CIED after a career that focused on the digital delivery of local government services. He was the founder of a successful govtech firm that went public in 2019. Prior to that he worked on broadband, parking and permitting policy for local government. Long ago, he graduated from UCSC with a dual major in music and history.