Founders

Alex Hart-Upendo

Has worked as a youth entrepreneur for the last 5 years, building a budding fashion accessories business "Build-A-Bow". Alex  has mentored and advocated for youth entrepreneurship for several hundred students. Alex brings the peer to peer knowledge and connection aspect. He is an award winning entrepreneur from Ernst and young to the Wisconsin's governor business plan competition winner. He is a social activist, advocating for mental health amongst youth as well as bullying. He has had the key role of passing 4 Bill's in Wisconsin for mental healthcare and anti-bullying policies. He has taken adult coursework at Gateway Technical college from Business plan courses to business accelerators. He has already at the age of 13 secured a full ride scholarship to Cardinal stritch university for the entirety of his life. He is a published Author and humanitarian, already in his short career he has volunteered thousands of hours back to the community. 

While the specific direction of our theme project will necessarily evolve as we recruit additional team members, we already see a number of topic areas where the four of us could meaningful and fruitfully collaborate including entrepreneurial team formation; process interventions that improve creative team performance; the intersection of creativity at the individual, team, organizational, and industry levels. 

Heidi Hart

Goal oriented & customer focused. Heidi especially enjoys sharing knowledge to the youth & individuals with disabilities by providing all aspects of personal care not limited to; health & social skills. Teaching how to problem solve & quickly identify & correct issues & find resources that maybe useful. 

Karee Upendo is an organizational specialist who has spent her career studying Entrepreneurship and Art.  She is best known for her work in Fashion Design, Art Therapy, Author, Serial Entrepreneur and at risk Youth Educator. She brings experience in leading research teams, organizing workshops, conferences and professional development activities to the project. She has been part of an advisory groups for a large projects to collect panel data on the entrepreneurial process, and has held editorial roles for several leading journals. She is the Co-founder of Build-A-Bow a social retail based business as well as the Upendo Library a publishing hub for African American books. She has won several prestigious awards for her work in entrepreneurship, philanthropy and community engagement. She is determined to change the trajectory of Milwaukee's at risk youth.