Harold Hughes

The concept of Work-Life Balance has become increasingly discussed lately while becoming seemingly impossible to achieve. If you have ever felt this, you are in for a treat as we unpack the myth of Work-Life Balance and shift our focus to Work-Life Prioritization. We will talk about healthy habits, responsible routines, and productive processes that we can all apply to feel better at home and work.

While many of us are still navigating our pandemic wardrobe, a new wave of technology has become prominent and flat-out unavoidable. NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens are here — thanks to Blockchain — and given their variety of use cases, they are here to stay. NFTs are currently being used as a way for artists to participate in the value creation of their work in perpetuity, allowing communities to token-gate their access, and allowing brands to connect more directly with their customers. In this session, we will learn what NFTs are, what they can do, and how you can keep these new valuable digital assets safe.

As a first-generation American and son to Jamaican parents, Harold knows what it is like to overcome challenges. Being one of 5 children growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, he understood what it was like to grow up without some of the key resources that he needed. Now, an entrepreneur, Harold shares his story with others as well as his hacks for overcoming the challenges of being a person in color in tech as it relates to growing your network, raising capital, and getting in the door with your first customer.

Like many great innovations, the first use case isn’t always the best one. Harold and his team have navigated the adoption of blockchain technology in an enterprise environment to show that crypto doesn’t only mean cryptocurrencies. Harold will share his thoughts on permissioned-blockchains, Zero-Knowledge Proof, and other enterprise level solutions in the blockchain space.

The Deconstructing Companies for Entrepreneurial Development (DECODE™) Program is designed for high school and college students interested in entrepreneurship. Over the years, we have worked with dozens of companies and reviewed hundreds for potential investment opportunities. During that time, we found critical points where the business lacked the proper structure, market validation, and customer research to be sustainable. Our program is built to give an introductory lens of entrepreneurship by evaluating and “deconstructing” businesses – failed and successful – to identify the indicators for success.

At the end of this program, students will be able to:

• Understand the basics of Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C), and other business models
• Articulate the value proposition for their favorite brands
• Identify the key indicators of the success or failure of businesses
• Implement learnings to test their startup ideas

Our goal is to introduce the core concepts of entrepreneurship in a way that is broadly accessible to students of every background while leaving room for curiosity and creativity for those most interested in the startup journey. One of the most important takeaways from our program is that there are many roles in the startup ecosystem and the value of each role. Each workshop detailed below is designed for high school and college students and first-time entrepreneurs who need the basic building blocks.