Eclectic Convergence

Steve Hindy '71,
MAT '73

Co-founder and Chairman,
Brooklyn Brewery

Steve Hindy is co-founder and chairman of The Brooklyn Brewery Corp. He founded Brooklyn Brewery in 1987 with his downstairs neighbor in Brooklyn, Tom Potter, a former lending office at New York's Chemical Bank. Hindy got interested in home brewing while serving as Middle East Correspondent for The Association Press. From 1979-1984, Hindy lived in Beirut and Cairo and covered the hostage crisis in Iran, the Iran-Iraq War, civil wars in Lebanon and Syria and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He was sitting behind President Anwar Sadat of Egypt when Sadat was assassinated in 1981. It was a chance encounter with American diplomats who had been posted in Saudi Arabia that led Hindy to brewing. Hindy is the Chairman of the Board of Transportation Alternatives, a prominent proponent of bicycling and other alternatives to motor vehicles, serves on the board of Brooklyn's Prospect Park Alliance and Gowanus Canal Conservancy, and is the founder of the North Brooklyn Parks Alliance.

Ryan Hudson '02

Co-founder, Honey

Ryan Hudson is the co-founder of Honey, the LA-based tech company recently acquired by PayPal. Prior to Honey, he built, launched, (and shut down) several startups. He previously worked in venture capital and in product management roles at venture funded startups.

Ryan studied Operations Research and Computer Science at Cornell University and holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Emin Gun Sirer

CEO, AVA Labs

Emin Gun Sirer is a professor of computer science at Cornell University, founder of Ava Labs, co-founder of bloXroute Inc, and co-director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts (IC3). Among other things, Sirer is known for having implemented the first currency that used proof of work to mint coins, for selfish mining, for characterizing the scale and centralization of existing cryptocurrencies, as well as having proposed the leading protocols for on-chain and off-chain scaling. Of all his collaborations, he is proudest of his contributions to the John Oliver Show's segment on cryptocurrencies.

Jeremy Cohen

Photographer + Director

Jeremy is more than a photographer who lances freely, he's an artist, traveling the world telling the raw stories of everyday people. His tool, the camera; his gift, capturing the spirit of his subject. Jeremy seeks out a photo-worthy stranger, encourages them to tell their story and shares it with the world as part of his Today I Photographed Portrait series. His current project, ‘Rooftop Culture During Quarantine' landed him his first ever magazine cover for New York Magazine.

Other clients include Acura, Adobe, American Express, BMW, Citibank, Chipotle, Dropbox, Dunkin Donuts, Everlane, Jordan Brand, Mercedes Benz, New York Knicks, NY Rangers, Red Bull, Starbucks, T-Mobile and Under Armour. Also, he's a member of the Sony Alpha Collective, a prestigious coalition of photographers/videographers who push the creative limits.

He left his hometown of Bethlehem PA for NYC to study at the School of Visual Arts. His internship for Saturday Night Live was a mixture of assisting with photos of featured guests, weekend updates and behind-the-scenes rehearsals, all while in school. After graduation, Jeremy bet on himself, built his portfolio, gained clients and became a full-time photographer by age 23.

Scott Belsky '02

Emcee and Moderator, Entrepreneur,
Author, Investor, and CPO at Adobe

Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, investor, and now serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer. Scott's passion is to make the creative world more productive, connected, and adaptive to new technologies. He founded Behance, the leading online platform for the creative industry to showcase and discover creative work, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. He is a Venture Partner with Benchmark, and is an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, sweetgreen, and Periscope as well as several other startups. He is the author of Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle, and founded 99U, a publication and annual conference devoted to productivity in the creative world.