Tishin Donkersley, manager of Global Education at Techstars, and educator, editor and entrepreneur, joins the LaunchPad for our next “Tea Talk” on Wednesday, May 13 at 3 p.m. via Zoom at this link.
May is Mental Health Month, and the Blackstone LaunchPad powered by Techstars at SU Libraries has invited her to share insight about mental health for startups, a topic she has been engaged with throughout her career. It’s estimated that by 2020 there will be nearly 1,000 mental health startups launched in response to a topic that is rapidly losing its stigma because people are acknowledging it. One in five U.S. adults experience some form of mental illness each year, and 300 million people globally suffer from depression and anxiety annually according to the World Health Organization. Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 34. It is a topic that is very relevant to the intense pressure-driven world of entrepreneurship. It is also a struggle for many in this current period of social isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Donkersley holds a double masters in clinical and sport psychology from Arizona State University and taught psychoscience in college for 10 years where she won outstanding teaching awards. She also mentored collegiate to NFL athletes during their season. During that tenure, she wrote articles about the latest neuro and consumer technology and became an expert in her field — combining her love for cognitive science, technology and startups. Growing up with a father as a professor in computer information systems and college dean in the business school at Arizona State University, she reveled in learning about the latest technology and tinkering with it to see how it worked and coming up with new business ideas.
Later, she became the editor-in-chief for a paper and online magazine startup, and within two years she helped build it to an exit. She was chief editor for two more startups, the latest of which was Tech.Co, with 1M readers per month, which she exited in January 2019.
During her 12+ year entrepreneurship run, she became a national tech editor and reporter, and a tech expert for local network news, an Emmy award-winning show, radio, podcasts, TechCrunch, and more.
After six months of hanging out after the exit, boredom set in. She jumped back into the startup scene at Techstars in September 2019 and was promoted to Manager of Global Education within a year.
Her proudest career moments were receiving the Arizona Governor’s Council Diversity award for her efforts in diversity leadership in the workplace, and “meeting some of the most innovative and coolest people throughout the world.”
She is a mother and owner of two humans, two dogs, and one husband of 20+ years, and says what’s kept her going is a good sense of humor.
Read more about her here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tishind/
Tea Talks are virtual fireside chats, structured like good conversations over a cup of tea with thought leaders on topics related to innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership. The LaunchPad at Syracuse University is pleased to present these conversations in partnership with The Republic of Tea.
Join the Zoom chat here. If a password is required for admission, use LaunchPad.
