The LifeCapital Conference - Agenda

Life Capital SF

Hosted by Slow Ventures, Village Global and The Information
Sponsored by Cooley


On March 27th, 2019 in San Francisco, we hosted a small conference on ISAs & the path forward for finance beyond ‘debt’. It was great to get a diverse group of passionate people together thinking about a future in which there are more options for personal finance, especially as it pertains to education. Below is some of the content from the day.


Personal Equity: Introduction opening some of the opportunities and questions we hope to discuss as a group & setting some historical context.

      Sam Lessin (Slow Ventures)

ISA Fundamentals: What is the theory behind ISAs and where are they being used in the real world? How are they different than other financing tools students have a their disposal? How can ISAs be used to create more accessibility to education? Where have they succeeded and failed to date?

      Aanand Radia (University Ventures)
      Andrew Platt (Vemo)
      Mary Claire Cartwright (Purdue University)

The Risks of ISAs: What are the risks and challenges associated with ISAs. Where have similar concepts gone wrong in the past? What rules of the road might help encourage a healthy ecosystem that benefits students? If we look back in 20 years and traditional debt is still the only major option for financing education and development, what went wrong?

      Ashu Desai (Make School)
      Barry Cynamon (Better Future Forward)
      Yannis Peyret (Holberton School)

Beyond Bootcamps: There are about 7M unfulfilled job openings in America. How can ISAs and other financial product innovations impact fields like nursing, plumbing, etc.

      Austen Allred (Lambda School)
      Will Quist (Slow Ventures)

The Biggest Problems: Are there types of programs or opportunities that ISAs specifically enable that might otherwise be hard to provide? How does the world change if traditional debt becomes one of many options for personal finance?

      Brendan Florez (Base Capital)
      Emily Wattman-Turner (Kenzie Academy)
      Josh Shapiro, PhD (UC San Diego Extension)
      William Nelligan (Education Finance Institute)

Balancing Terms: How to structure ISAs so that students want to utilize them and investors want to provide them?

      John Bertrand (Kennedy Lewis Investment Management)
      Katherine Carey (Cooley)
      Karthik Krishnan (Mentor Works)

Politics & ISAs: The regulation around ISAs is to date largely un-addressed & regulators have the opportunity to make or break ISAs. What are the key considerations at play? What type of regulation is likely and when?

      Adam Boman (California State Assembly)
      Alison Griffin (Whiteboard Advisors)
      Luke Messer (Former Congressman, Indiana)
      Tom Kalil(Schmidt Futures)

The Practical Path Forward: What are the practical next steps that need to happen in the next year, next 3 years and next 5 years to accelerate the adoption of ISAs.

      Angela Ceresnie (Climb Credit)
      Daniel Pianko (University Ventures)
      Richard Lee (Leif)
      Vinice Davis (Omidyar Network)

Imagining The Future: From Athletics, to the Arts, to Crypto, there are many experiments beyond ISAs that are being contemplated and tried. What are some of the further ‘out there’ ideas that might carry some weight.

      Dani Grant (Union Square Ventures)
      Erik Torenberg (Village Global)
      Sam Lessin (Slow Ventures)

Education for All: ISAs have been talked about for decades, but nobody has ever turned the idea into practice and scaled a company. Learn how Vemo Education, a progressive educational technology company focused on expanding economic opportunity for everyone, has created a scalable ISA platform, ecosystem, and network with over 40 schools to help expand higher education for all.

      Tonio DeSorrento (Vemo)


Companies in Attendance