Jennifer Lucas founded Ethical City in order to share her passion for fair trade with her favorite city, Austin, Texas. While pursuing a degree in Criminology at Ohio University, she completed courses in Corporate and Government Crime. In these courses, she learned that many of the products we buy in the West are made using exploited labor in the third world. Severe cynicism set in, and she spent the next several years believing that all consumption was bad.

Jennifer’s fair trade career began in India. During a trip in 2007, she discovered Kala Raksha, an amazing workers’ cooperative in the state of Gujarat. Kala Raksha helped her realize that buying products isn’t inherently bad, and that trade can actually improve people’s lives. This eye-opening experience inspired her to educate others about this way of trading with the world, a way that respects people instead of impoverishing them.

Upon returning from India, Jennifer worked as the Sales Manager for Handmade Expressions, a fair trade wholesaler working with artisans in India. There she learned the rewards and challenges associated with sourcing marketable products from the third world, and decided to start her own company in February, 2009.

Through Ethical City, Jennifer is finding markets for fair trade products by hosting global bazaars with faith communities in Austin. She has also partnered with several local non-profits working with artisans in the third world, as well as refugees now living in Austin. Their combined mission is to bridge the gap between consumer and producer.

Digital Proctor secures online activity through novel identification technologies. Our first product verifies that students who sign up for online courses are the same students actually completing the courses for academic credit.

We have developed a patent pending technology that analyzes how students type on keyboards in order to uniquely identify them. As students complete assignments, we can establish that they are completing their own work and not outsourcing assignments to others. Tapping into 15 additional factors allows us to provide context to assignments that appear suspicious.

By safeguarding online learning environments, we are protecting a multi-billion dollar industry that educates students worldwide.

Ellen Kinsey and John Spillyards founded HOLY CACAO as an expression of their shared appreciation of great desserts, entrepreneurial endeavors, and each other. The couple let their imaginations and passions run wild to develop a host of new dessert experiences for Austin. The company has drawn national attention not only through shipping orders, but from the Food Network and Nation’s Restaurant News.

Ellen Kinsey attended the University of Texas as an undergraduate then went to the University of Pennsylvania where she graduated with a master’s degree in city planning. While attending Penn, she also took business classes at the Wharton Business School, which inspired her entrepreneurial spirit. She then developed low-income housing in the Bronx for seven years before returning to her beloved Austin.

John Spillyards, also a native Texan, attended Oklahoma State University and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He then spent two years in Africa with the Peace Corps as a Small Business Advisor. Since then he has applied his natural selling skills to a variety of businesses resulting in record growth and profits.

In their first year in business together, Ellen and John have already become part of the Austin business community. The couple works closely with the Austin Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and has been asked to speak on a panel for the Texas Restaurant Association. Ellen and John have been approached by Greenlights for Nonprofit Success to attend their next Board Summit and become board members for local nonprofits.