Beth Kolko

Dr. Kolko began her career as a professor in the humanities, studying how diverse communities used a then text-based internet to organize and enact change. Her current work focuses on human centered entrepreneurship and how combining startup culture with a design perspective can help capitalism serve humans a bit better. She runs REgroup, which brings together students, founders, and investors to Rethink Entrepreneurship from a human centered perspective.

This work is an outgrowth of her Hackademia which built innovation potential among broad audiences by imparting functional engineering skills combined with design thinking. She is formerly co-director of the Tactical and Tactile Technology (TAT) Lab and for many years ran the Design for Digital Inclusion lab in HCDE.

Kolko is also the co-founder and former CEO of Shift Labs, a for-profit company that created low-cost medical devices for emerging markets leveraging global innovation networks. She has been the Director of Innovation at the Makerbot Foundation (2013), a Fulbright professor at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (2000), a Visiting Faculty Researcher at Microsoft Research (2007), and a Fellow (2007-2009) and Faculty Associate (2009-2019) at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She is an Investment Partner at Pioneer Fund and was the Founding Venture Partner at Pack Ventures. She has lectured around the world, and consulted for a variety of NGOs, including extensive fieldwork in Cambodia, India, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia, and Kenya.

Dr. Kolko is a professor in UW Human Centered Design & Engineering.