Code & Culture – Leading in AI & Innovation

John Pasmore is the founder of LatimerAI, which was launched in January 2024. Latimer is an inclusive Large Language Model built to mitigate bias and trained with data that gives the platform greater cultural fluency around diverse cultures and histories.

Prior to Latimer, John served as co-founder and CEO of the venture-backed, video-based travel platform VoyageTV, which raised $10 million in an A-round led by Syncom Venture Partners and sold to Next 1 Interactive. He recently served as a partner at the Family Office, TRS Capital, and at Movita Organics, an organic supplement company led by filmmaker Spike Lee’s wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, and sits on the Board of Directors of Outward Bound USA. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the State University of New York and a B.A. in Computer Science from Columbia University. He is married to Kobi Wu-Pasmore, and they live in New York City with one child.

DeVaris Brown is a multi-exit founder and angel investor who builds and backs companies at the intersection of culture, real-time data, and AI-powered experiences. In recent years, has founded Meroxa, Novera, and Spill, raising millions in venture capital. Previously, he led product management at Twitter, Salesforce, VSCO, and Zendesk. DeVaris has lectured on entrepreneurship and investing at Stanford, MIT, and UC Berkeley, and today advises founders on product strategy, fundraising, and scaling from 0 to 1.

Mayowa Arogundade is the Founder and CEO of Equal IQ, a deal infrastructure and intelligence platform serving deal-driven teams in sports, media, and entertainment. A Grammy-nominated producer and creative executive, Mayowa has spent his career inside complex media deals and now builds the infrastructure to execute them.

Equal IQ was selected for Andreessen Horowitz's TxO Accelerator and awarded funding by the NBA Foundation and American Express at NBA All-Star 2026 for its innovative approach to deal execution. The platform turns contracts and communication into structured, trackable workspaces so teams never miss a term, deadline, or payment.

Dr. Setor Zilevu is a Principal Researcher, where he leads strategic AI initiatives at the intersection of AI, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and User Experience. A recognized leader in Human-AI Interaction, his career is defined by a commitment to building assistive technologies that do not just automate tasks, but actively enhance human cognition and creative potential.

Previously, Dr. Zilevu served as a Senior Researcher at Meta's Superintelligence Lab, where he led research for major AI product launches including the Meta AI Vibes App. His influence extends deeply into academia; as a professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, he created and taught the specialized courses "UX for AI" and "Applied UX Research," training the next generation of designers and engineers to navigate the complexities of AI systems.

Dr. Zilevu’s foundational research began at Virginia Tech, where he earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science and HCI. His doctoral work resulted in the creation of one of the world’s first cyber-human stroke rehabilitation systems. This pioneering project, which received over $5 million in grant funding, was successfully implemented at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, consistently ranked as the top rehabilitation hospital globally.

In recognition of these breakthroughs, he was named an MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35. This honor cited his development of novel methodologies for mapping the human mind’s interaction with AI and his work on pioneering cyber-human frameworks. Beyond his primary research, Dr. Zilevu is an active contributor to the tech ecosystem as an engineer, advisor, angel investor, and a frequent keynote speaker on AI strategy.