OVERVIEW OF AMPLIFY HER INCUBATOR

Amplify Her® Incubator is a 6-month program to support initiatives that improve the lives of women & girls in New York City. (see our press release). 

  • Workshops: Incubator Fellows will engage in a structured curriculum covering the following topics: Visioning for Systems Change, Community-Centered Design, Messaging for Movement Building, Mobilizing Resources for Impact, Building Culture & Infrastructure, Evaluating Systems Impact.

  • Mentorship: Each Incubator Fellow is matched with two mentors to support their vision and growth. Incubator Fellows have monthly mentoring sessions throughout the program. 

  • Focus Groups: Through a partnership with Robin Hood Foundation’s Design Insight Group (DIG), participants have the opportunity to co-create and test solutions directly with New Yorkers whose lived experiences reflect the challenges their initiatives aim to address, ensuring their solutions are community-informed, relevant, and effective.

  • Funding: Fellows will pitch to a panel of judges and microgrants of up to $10K will be awarded. Only projects with 501(c)(3) status or a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor are eligible to participate in the pitch competition and receive funding. 

FELLOWS

  • Cathy Kim (The M2M Project) is the Founder of The M2M Project, a nonprofit that equips historically excluded skilled-trade contractors with the financial operating systems and procurement pathways required to build sustainable, competitive businesses. She launched M2M to address a structural gap in New York City’s construction economy: contractors who have mastered their trade but lack the financial infrastructure needed to scale and access larger contracts. With more than 20 years of experience in community economic development, Cathy has built and led initiatives across housing, workforce, and small business ecosystems, connecting underserved New Yorkers to economic opportunity. Through M2M, she applies that expertise directly inside contractor businesses, positioning them to convert technical skill into long-term economic security and generational mobility. As a woman founder operating in a male-dominated industry, she is particularly committed to expanding access and visibility for women contractors. Cathy is a Fellow of the Sterling Network and serves as Board President of Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE).

  • Dani Lopez (Beneficial Computing) is a civic technologist and advocate building digital infrastructure to improve access to federal benefit programs. She is the proud daughter of an immigrant single mom whose journey from survivor of domestic violence to nurse and advocate against gender-based violence guides Dani’s work. A graduate of Amherst College, Dani has a policy background in education, labor, and basic needs security and spent years as a benefits bureaucrat, including managing the largest Excelsior Scholarship program in New York City. As a Fellow at Blue Ridge Labs, the tech innovation arm of the Robin Hood Foundation, Dani co-founded Lulo, a startup helping families enrolled in the WIC program maximize their food benefits.  Dani serves as co-founder and Co-Executive Director of Beneficial Computing, a tech nonprofit building AI tools to increase access to federal disability benefits (SSI and SSDI) while reducing administrative burden for claimants and the human services ecosystem serving them. Dani has been recognized as a NYC Food Policy 40 Under 40 Rising Star and a City & State NY Latino Trailblazer.

  • Shubham Issar (More than a Dot) is a founder, tech storyteller, and social impact leader growing ideas that shift cultural narratives around health and wellbeing. With More Than A Dot, Shubham is reimagining a future where women and girls no longer grow up in the dark about their own bodies. Through storytelling and cultural dialogue, the platform aims to make knowledge about women’s health more accessible, visible, and empowering. Originally from India, Shubham previously co-founded Soapen, a mission-driven personal care brand that turns soap into colorful pens so children can draw on their hands while learning healthy hygiene habits. Created to address the fact that handwashing with soap can prevent one out of three infectious illnesses in children, Soapen has been featured in Real Simple, The Strategist, Forbes, and other publications. Most recently, she led brand and growth marketing at Riley, helping bring the parenting technology platform from stealth to scale through storytelling-driven growth. Shubham is a listmaker on Forbes 30 Under 30 and secured an investment for Soapen on Shark Tank.

  • Samantha Bretous (Nura) is a Staff Software Engineer and founder who asks why the problem exists before writing a single line of code. Her company, Nura, starts from a non-obvious observation: parents don't have a childcare crisis because they lack options. They have one because asking for help feels hard. Nura is a private, parent-focused app designed to coordinate backup childcare by allowing families to create small, trusted "parent circles," structuring mutual expectations and backup plan before anything goes wrong. When a sitter cancels or school closes, there's no scrambling. The plan is already in place. Samantha brings nearly a decade of engineering experience across Intuit Mailchimp and Major League Soccer, where she led SMS infrastructure, onboarding, and a navigation redesign that drove a 34% increase in high-quality traffic to key product surfaces. She holds a BFA in Theater Design and Technology from Baylor University and completed full-stack web development training through Coalition for Queens.

  • Regine Roy (Project Genius) is a social impact leader, mental health consultant, and the Founder of Project Genius, Inc., and Queen Geniuses, Inc., the social-emotional learning and leadership consultancy she has led for over a decade. A W. Burghardt Turner Fellow and graduate of Stony Brook University’s School of Social Welfare, Regine is committed to advancing emotional wellness, leadership development, and transformative learning experiences for women and girls in New York City. Through Project Genius, her nonprofit initiative, she designs and delivers social-emotional learning and leadership programming that supports girls and young women in building confidence, emotional literacy, and self-advocacy skills. She partners with schools, community organizations, and public agencies to provide trauma-informed professional development and experiential workshops for caregivers, educators, and youth-serving professionals. She is passionate about creating spaces that empower women and girls to lead boldly while equipping institutions with the tools to support their growth sustainably.

  • Fatmata Kamara (The Bronx App) is a first-generation multilingual immigrant from Sierra Leone and Guinea who has called the Bronx home since childhood. A community-rooted advocate and emerging leader, she is dedicated to expanding access to legal support, creative opportunity, and critical resources for underserved communities. In her professional role at a law firm, she supports Bronx youth involved in the legal system, coordinating community-based alternatives and services for young people facing serious charges. She launched The Breatives Project, a Bronx-based nonprofit connecting local artists through networking and partnerships. She is also developing a stealth-mode digital platform for the Bronx—a hyper-local venture designed to empower creators and small businesses. Fatmata holds a Bachelor's degree from American University and is pursuing her Juris Doctor at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, with plans to add an MBA.

Mentors

Learn more about the mentors guiding Amplify Her Incubator Fellows here. These accomplished leaders bring diverse expertise across sectors and will provide crucial support, strategic guidance, connections and real-work insight to fellows as they transform bold ideas into systems-level change for women and girls in New York City.

Facilitator

Harmonie Coleman specializes in coalition building, participatory research, healing-centered practice, program strategy, and workshop design and facilitation. Her recent projects range from designing and piloting restorative justice practices in schools to building toward social cohesion and repair in polarized communities. Her past experience as a teacher grounds her work; she continues to be an ardent advocate for Ethnic Studies education and equitable mental health treatment for young people. Since leaving the classroom, Harmonie has focused on designing and implementing programs that not only engage youth, but also build pathways to economic opportunity for their families and communities. She recently launched withharmonie studio, a community engagement firm dedicated to designing with joyful responsibility, for people and planet. Harmonie holds a B.A. in Psychology and Race & Difference Studies from Emory University and a M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Reshma Saujani speaking about the importance of the Amplify Her Incubator on ‘If She Can Make it Here’ podcast.