The Climb

Mountaintop is a new educational initiative that dares students to find and follow their passions. We source outstanding innovators whose creativity and persistence have improved all of our lives, who we call Mountaintop Guides, then bring them to NYC-area high schools for candid talks about their climb, success, and the pitfalls they encountered along the way. Students come away inspired and energized, and knowing that they too have the potential to change the world.

Participating schools also have the option to pursue a more intensive workshop program, where Guides act as mentors as students pursue their own projects, creating the future of humanity without ever leaving the classroom.

Interested in hosting Mountaintop at your school?

Meet The Team

Dr. Michael Barnathan

Co-Founder

Michael Barnathan is an educational entrepreneur and technologist on a mission to spark a renaissance of creativity and innovation. Founder of Project Polymath, Living Discoveries, and Clipless, as well as a Director at Amplify Education, former Google engineer, and frequent speaker at universities around the country, Michael has made furthering human potential the theme of his life and entrepreneurial career while bringing a deep background in technology and STEM education to the team. Michael holds a Ph. D. in Computer and Information Sciences from Temple University, focused on automatically diagnosing medical scans using computer vision and machine learning.
Alejandro Crawford

Co-Founder

Alejandro Crawford, Senior Consultant at Acceleration Group, helps leaders of mission-driven businesses, CBOs, funders and governments seize “acceleration moments” to increase their impact on the markets/communities they serve. He develops actionable strategies that enable leaders get ahead of change, prove new models, create and measure impact, and turn around organizations. A frequent writer and speaker on how to equip people to produce solutions of their own, Crawford teaches courses in strategy, entrepreneurship and growth for FIT, the New School and Baruch. He earned his BA from Cornell and his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Deepti Sharma Kapur

Co-Founder

Deepti Sharma Kapur is the CEO and founder of FoodtoEat, an online ordering platform that connects corporates with local food trucks, restaurants and caterers to build corporate culture. She was honored in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2013, and serves on the Board for the Business Center for New Americans, a non-profit that encourages immigrant entrepreneurship by providing micro-loans and financial education. Deepti also is on the board of The LAMP, an organization that educates students to understand 21st century media and advertising, and the implications they have on our thought process and decision making.
Tarek Pertew

Founding Advisor

Tarek Pertew is the co-founder of Uncubed, a platform that connects people with high-growth digital careers through daily content, large-scale conferences and new economy skills classes. Tarek is also co-founder of NYC Footy, an adult soccer league favored by many tech companies. Earlier, Tarek founded MyWorkster, a job fair platform for college alumni. Tarek is an advisor to the United Kingdom Trade & Investment Institute (UKTI) and his alma mater, The University of Virginia.
Tiffany Kwan

Strategist

Tiffany Kwan is on a mission to foster creativity and passion in others. As an associate consultant at Acceleration Group, she uses her combination of analytical and design skills to help innovative ventures and nonprofits transform their operations and launch new solutions that expand their access to opportunity. In her undergraduate studies, despite completing three majors in Manufacturing Management, Production Management, and Entrepreneurship, she was left discovering how her education fit into her ambitions. During her last year in college, she picked up web development in order to create a platform that helps reduce the financial burden of college by promoting the recycling of used textbooks from student communities to the subsequent class. This project became a springboard for her mission and she has developed a deep commitment to enabling young people to discover their entrepreneurial potential and gain the skills to use it.
Chris Oh

Outreach Coordinator

Chris is currently an undergraduate student at NYU's Stern School of Business, majoring in Business and Political Economy. He is originally from Seoul, South Korea and attended Peddie School in New Jersey. Working with Mountaintop has been an incredible experience for him since he is passionate about social impact.
William Reinisch

Facilitator and Advisor

William Reinisch is a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, a Venture Capital firm, where he is responsible for sourcing and managing venture investments and runs the firm's New York office. Reinisch is also currently the CEO and Founder of XIV River Consulting LLC. XIV River Consulting specializes in strategy, venture capital, technology, due diligence and innovation for, among others, high tech startups and companies that are pioneering new markets, and venture capital firms. Reinisch is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, New York University and Stevens Institute of Technology. He is also the Chairman of the Entrepreneurship department at Fashion Institute of Technology.

Reinisch previously served as the Vice President in Motorola's strategy and technology organization. In this role, he was responsible for positioning Motorola for growth in emerging new market segments in addition to intellectual property, standards and the corporate technology portfolio. He was also part of Motorola Ventures, which is Motorola's corporate venture capital group. Prior to that, Reinisch was vice president of strategy and new initiatives at Motorola. He joined Motorola in 2004 as a strategic advisor to the Chief Strategy Officer, working to define and develop technology, intellectual property and investment strategies for the corporation.

Prior to joining Motorola, Reinisch was Senior Vice President of operations and engineering at Magnolia Broadband, where he led efforts in engineering, operations and radio frequency integrated circuit development until 2004. Before that, he led the global technology organization at Multilink Technology Corporation, a company focused on high-speed component solutions for advanced optical networks. Reinisch has also held various positions at ANADIGICS, Inc., including manager of strategic technology alliances. Prior to 1992, he worked for Analog Devices in the company's semiconductor division.

Experienced in many different aspects of the industry in both technology and operations, Reinisch has authored several publications, presentations, and six U.S. patents. He holds a master of business administration degree from Fordham University and a bachelor's degree in microelectronic engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology.