Ben Edwards

As designer, developer, entrepreneur, and catalyst, Ben has worked hard to ensure the organizations and communities of which he is a part thrive. Ben started MinneBar as “BarCamp Minnesota” after talking with the founder of BarCamp at a conference in California and later founded Minnestar with Luke Francl. After running the agile software development consulting firm Refactr for several years, Ben co-founded SmartThings—an IoT platform that went from Kickstarter to acquisition by Samsung in two years. These days Ben advises startups and is working to launch Goodfolio—a nonprofit seeking to apply evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to improve the world through social giving.