Michael Flynn

Athlete, Change agent, Connector, Engineer, Entrepreneur, Environmentalist, Social entrepreneur, Startup, Technologist

Mike Flynn is founder of Sponsumo, a group collaboration software company that automates conference operation management to allow scaling of sponsorship/revenue opportunity. Mike is also co-founder of the Opportunity Green conference, designed to mix creativity and business acumen. Specifically, the conference sought to find intersections of people and projects that could intersect the needs of business profit & contemporary culture (tending to focus on the Now…) with a broader vision of prosperity for the future (the environment being a key factor). Along with his co-founder Karen Solomon, the conference has brought together thousands of pioneers engaging in sustainability from diverse perspectives: design, education, media, technology and more, from companies ranging from long-time leaders like Patagonia to large corporations furthering their work in such practices. A firm believer in learning through diverse experiences, one of Mike's favorite adventures was taking a hiatus from the business world on the Feral Green Trip (feralgreen.com). Embarking on a humanitarian and ecological adventure and surf trip sponsored by WetSand.com, they traveled from California to the Chile tip of South America in a vegetable-oil-burning 4x4 truck. The journey incorporated adventure, danger, frequently being pulled over, education, culture and the promotion of alternative energy, as they educated school children about ecological conservation in classrooms throughout Latin and South America. A Mechanical Engineer by education and entrepreneur by fate. Mike received the distinction of Notable Alumni from UCLA (shared by 65 notable alumni including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar '69, Antonio Villaraigosa '77 and the Doors) for his strong community involvement and contribution to furthering the sustainability movement through his work with Opportunity Green. Mike was also honored by the Kauffman Foundation's Empact100 award at the White House, where he was recognized as one of the top 100 young entrepreneurs under 30 in America impacting our economy. Mike used to surf and snowboard regularly. In the meantime he's towards reading classics from around the globe and the occasional hot yoga. He is passionate about education, productivity, wisdom (technology, unfortunately, won't solve everything), TED, and his weekly dose of Nature magazine. His favorite TED Book Club reads so far were McMafia and of course the Steve Jobs biography.

Education, Eating Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants (kudos Michael Pollan), Tarantino Movies & our GDP to include growth or decline of Natural Resources as well as financial capital!

Most educational systems are meant to inculcate the values and traditions of a culture onto the student... we need education that instead evokes creativity and vision.

PHP / MySQL, Sustainable Business, UI/UX Design

I learned TED had opened registration in 2008, while on a two month hiatus from my start-up Opportunity Green. At the time I was sun-burned, had a huge beard and traveling in a bio-diesel 4x4 on an ecological adventure from Newport Beach to South America; surfing, learning, building to contribute to the local communities. I had skyped my office from an internet cafe in Lima, Peru and my business partner shouted at me, "Hurry, there are only 2 hours left till registration closes for TED 2008 in Long Beach". As quickly as I could I submitted the application. Two days later I returned from Machu Picchu and found out I had been accepted!

rock-paper-scissors, Teaching science, engineering, math, programming, anything technical. Test-taking.