Kirk Lashley is a technology leader with over 20 years of professional software development experience. He is a software polyglot, experienced in many programming languages, and enjoys working with teams of engineers. Kirk has successfully managed over 100 web application projects since the late 90s and founded a web dev shop in the Caribbean in the 2000s and an on-demand startup in Chicago in the mid-2010s. Now, he serves as the CTO at a travel tech company in Chicago, Rocket Travel, a Booking Holdings, Inc company. Kirk has a background in technology leadership, business operations, and strategy. He believes that technology should not be siloed from the business needs and lives at the crossroads of technology, design, entrepreneurship, and faith. Kirk is a Techstars Chicago 2014 alum and has been a technical adviser to startups in Chicago and the Caribbean since 2012. He is a startup and entrepreneurship protagonist for the Caribbean and currently organizes Startup Weekends Trinidad & Tobago and Chicago.