Team

MACH37® is led by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs, business leaders, and venture capital investors with a diverse set of skills and backgrounds: 

Jason Chen
CEO & Executive Director

Jason is VentureScope’s Founder and CEO and MACH37’s CEO and Executive Director. He is a business strategist, entrepreneur, and early stage venture investor with more than 19 years of experience leading business planning and consulting engagements for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and multi-national organizations in both the private and public sector.

Jason is a former Techstar’s Entrepreneur-In-Residence and was the Director of their Startup Next Cybersecurity DC pre-accelerator program that was designed to provide cyber startups with expertise and mentorship. In addition to founding VentureScope, Jason also co-founded HackEd, a cybersecurity hands-on-keyboard cybersecurity training company, and WeatherAlpha, a weather data analytics company.

Jason holds a MA from Harvard University, and a BA from the University of Virginia. He is also certified in InnoCentive’s Problem Deconstruction and Challenge-Driven Innovation methodologies.

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Jennifer Addie
COO, CWO & Strategy Director

Jennifer is a professional innovation strategist, entrepreneur and investor who facilitates organizations through all stages of innovation and acceleration, from startups to large enterprises across the public and private sectors. Leveraging decades of international business experience to help organizations transform, bridge cultures and de-risk ventures, Jennifer’s approach to innovation emphasizes effective problem deconstruction, strategy development, methodological integration, applied cognitive and behavioral approaches, iterative and experiential learning, and holistic wellbeing practices.

As COO and CWO of VentureScope® and MACH37 Cyber Accelerator® she helps lead the consulting, investment, emerging tech scouting, training, accelerator operations and entrepreneurial wellbeing practices. Jennifer also serves as an adjunct professor of Entrepreneurship teaching Lean Startup at seven universities, a Creative Problem Solving (CPS) facilitator, a certified instructional systems designer (CISD), and leader in entrepreneurial wellbeing with a BA in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Virginia as well as a Master of Science in Creativity and graduate certificate in Creativity and Change Leadership from the International Center for Studies in Creativity (ICSC) at the State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo State.

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Dr. Lindsey Polley de Lopez, PhD
Director of Cyber & Space Intelligence

Dr. Polley is VentureScope’s Director of Disruptive Technologies, and MACH37’s Director of Cyber & Space Intelligence. She is a futurist who specializes in the emergent landscape around cyber and “cyber-adjacent” technologies, providing C-Suite and SES-Level leadership with strategic and advisory services related to the research and analysis of disruptive technologies within the commercial sector. Dr. Polley also leads embedded strategic advisory cells that provided emergent technology solution identification for segments of the DoD, with an emphasis on space applications.

Prior to joining, Dr. Polley served as a defense and policy researcher at the RAND Corporation where she worked on cyber and defense-related science & technology projects spanning the DoD, DHS, and the IC. Her doctoral research examined the United States Government’s Vulnerabilities Equities Process for assessing software vulnerabilities, and the intricacies of balancing the various equities involved. She has been featured in several high-profile outlets, including SXSW, Lawfare, OODA Loop, America’s Future Series events, GEOINT Symposium, and the international Ground Systems Architecture Workshop.

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Sarah Safer
Community Engagement Specialist

Sarah is a graduate of Rutgers University, where she earned her degree in Psychology. During her undergraduate studies, she also studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, expanding her academic focus through international coursework and cross-cultural learning experiences. She enjoys bridging people, process, and community to ensure strong impact.