Chris McCoy

By day, Chris builds Footprint, enterprise chat for franchise and chains stores. He's also helping create Storecoin, a new blockchain aimed at powering cryptocurrency inside of franchise and chain stores. By night, he is the executive director and founder of Data4America.org, a nonprofit bridging data and conversations to advance the understanding of policy // Marc Andreessen once recognized him as an "Unknown rockstar in tech" http://www.businessinsider.com/the-55-unknown-rock-stars-in-tech-according-to-marc-andreessen-2014-10 // In 2006, from his dorm room at the University of Washington, Chris invented YourSports.com, a social network for sports history. For 10-plus years, he connected sports history, from local to the pros, in a single network consisting of 4,000,000 networks of schools, teams, players, coaches, trophies, cities, and more--built on top of 40 Million facts of data. Over those 10 years, Chris raised more than $3 million for the business. // In mid-2015, he passed the baton to Jim Rutter and company to begin building his new interest, Data4America. // In late 2015, he started Footprint with the mission of powering internal and customer communications for the world's most innovative franchise and chain store systems // In 2005, he co-founded the I Love Baseball Foundation, a nonprofit baseball academy in the Dominican Republic. Currently, young Dominican kids are being pulled from their families to play baseball around the clock for four to six years, with very little formal education included. Just 2 percent of these kids sign MLB contracts, so by the time the 98 percent go back to their small villages with little education, the cycle of poverty in the D.R. accelerates. ILB exists for baseball and education to happen in the same day. Chris conceived, funded, and co-founded the program after a series of baseball mission trips to Barahona, Dominican Republic as a college senior at the UW. http://ilovebaseball.org. // Chris chose the University of Washington to pursue a baseball scholarship as a pitcher, but ended up as a tech entrepreneur instead. Over the course of just over seven years, he invented PitchSmarter, I Love Baseball, YourSports -- and his social entrepreneur curriculum spanning business, technology, the humanities, and land development. // In 2010, Chris became the first person from his family to graduate from a major four-year university. // Before college, he was elected to serve the DECA.org and its 180,000+ high school students as its national president. // Before ascending to DECA’s national presidency, Chris was elected as the state president of Washington DECA (wadeca.org). // Chris was raised in Kelso, Wash. For the first 15 years he lived with his mom and was raised by a village of aunts and uncles. For the next three-plus years, he lived with his Grandpa Jack, who passed on in 2014. // Chris is a believer in opportunity, that ideas are greater than politics, and in the designated hitter. // You can email him at chris at data4america dot org.