Profile
Dana Martens is a creative technologist, maker, teacher, student and geek currently studying design and technology at Parsons School of Design. She comes from a background designing sustainable community development practices and supporting NYC small businesses, now pursuing new skills that will help her connect her dual passions of building new technologies and designing community-led impact projects in order to better develop unique and sustainable approaches to social innovation, entrepreneurship, and meaningful policy in urban environments. Dana most recently worked as a Policy Associate at The New York Academy of Medicine where she developed policy and supported a portfolio of work at the intersection of aging, business, entrepreneurship, and technology, as well as leading the Age-friendly Local Business Initiative – where she designed internationally recognized age-friendly design guidelines for small businesses, now published citywide in several languages. Previously, she worked for The New York City Department of Small Business Service’s NYC Business Solutions center where she taught aspiring entrepreneurs to start, operate, and expand their businesses by cutting through red tape, navigating permits and licensing challenges, direct mentoring, and instructing classes in the Small Business Digital Toolkit series. Dana holds a bachelor of arts cum laude in Economics from Smith College and is a Candidate in the Master of Fine Arts Design + Technology Program at Parsons School for Desig