The Zhou & Eesley Family Foundation champions the transformation of lives and livelihoods through impact investments and training in entrepreneurship education and software coding. Focusing on emerging economies and marginalized communities in the U.S. often overlooked by traditional financial institutions, the foundation makes program-related investments in startups and runs educational workshops for historically underrepresented youth. Its mission is to facilitate job creation, innovation, and inclusive economic growth by helping entrepreneurs solve pressing global challenges in environmental sustainability, health care, migration, and education. Through venture philanthropy, research, and impact investments, the foundation works to ensure that advances in science and university technology benefit those with the fewest resources.
Chuck Eesley is a Professor at Stanford University whose research and teaching focus on entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology strategy. Through the Zhou & Eesley Family Foundation and his selective angel investments, he supports early-stage ventures advancing education, sustainability, and inclusive economic growth. His work bridges research and practice, helping founders and policymakers design scalable models for opportunity creation worldwide.
Lijie Zhou is a seasoned infrastructure and platform engineer who has built her career at the heart of Silicon Valley’s tech ecosystem. She currently serves as a Senior Platform Engineer at Inworld AI, where she helps scale mission-critical systems and ensure reliability for next-generation AI infrastructure. Previously, she spent over six years at Gusto as a Site Reliability and Infrastructure Engineer and has also held engineering roles at Meta (Facebook) and McAfee. With deep technical expertise and a passion for leveraging technology for growth and impact, she guides the foundation’s efforts to expand access, innovation, and inclusive opportunity.
