Laura Thompson

Laura has spent the past decade working on radical innovations aimed at solving the world’s toughest problems. Most recently, Laura was a product lead at Google X, where she drove product strategy for science fiction-sounding technologies including self driving cars, smart contact lenses, and delivery drones. While at X, she delivered more than 100 speeches to C-level audiences around the world to inspire other global leaders. Prior to X, Laura spent several years in London spearheading Google’s first efforts in consumer electronics.

Laura was also an early co-founder of Runa, a tea and clean energy drink company that now employs several thousand indigenous Amazonian farmers and is sold in 7000+ stores nationwide. She was a co-founder of Brown University’s Social Innovation Initiative and a founding member of Glide.org’s Legacy Committee, a group of committed young people expanding the organization’s 51 year legacy of social justice innovation in the Bay Area.