Team

Chris is a serial social entrepreneur who focuses on problems that aren’t getting the investment they deserve. He was the inaugural winner of the UpPrize Social Impact Award with his startup, Conversant Labs, which was acquired by Apple. He went on to spend seven years at Apple working on accessibility features such as Personal Voice.

At Informup he brings the same focus to local government: taking something difficult and making it radically more accessible, so residents can follow the decisions that shape their neighborhoods and weigh in before they’re made.

Luke is Informup's General Manager, overseeing operations and product. He's spent his career building the operations behind mission-driven organizations across technology, media, and healthcare.

Max is the former Executive Director of Code for Pittsburgh and the founder of Lemali Consulting. As our senior engineer, he leads the engineering behind our platform and ensures our infrastructure and products meet the highest standards of security and reliability.

Ann Belser is the owner and publisher of Print, Pittsburgh's East End monthly newspaper. Before founding Print she was a reporter for the Post-Gazette for more than 20 years. She has a masters degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and lives in Squirrel Hill with her wife, Jan Kurth, their children and their Welsh Corgi, Ffred.

Amy Whipple is a part-time writer, part-time writing instructor, and full-time awesome. In addition to Informup, where she covers the Pittsburgh City Council and the Allegheny County Council, her work can be found in PublicSource, Pittsburgh Magazine, and The Imprint.

Colton Coreschi covers the Pittsburgh Public Schools Board for Informup. In addition to Informup, his work can be found in Pittsburgh City Paper.

Alexis is a Pittsburgh-based photojournalist who is also a Masters in Library and Information Science graduate student at Pitt. She has worked with many Pittsburgh area newspapers, photographed for the Pittsburgh Symphony and Orchestra, and photographed concerts at various local music venues.

As North America Practice Lead at Social Pinpoint, Marti supports and cultivates best practices in online community engagement within the public and non-profit sectors. Previously, Marti worked as an Environmental Planner at the City of Pittsburgh, which received the 2024 IAP2 USA Core Values Award for Organization of the Year.

As a member of the Department of City Planning's Sustainability and Resilience Division, Marti led park planning across the city, working to create long-term visions and investment strategies that reflected resident priorities in parks and open spaces.

Jeff is the head of Responsible AI at Apple and is passionate about community engagement, having successfully lobbied the Pittsburgh Public school board to push back High School start times to 7:45am.

Chardaè is the former Mayor and current Borough council member of Braddock. She enjoys community advocacy and is dedicated to promoting transparent and accessible government.

Mike Capsambelis is a product leader and community advocate with over 25 years of experience commercializing data-intensive technologies across the media, financial services, healthcare, and civic sectors. Recently entering semi-retirement after a 14-year tenure at Google—where he served as Director of Product Management leading Ads, Commerce, and Civic Engagement teams—Mike has long championed inclusive innovation, connecting underrepresented entrepreneurs and students with resources to thrive.

Deeply rooted in Pittsburgh's social enterprise scene, he is the founder of Awesome Pittsburgh, a micro-grant organization that has awarded over 170 grants to local grassroots initiatives, and serves as Board Chair for PACE and board member for the Mon Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Sam is a communications executive and advisor with nearly 20 years of experience. He spent eight years leading global communications at Duolingo, helping guide the company from startup to public company. He now advises startups on communications strategy and is passionate about using technology to make civic participation easier and more accessible.