Agenda
Reframing Humanity
Session 1
Deepak Chopra, MD
Founder, The Chopra Foundation Author, Total Meditation
Deepak Chopra, MD
Founder, The Chopra Foundation Author, Total Meditation
Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities.
Gabriella Wright
Co-Founder of Never Alone Movement, Actress, and Activist
Poonacha Machaiah
Co-Founder of Never Alone Movement and Founder of Warrior Monk
Poonacha Machaiah
Co-Founder of Never Alone Movement and Founder of Warrior Monk
Poonacha Machaiah is a global thought leader with a unique knowledge and ability in combining both the wellbeing and technology domain. As a leader he is among a new breed of social entrepreneurs, having chosen to apply his corporate expertise from 25 years as a business executive in multiple Fortune 100 companies and entrepreneurial initiatives to addressing societal and wellbeing challenges.
This has led him to launch the Warrior Monk brand targeted at creating a positive societal shift through the compassionate transformation of humankind. Warrior Monk is a brand dedicated to Resilience - Body, Mind, Society and Environment.
Poonacha is the founder and CEO of Wellbeing Tech, a technology company focused on transformative wellbeing solutions for communities. He is also the co-founder of the Never Alone Movement for Suicide Prevention and Mental Health, along with world renowned mind-body medicine pioneer and New York Times best-selling author Deepak Chopra, M.D., actress and humanitarian Gabriella Wright and Michel Pascal - a Chopra Foundation Initiative.
As a serial entrepreneur, he has co-founded startups such as Jiyo, Conscious Leadership Global, Deepak Chopra InnerSpace, Above Solutions and Qyuki. He has also held senior management positions at Nortel, Iridium, Motorola and Sasken.
He holds an MBA from the College of William and Mary, and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering from the B.M.S. College of Engineering.
Cassandra Vieten, PhD
Executive Director, John W. Brick Foundation
Cassandra Vieten, PhD
Executive Director, John W. Brick Foundation
Cassandra Vieten is a clinical psychologist, Executive Director of the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation, Scholar-in-Residence at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at the University of California, San Diego, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where she served as President from 2013-2019. She has authored three books, published numerous articles in scientific journals, and is an internationally recognized keynote speaker and workshop leader.
Youth, Teens & Families
Session 2
C. Victor Brick, M.Ed
Co-Founder, John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation
C. Victor Brick, M.Ed
Co-Founder, John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation
A serial entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker, C. Victor Brick is the CEO of Planet Fitness Growth Partners (PFGP). With 85 health clubs in the United States and Australia, PFGP is the largest privately held Planet Fitness franchisee in the Planet Fitness system. He is also the co-founder, with his wife, Lynne, of Brick Bodies health clubs based in Baltimore, Maryland. Victor has presented workshops, lectures and keynote addresses in over 25 countries around the world. He serves on the Global Wellness Summit Advisory Board, the Mental Wellness Initiative of the Global Wellness Institute, and the Johns Hopkins Hospital Psychiatry and Behavorial Sciences Department Advisory Board. He was the inaugural Planet Fitness Franchisee of the Year and the 1990 IDEA (The Association of Fitness Professionals) Business Person of the Year. He and Lynne were the recipients of the 2020 Global Wellness Summit Debra Simon Award for leadership in furthering Mental Wellness.
Lynne Brick
Co-Founder, John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation
Lynne Brick
Co-Founder, John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation
Lynne Brick is the co-founder, with her husband, Victor, of Planet Fitness Growth Partners, the largest privately held Planet Fitness Franchisee in the Planet Fitness system. She is also the co-founder, with Victor, of Brick Bodies, a chain of health clubs in the Greater Baltimore area. She has produced and starred in a dozen exercise videos and written several group exercise/aerobics instructor training manuals. She is the 2004 Ernst and Young Maryland Entrepreneur of the Year, 1992 European International Presenter of the Year, and 1990 IDEA (The Association for Fitness Professionals) international Instructor of the Year. In 2008, Lynne was the first woman inducted into the Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce Business Hall of Fame. She is also in the Maryland Top 100 Women Circle of Excellence. A former shock trauma nurse at the University of Maryland RA Cowley Shock Trauma Center, the first shock trauma center in the world, she is a member of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Psychiatry and Behavorial Sciences Advisory Board, and was the recepient, with Victor, of the 2020 Global Wellness Summit Debra Simon Award for leadership in furthering Mental Wellness.
Jewel
Singer-songwriter, Mental Health Advocate Founder, Never Broken
Jewel
Singer-songwriter, Mental Health Advocate Founder, Never Broken
Jewel went from a girl who grew up with no running water on an Alaskan homestead, to a homeless teenager in San Diego, to an award winning, Multi-Platinum Recording Artist who released one of the best-selling debuts of all time. Through her career Jewel has sold over 30 million albums worldwide, earned 26 Music Award nominations, including The Grammys, AMAs, MTV Awards, VH1 Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and CMAs, winning 8 times. Jewel has been featured on the cover of TIME Magazine, Rolling Stone, performed on Saturday Night Live, at the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, for The Pope and The President Of The United States. Mental health and mindfulness has been a lifelong passion of Jewel’s. She offers free mindfulness exercises and an online mental health community at JewelNeverBroken.com.
Mallika Chopra
Mom, Media Entrepreneur & Author Author, Living With Intent
Mallika Chopra
Mom, Media Entrepreneur & Author Author, Living With Intent
Mallika Chopra is a mom, media entrepreneur, author and public speaker. She is the author of the Just Be Series - Just Breathe, Just Feel, and Just Be You - a trilogy of illustrated how-to books for children (and the adults in their lives). These books provide simple tools to understand and support social and emotional knowing, resilience, meditation, mindfulness and self reflection.
In Living With Intent: My Somewhat Messy Journey to Purpose, Peace and Joy, Mallika shares insights she gained while seeking meaning and balance as a mom and entrepreneur who felt she was overwhelmed by work, family and too many responsibilities.
Mallika has taught meditation to thousands of people, and is currently a mindfulness consultant for the animated series, Stillwater, on Apple TV+. She enjoys speaking to audiences around the world about intention, balance and living a life of purpose.
Mallika has a BA from Brown University, an MBA from Kellogg Business School, and an MA in Psychology and Education with a mind body spirit concentration from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Patrick Kennedy
Former U.S. Congressman Founder - The Kennedy Forum
Patrick Kennedy
Former U.S. Congressman Founder - The Kennedy Forum
During his time in Congress, Patrick J. Kennedy was the lead author of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Federal Parity Law). He is founder of The Kennedy Forum; co-founder of One Mind; co-chair of the Action Alliance’s Mental Health & Suicide Prevention National Response to COVID-19; a former member of the President‘s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis; and author of “A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction.
Amy Kennedy
Education Director of The Kennedy Forum
Amy Kennedy
Education Director of The Kennedy Forum
Amy is the Education Director of The Kennedy Forum where she pursues partnerships and collaborations that emphasize evidence-based research and programming to facilitate policy change in the areas of education and mental health.
With over 15 years of experience working in public schools, Amy has seen first-hand how a child’s mental health and mental health literacy impacts their ability to learn and grow—not only in the classroom, but in life. Her experiences as a teacher and as a mother of five propel her efforts and advocacy around social-emotional learning and mental wellness for children and adolescents. Each day, Amy challenges herself and others to learn to address ACEs and other developmental roadblocks head on through thoughtful interventions and skill building.
Amy knows that by supporting educators and working with community partners to create robust mental health systems within our schools, it is possible to identify students’ needs and intervene early, while neuroplasticity is at its peak. Through strategies like social-emotional learning and integrated systems of care that meet students where they are, we have the power to improve educational, emotional, and health outcomes for all kids.
Amy serves on the boards of Mental Health America, a leading national advocacy organization and Parity.org, which promotes gender parity at the highest levels of business.
She is an advisory board member of Interaxon, a mental health technology company; the JED Foundation which focuses on mental wellness and emotional preparedness for teens; and Brain Futures.
Amy holds a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Science in Environmental Education from Nova Southeastern University. She was born in Atlantic City and grew up in Pleasantville and Absecon, New Jersey. Amy and her husband, former Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, live in southern New Jersey with their five children.
Odhiambo David
Co-founder, Ryculture Health and Social Innovation, Nairobi, Cities Rise Youth Mental Health Advocate
Odhiambo David
Co-founder, Ryculture Health and Social Innovation, Nairobi, Cities Rise Youth Mental Health Advocate
Odhiambo David is a pharmacist with a passion for and commitment to improving access to quality healthcare services for all and nurturing socially responsible generations through his vocation.
He is the co-founder, Ryculture Health and Social Innovation, a social enterprise committed to improving access to quality healthcare services and promoting human capital development towards a healthy and prosperous community. He is a mental health champion with lived experience which he draws on to support other people as he hopes to rewrite the mental health narrative through programmatic and cross-sectoral interventions addressing the needs of those he commits to serve & work with. He is part of the citiesRISE Nairobi Youth Network.
Monisha Balamurugan
Founder, Naam Vidhaikalam, Cities Rise Youth Mental Health Advocate
Monisha Balamurugan
Founder, Naam Vidhaikalam, Cities Rise Youth Mental Health Advocate
Monisha Balamurugan is a Professional Social Worker from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. With Bachelors and Masters Degree in Social Work from Stella Maris College, Monisha believes in Gandhi's saying, “Be the change you want to see in the world”. Monisha, as a practicing Social Worker has adopted two communities in Saidapet and Thousand Lights in Chennai, She has been a Youth Counsellor with Mind Cafe. Monisha is also the Founder of 'Naam Vidhaikalam', which started as a movement of young people who volunteered for change. Monisha was invited as Guest Speaker, Panelist, Resource Person, Motivator, and Inspirer to share her experience in more than 20 forums (online and in-person) in various colleges across the city and national and international forums. Monisha has authored a book on ‘Scars’ highlighting how struggles and scars in personal lives turn decorations. She has created a video documentary covering the small steps of today towards a safe environment for future youth.
About Organisation
An organization connecting young people through innovative projects and campaigns. Naam Vidhaikalam's innovative Project 63 provides meals and water to homeless people periodically through donations. With one donation of Rs.63, one person receives a meal, water, and fruit. Monisha works with young people to create safe spaces physically and emotionally. Monisha is spearheading two mental health campaigns. One on ‘Suicide Prevention’ titled ‘You are not alone’ conducted in four colleges. To promote positive help-seeking behavior active listening spaces are made available through the campaign called, “I am here to listen”. Monisha’s team invites young people to talk through their walk-in counters in restaurants and cafes.
Seika Brown
Founder and CEO, YLG Research, Cities Rise Youth Mental Health Advocate
Seika Brown
Founder and CEO, YLG Research, Cities Rise Youth Mental Health Advocate
Seika Brown is a 19-year-old researcher, student, and author advocating for mental health. She is the founder and CEO of YLG Research; an initiative that aims to share and discover how mental health is defined globally. She is currently writing a book and has won honorees from The Gates Foundation and The ConversationaLIST. Previously Brown has led “Archnova” - a youth-led nonprofit from 2017-2020 that worked on mental health policy change in Washington State.
Sara Faraj
Cities Rise Youth Mental Health Advocate
Sara Faraj
Cities Rise Youth Mental Health Advocate
Sara Faraj is a seventeen-year-old mental health activist and youth voice advocate from Sacramento, California. For the past few years, Sara has engaged in projects to improve the mental health of members of her local community and school district. More recently, she has joined CitiesRISE Sacramento's Youth Network, where she works with other youth to design, promote, and facilitate initiatives to educate students nationwide about mental health and find creative solutions to improve mental health throughout their communities. In her free time, Sara likes to study foreign relations, coach students in debate, play soccer, and hang out with friends.
The New Mental Health Story
Session 3
Dr. Yvonne Cagle
NASA Astronaut, Aerospace Surgeon
Dr. Yvonne Cagle
NASA Astronaut, Aerospace Surgeon
Dr. Yvonne Darlene Cagle is an Aerospace Surgeon, entrepreneur and consulting professor for Stanford University’s department of cardiovascular medicine and its department of electrical engineering. In addition, Dr. Cagle also has served as a certified senior aviation medical examiner for the FAA and a qualified advanced cardiac life support instructor. Dr. Cagle has served as the innovative liaison for Google, Singularity University, and other Silicon Valley tech industries. Dr. Cagle has globally established groundbreaking work in fitness, STEAM outreach, space sustainability.
Dr. Cagle holds adjunct professorships with Stanford University, UC Davis, and UTMB, Galveston. Dr. Cagle was a Visiting Professor and earned an honorary Ph.D. from Fordham University and while investigating mitigating neurocognitive countermeasures to optimize long duration space crew behavioral health and performance.
After earning her undergraduate degree from San Francisco State University, Dr. Cagle earned an M.D. from the University of Washington. She completed an internship at Highland General Hospital in Oakland, Calif., and a residency in family practice at Ghent Family Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA.
A retired Colonel of the US Air Force, Dr. Cagle is a recipient of the National Defense Service Medal, Air Force Achievement Medal, United States Air Force Air Staff Exceptional Physician Commendation and National Technical Association Distinguished Scientist Award, Dr. Cagle began her medical career as a certified flight surgeon. She was actively involved in mission support of aircraft providing medical support and rescue in a variety of aeromedical missions.
Dr. Cagle has contributed ongoing data to the longitudinal study on astronaut health and served as a consultant for space telemedicine. She was a member of the NASA Working Group and traveled to Russia to establish international medical standards and procedures for astronauts.
Tyler Norris, MDiv
Chief Executive of the Well Being Trust
Tyler Norris, MDiv
Chief Executive of the Well Being Trust
Tyler Norris, MDiv, is chief executive, Well Being Trust, an impact philanthropy with a mission to advance the mental, social and spiritual health of the nation. Over the past three decades, Tyler has shaped health and development initiatives in hundreds of communities in the US and around the world. He has an extensive background as a social entrepreneur and trusted advisor to philanthropies, health systems, government agencies and collaborative partnerships working to improve the health of people and places. Tyler also serves as a board member and/or advisor to Naropa University; the National Academies of Science: Child Well Being Forum; CityHealth; Enterprise Community Partners and others. Prior to becoming the first chief executive of Well Being Trust, Tyler served as vice president of Total Health at Kaiser Permanente, where he led “anchor institution” work, applying all organizational assets to impact the economic, social and environmental determinants of health. He previously served as the founding president and CEO of a leading health consultancy, Community Initiatives, and as founding board chair of IP3, the social enterprise that gave birth to the Community Commons, a GIS data mapping platform. Earlier, he was the first director of what became the Convergence Partnership; a “head coach’ of the YMCA of the USA; and an advisor to Active Living by Design and the Public Health Institute. He helped open the Abraham Path through the heart of the Middle East, and led the Kuhiston Foundation that helped establish the national park system in Tajikistan. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Executive Program, earned a Master of Divinity degree from Naropa University, and has a bachelor’s degree in World Political Economy from Colorado College.
Russell Brand
Comedian, Actor & Mental Health Activist Above the Noise Podcast
Russell Brand
Comedian, Actor & Mental Health Activist Above the Noise Podcast
Russell Brand’s career spans stand-up comedy, acting, broadcasting and writing. He is the author of the Audible Original, ‘Revelation: Connecting with the Sacred in Everyday Life' and his weekly meditation podcast, 'Above the Noise', is available on Luminary Podcasts. Russell lives in the UK with his wife Laura, their two daughters, two dogs, two cats and chickens.
Amishi Jha
Professor, University of Miami Author, Peak Mind
Amishi Jha
Professor, University of Miami Author, Peak Mind
Amishi P. Jha, PhD, author of the forthcoming book Peak Mind (Oct 2021, Harper Collins) is Professor of Psychology in the Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Miami. She serves as the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative and leads research on the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion and resilience. In addition to her research publications, her work has been featured at TED.com, the World Economic Forum, NATO, the Pentagon, NYTimes, NPR, Forbes, Time, Newsweek.
Ali Smith
Co-Founder of the Holistic Life Foundation
Ali Smith
Co-Founder of the Holistic Life Foundation
Ali Smith was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, he is a graduate of the Friends School of Baltimore and the University of Maryland, College Park, where he received a BS in Environmental Science and Policy with a Biodiversity specialization. Ali started his journey with contemplative practices as a small child, learning meditation from his father and attending the Kriya Yoga based Divine Life Church of Absolute Oneness run by Swami Shankarananda. He deepened his practice as a young adult, learning yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and breathwork from his teacher and godfather Will Joyner.
Ali has almost 20 years’ experience teaching yoga, mindfulness, and meditation internationally to a broad demographic spectrum that includes schools, retreat centers, wellness centers, mental crisis facilities, detention centers, drug treatment centers, the corporate setting, as well as private one-on-one sessions. He co-founded the Holistic Life Foundation in 2001. During his tenure as Executive Director, his leadership helped guide HLF to grow an organization that employed over 50 people, and served communities worldwide. He is a published author, written several curriculums, and is a pioneer in the fields of yoga and mindfulness in education, as well as trauma informed yoga and mindfulness, developing best practices that are used around the world. Ali has taught in seven countries on three continents.
His work has been featured on CBS News, CNN, NBC Nightly News, PBS, as well as in Oprah Magazine and Forbes. Ali is also a co-host of the Look Again Podcast and Co-Owner of the Involution Group.
Atman Smith
Co-Founder of the Holistic Life Foundation
Atman Smith
Co-Founder of the Holistic Life Foundation
Atman Smith is one of the Co-founders of the Holistic Life Foundation. Since 2001, he has been teaching yoga and mindfulness to a diverse population including underserved and high-risk youth in Baltimore City Public Schools, drug treatment centers, wellness centers, and colleges. A native of Baltimore, Atman attended the University of Maryland, College Park where he was a letter award winner for the University’s men's basketball team. He graduated with a B.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice. His work with the Holistic Life Foundation has been featured on Making a Difference on the NBC Nightly News, CNN, and CBS, as well as O the Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, Upworthy, Mindful Magazine, Yoga Journal, Shambala Sun, and many other publications.
Steph Johnson & Voices of Our City Choir
San Diego’s World-Famous Homeless Choir
Steph Johnson & Voices of Our City Choir
San Diego’s World-Famous Homeless Choir
Voices of Our City Choir is a non-profit organization that is helping San Diego’s unsheltered neighbors reconnect with hope and possibility through the healing power of music. Founded in 2016, the choir serves as a safe space for mutual aid and community building and gives a voice to San Diego's unsheltered community, both past and present. Today, Voices of Our City Choir has more than 225 members and has helped over 70 of their members get off the street and into temporary or permanent housing. In addition to its programs and advocacy work, Voices of Our City Choir also serves as an inspirational musical ensemble. In 2020, the choir was introduced on a national scale when they made it to the semi-finals of America’s Got Talent, NBC’s No. 1 summer show. The choir performs with an award-winning jazz group and performance-generated funds help employ case management staff and provide food and resources to choir members. For more information, go to: www.voicesofourcity.org
Singer/guitarist Steph Johnson is an award-winning, multi-dimensional recording artist whose music deftly blends jazz, soul, funk and blues. She’s a captivating performer whose engaging smile is complemented by a lush and distinctive voice.
Steph recently released her new album "So In Love", the 10-song collection of Johnson's favorite jazz standards and ballads. This record features pianist Josh Nelson (Natalie Cole), guitarist Anthony Wilson (Diana Krall), trumpeter Chris Lawrence, bassist Rob Thorsen and drummer Richard Sellers. You can find her music on all digital platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, and can purchase it on her website here.
DeeDee McNeil from LA Jazz Scene writes, "With her recent release of 'So In Love,' Steph continues her spiral upward towards bright, musical horizons. This may be her best recording to date.”
Steph’s 4th album, "Music is Art" is a collaboration with Grammy Award Winning producer, Kamau Kenyatta and features nine soulful, accessible and evocative original compositions by Steph Johnson, plus "Human Race," a unique take on Wayne Shorter's classic "Night Dreamer.
Steph burst onto the music scene after winning the San Diego Magazine Songwriter Award, and has received a San Diego Music Award for Best Jazz Album.
Growing up, Steph was influenced by her grandmother’s favorite singers: Ike and Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder; and by the ’70s icons beloved by her mother, including James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. Steph discovered jazz through Miles Davis' classic album, Kind of Blue, which led her to the great female jazz vocalists: Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn.
Jazz critic Robert Bush wrote that Steph’s "…core strength is as a communicator with rhythmic depth and smoky, pliant power…her sweet yearning vocal really soars."
Her recording career has taken a back seat in recent years to social activism. Steph co-founded and is now Executive Director and Music Director of the Voices of Our City Choir, whose members are experiencing homelessness. The choir is a nonprofit that provides community and case management and has helped find housing for 60 of its 250 members. Voices of Our City Choir is now feeding approximately 1,000 individuals a week, providing meals and phone charging stations.
Voices of Our City is an inspirational musical ensemble that has garnered plenty of headlines. The choir has been the focus of a documentary "The Homeless Chorus Speaks" that aired nationally on PBS stations. The group has performed with the San Diego Symphony, and opened a benefit concert at the historic Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles on a bill that featured Jason Mraz and founding members of the Doors.
More recently Voices of Our City Choir performed on season 15 of America’s Got Talent, and was given the coveted Golden Buzzer by host Terry Crews. This catapulted them to the live shows where they became semifinalists on America's Got Talent Season 15.
Steph has been recognized as one of San Diego CityBeat’s People of the Year. She was also named 2020 Woman of the Year by San Diego Assembly member Todd Gloria. Californians for the Arts highlighted the impact Steph's work has by coining her a California Arts Champion.
Talking About Mental Health
Session 4
Diane von Furstenberg
Fashion Designer Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation
Diane von Furstenberg
Fashion Designer Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation
Diane von Furstenberg is a fashion designer, philanthropist and Founder and Chairwoman of the company that bears her name. In 1974, she created the iconic wrap dress, which became a symbol of power and independence for women and grew into a global brand. She’s been a champion of women her entire life, supporting and empowering emerging women leaders across the globe. In 2010, with the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, Diane established the DVF Awards to honor and provide grants to women who have displayed leadership, strength and courage in their commitment to their causes. She served as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America from 2006-2019. In 2015, she was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People and the following year, she received the CFDA Swarovski Award for Positive Change. In September of 2019, Diane von Furstenberg was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame honored for her leadership and achievements which have changed the course of history. She currently serves on the boards of Vital Voices, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation. She has written several books, including Diane: A Signature Life and The Woman I Wanted to Be and recent release, Own It: The Secret to Life.
Guru Gowrappan
Executive Vice President & CEO, Verizon Media Group
Guru Gowrappan
Executive Vice President & CEO, Verizon Media Group
Guru Gowrappan serves as executive vice president & CEO of Verizon Media Group, a division of Verizon creating what’s next in content, advertising and technology. Verizon Media brands like Yahoo and TechCrunch help people stay informed and entertained, communicate and transact, while creating new ways for advertisers and partners to connect.
Guru has an impressive track record of scaling mobile product and business operations during his more than 15 years in the internet industry. He brings a borderless, global mindset to his mission of accelerating growth for Verizon Media.
Prior to joining Verizon Media, Guru was the Global Managing Director at the Alibaba Group, where he focused on international expansion for key consumer and enterprise products across commerce, entertainment & media, local services, payments and the company’s entire commerce-enabling stack.
Before his time as one of Alibaba’s foremost senior executives, Guru was COO at Quixey, where he led the Product, Business, and Marketing organizations. He was also previously COO for Growth and Emerging Initiatives at Zynga and shepherded the company through its IPO process with the management team while serving as Head of Zynga Japan.
Earlier in his career, Guru worked at Overture, where he helped define the multi-billion-dollar search marketing industry. As part of Yahoo, he held several leadership roles, including Global Head of Product, Program Management, and Operations.
Corporate and charitable leadership
Guru co-founded two Indian startups and remains an active startup advisor. He serves on the Board of Directors for BNY Mellon and Tech:NYC. He is also
Dr. Leyla Hussein
Founder, Dahlia Project Rector, University of St. Andrews
Dr. Leyla Hussein
Founder, Dahlia Project Rector, University of St. Andrews
Dr. Leyla Hussein is a psychotherapist, specializing in supporting survivors of sexual abuse. She is an international lecturer on female genital mutilation (FGM) and speaker on gender rights. She is recognized as one of the key experts on this issue globally and is a leading and award-winning international campaigner against all forms of violence against women and girls. Leyla founded The Dahlia Project, the UK’s first specialist therapeutic service for FGM survivors. Leyla’s passion is to create safe spaces for women and girls around the world. Most recently, she co-founded Safe Spaces for Black Women with her colleague Fatima Hagi to provide emotional support for Black women across the globe. In 2020, she was elected as Rector of the University of St Andrews for a three-year term, making history as the first Black woman to hold the position. She currently works as the Global Advocacy Director and Deputy Team Leader for the Africa-led Movement to End FGM.
Charlie Engle
Ultramarathon Runner Author, Running Man
Charlie Engle
Ultramarathon Runner Author, Running Man
Charlie Engle is one of the premier ultra-endurance adventure athletes in the world today. He’s run across more than 40 countries but counts his most important accomplishment as his 28 years living clean and sober. Charlie’s record-setting 4,500 run across the Sahara Desert, documented in the film RUNNING THE SAHARA, led to the creation of H2O Africa, which is known today as Water.org, co-founded by Matt Damon.
Charlie has been a featured speaker at the United Nations, at NATO Headquarters in Belgium and onboard the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier. He regularly trains Fortune 500 companies in strategies for resilience and addressing addiction issues. His best-selling memoir RUNNING MAN was published by Simon and Schuster in 2016.
Evan Williams
Actor, Artist, Musician, Philanthropist
Evan Williams
Actor, Artist, Musician, Philanthropist
Bright World is the solo musical project of actor, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Evan M. Williams. Strong folk and throwback pop influences blend with an indie vibe and hints of world-music flavor to create a sound that is both accessible and atypical; a Paul Simon and Jeff Buckley lovechild, raised by Vampire Weekend, and tutored by Queen. A songwriter since childhood, Williams draws on decades of experience as a professional performer to infuse a natural theatricality into the music of Bright World. Alternately bombastic and whisper-sensitive, he finds room for poetry turning the stones of his inner life, digging for material in what swirls deep in his psyche.
As an actor, he has gained worldwide popularity with his memorable roles on “Versailles” for BBC/NetflixUS (for which he was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award), fan-favorite “Awkward” for MTV and most recently the starring role in the feature film “Midnight At The Magnolia” in which he sings and plays. Midnight at the Magnolia went to Top 5 in US and Top 10 worldwide streams on Netflix in winter 2020.
Bright World's newest single "I'm Not Alone" releases worldwide May 21, 2021.
Technology & The New Mental Health
Session 5
Nait Jones
Entrepreneur, Investor and Philanthropist
Nait Jones
Entrepreneur, Investor and Philanthropist
Naithan has a career of investing in and managing tech companies as a founder and an executive in some of the world's most storied companies. Currently, he helps others reach their professional goals through a training program (TxO), and in their spiritual goals through one on one mentorship.
Solome Tibebu
Director, The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health
Solome Tibebu
Director, The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health
Solome Tibebu is a behavioral health technology strategist passionate about health equity and access. Solome leads The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health, a collaborative fund seeded by Melinda Gates' Pivotal Ventures and other private family offices. Solome is also the host of the Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech summit. Prior to consulting various stakeholders on all things behavioral health technology, Solome worked in corporate development, venture capital, behavioral health EHR software, ran a mental health tech startup, founded AnxietyInTeens.org, and has been developing healthcare startup communities since 2012. Solome is an advisor or board director to several behavioral health companies and national nonprofits.
Michiel Rauws
Co-founder & CEO, X2AI
Michiel Rauws
Co-founder & CEO, X2AI
As a longtime peer support counselor Michiel Rauws decided to start X2 AI - a company providing mental health support through conversations with an AI Chatbot. Over 19,000,000 people have paid access to the service, and thousands of employers. Five thousand counselors can take over the conversation at any time, or provide therapy sessions.
The Chopra Foundation partnered with X2 AI to create Piwi, a custom mental health chatbot designed for suicide awareness week (www.x2ai.com/piwi). Piwi was able to provide mental health support chats to 75,000 people, while exchanging over 6,000,000 messages, and de-escalating 2,800 suicidal crisis situations.
X2 has customers in four verticals: 1. Employers / EAPs 2. Healthcare Systems / Payers 3. Higher Education 4. Non profits - and work with companies such as Johns Hopkins Medical, Coca-Cola, AARP Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield, County of Monterey, and NorthWestern University.
A total of 7 studies have already been published by Stanford, Northwestern, and Duke University proving the efficacy of the service. Randomized controlled trials found the automated chat service to decrease symptoms by as much as 18% for Anxiety (GAD-8), and 28% for depression (PHQ-9). Moreover, X2 AI was awarded over $1,200,000 in grant funding from NIH, NIMH, PCORI, and the likes to support 13 additional ongoing studies.
Ricardo Gil-da-Costa Ph.D.
Neurophysiologist and Entrepreneur Co-founder & C.E.O. of Neuroverse®, Inc.
Ricardo Gil-da-Costa Ph.D.
Neurophysiologist and Entrepreneur Co-founder & C.E.O. of Neuroverse®, Inc.
Ricardo Gil-da-Costa is a neuroscientist and entrepreneur whose pursuit of how the mind and brain work has led him over the last 19 years from field studies in Africa and Central America to neurophysiology research at Harvard University, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Dr. Gil-da Costa’s research on the neural foundations and evolution of human cognition and language has been distinguished with multiple awards, such as the Donald B. Lindsley Prize for Behavioral Neuroscience, featured on the cover of Nature Neuroscience and incorporated in neurosciences textbooks and university curriculae.
Dr. Gil-da-Costa’s passion for developing translational solutions to rising mental health and wellness problems has motivated him over the last 9 years, to focus on actionable neurotechnologies to impact mental performance and the prevention and treatment of brain disorders. These endeavors led to several US and international patents and to founding Neuroverse® Inc., where he leads a team committed to bringing a novel brain interface system into everyday life, the BrainStation®.
Dr. Gil-da-Costa is a reviewer for various leading scientific journals and an advisor for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences – Science and Entertainment Exchange, the National Academies Keck Future Initiatives, and for the Bankinter Innovation Foundation Future Trends Forum.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardo-gil-da-costa-42917264
Dr. Srini Pillay
CEO NeuroBusiness Group
Dr. Srini Pillay
CEO NeuroBusiness Group
Dr. Srini Pillay graduated as the top overall medical student in South Africa and the top award-winning resident in Psychiatry at Harvard. He is a former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Outpatient Anxiety Disorders Program at Harvard
Medical School’s Mclean Hospital. He is also a former brain-imaging researcher at
Harvard (17 years), a certified master executive coach and CEO of NeuroBusiness
Group®, voted one of the top 20 movers and shakers in leadership development in the world by Training Industry. Dr. Pillay has been a pioneer in the field of transformational neurocoaching®, which provides business leaders with a deep psychological
understanding relevant to their personal and professional lives with practical tips, tools and techniques to enhance leadership development using mindset strategies to decrease stress and anxiety, enhance creativity and agility, facilitate change, and optimize mindsets at times of disruption and transformation.
He is on a by-invitation-only national US think tank in psychiatry that focuses on “Disasters and the World” and is also a member of the Transformational Leadership Council. In addition, he is a member of the Consortium for Learning Innovation at McKinsey & Co. He is on the board of FRED Leadership, invested in ethical leadership and currently also serves as co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Reulay, a mindset shift and human longevity company. Their current pipeline and patents includes a VR application to boost strategic speed, innovation and resilience, and reduce anxiety; a “cyberdelic” to mimic the effects of psychedelics on self-reorganization, and a VR/AR paradigm to reduce anxiety in space and Mars.
Dr. Pillay has been/is on the faculties of Harvard Business School, Mobius Executive Leadership, and Duke Corporate Education. He is also collaborating with Babson College on entrepreneurial mindset shifts within large organizations. His clients include numerous international multilaterals and Fortune 500 companies including Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, Blue Shield of California, Ernst and Young, Prudential, The United Nations, The World Bank and many others. He is an invited instructor at LinkedIn on 4 video compilations: Depression in the Workplace, Anxiety in the Workplace, Addiction in the workplace and Leveraging Neuroscience in the Workplace. He has a course with ExecOnline with Duke CE on strengthening workplace wellness.
His books include “Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear” (Rodale, 2010), “Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders” (FT Press, 20110, and “Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind” (Ballantine Books, 2017.) His books have been translated into eight languages. Dr. Pillay has lectured throughout the world including the US, Canada, UK, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, Greece, India, Singapore, and Brazil.
Apart from these endeavors, Dr. Pillay has recently completed writing a musical, designed a fashion show, continues his work in biotechnology across cancer, heart disease, stroke and neurodegenerative companies and is working on multiple anxiety-reducing technologies at Reulay.
He has also presented a TEDx Talk – “WIRED FOR SUCCESS: The Science of Possibility”
Patrick Candela
CEO & Founder of Reulay Inc.
Patrick Candela
CEO & Founder of Reulay Inc.
Patrick Candela is the CEO & Founder of Reulay Inc. Reulay's mission is to increase the quality of life and longevity for 2 billion humans by creating effective, scalable, and affordable digital health interventions.
David Kumaran
Entrepreneur, Investor, & Yogi
David Kumaran
Entrepreneur, Investor, & Yogi
David Kumaran is a multifaceted polymath and a spiritual seeker. He has taken over a decade of work as an entrepreneur and investor and fused it with his path of yoga. Currently, David is helping a new generation of founders find their way through the idea maze of their early ventures at Dojo, a CoLab focused on sustainability, diversity, and inclusion.
Prior to Dojo, David spent time as an executive in several early-stage ventures, all successful to varying degrees, in areas such as consumer marketplaces, renewable energy, and hardware.
His core thesis for building innovative companies is that “innovation starts from within oneself if you can’t innovate yourself, you can’t innovate your team or company.” - David Kumaran
Sharad Devarajan
Professor of AI, Columbia University
Sharad Devarajan
Professor of AI, Columbia University
Adjunct Professor, Virtual Reality & Artificial Intelligence
Columbia Business School, Columbia University
Co-Founder & CEO, Graphic India / Liquid Comics
Devarajan is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, where he has served for over a decade, teaching a variety of classes on disruptive technology, media, entrepreneurship and storytelling including:
- Virtual Reality & Artificial Intelligence
- Media Marketing and Entrepreneurship
- Transmedia & Transcreation
- Just Capital and Cause Driven Marketing (co-taught with author, Deepak Chopra)
Devarajan is also a media entrepreneur and producer. He founded India’s top character entertainment company, Graphic India as the culmination of his lifelong dream to create superheroes and stories that unlock the unique creativity of India but appeal to audiences worldwide - transforming the perception of India from being an ‘outsourcer” to being ‘the source.’
Over his career Devarajan has created and produced over 200 animated TV/digital episodes and either published, edited or created over 300 comic books and graphic novels. Previously he was CEO of Virgin Comics (later renamed Liquid Comics), which he founded with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.
For his activities, Mr. Devarajan was featured as CNNfn’s ‘Maverick in The Morning’ and covered in numerous media including The Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg and NPR’s Fresh Air and has been an avid speaker on media and globalization at Fortune’s Global Summit; The Paley Center International Summit; The Wall Street Journal’s, WSJD Live Laguna Conference; INK Talks; RISE; TEDX; Harvard Business School; and more.
Watch Sharad’s TEDx Talk on the Rise of The Indian Superhero.
Jud Brewer MD Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Brown University Co-Founder MindSciences, Inc.
Jud Brewer MD Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Brown University Co-Founder MindSciences, Inc.
Jud Brewer MD Ph.D. (“Dr. Jud”) is a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery”, having combined over 20 years of experience with mindfulness training with his scientific research therein. He is the Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center and associate professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences and Psychiatry at the Schools of Public Health & Medicine at Brown University. He is also the executive medical director of behavioral health at Sharecare Inc. and a research affiliate at MIT. A psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for addictions, Brewer has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for habit change, including both in-person and app-based treatments for smoking, emotional eating, and anxiety. He has also studied the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI and EEG neurofeedback. He has trained US Olympic athletes and coaches, foreign government ministers, and his work has been featured on 60 Minutes, TED (4th most viewed talk of 2016, with 16 Million views), the New York Times, Time magazine (top 100 new health discoveries of 2013), Forbes, BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera (documentary about his research), Businessweek and others. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, among others. Dr. Brewer founded MindSciences (which merged with Sharcecare Inc. in 2020) to move his discoveries of clinical evidence behind mindfulness for anxiety, eating, smoking and other behavior change into the hands of consumers (see www.drjud.com for more information). He is the author of The Craving Mind: from cigarettes to smartphones to love, why we get hooked and how we can break bad habits (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017) and the New York Times best-seller, Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind (Avery/Penguin Random House, 2021)
Deepak Chopra, MD
Founder, The Chopra Foundation Author, Total Meditation
Deepak Chopra, MD
Founder, The Chopra Foundation Author, Total Meditation
Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities.
Social Justice & Mental Health
Session 6
Dr. Rowan Williams
Former Archbishop of Canterbury
Dr. Rowan Williams
Former Archbishop of Canterbury
Dr. Rowan Williams was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, confirmed in 2002. He served for a decade before becoming Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge University, until his retirement in 2019. He is chair of the development charity, Christian Aid. and the author of numerous books on faith and society, most recently (with Mary Zournazi), Justice and Love: A Philosophical Dialogue. As chair of the trustees of the Inspire Dialogue Foundation, a U.K. charity, he also has been integral to the foundation’s vision to support the human capacity for inclusive listening, connection and non-polarizing engagement.
Alexander McLean
Founder & Director, Justice Defenders
Alexander McLean
Founder & Director, Justice Defenders
Alexander is the Founder and CEO of Justice Defenders. He is passionate about justice, having trained as a barrister and magistrate. During gap year travels to East Africa, McLean fundraised to provide better health facilities and educate Ugandan inmates about the law. After graduating from the University of Nottingham in 2007, he moved to Kampala, where he created a team of local and international staff and volunteers to develop the work of the African Prisons Project.
He is a Senior TED Fellow, Ashoka Fellow and UK Young Philanthropist of the Year. He appears in TIME’s 30 Under 30 Changing the World and ‘The Power List’, featuring Britain's most influential people of African and African-Caribbean heritage.
Rhonda Magee
Professor, University of San Francisco Author: The Inner Work of Racial Justice
Rhonda Magee
Professor, University of San Francisco Author: The Inner Work of Racial Justice
Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco and an internationally-recognized thought and practice leader focused on integrating mindfulness into higher education, law and social change work. A prolific author, she draws on law and legal history to weave storytelling, poetry, analysis and practices into inspiration for changing how we think, act and live better together in a rapidly changing world.
Born in North Carolina in 1967, Rhonda experienced a childhood of significant trauma and challenge. Yet, she was gifted with the insight that through a life of caring engagement, self-development, and service with others, she could find a way up and out. She has dedicated her life to healing and teaching in ways that support others in a journey to wholeness and justice. A student of a variety of Buddhist and other wisdom teachers, including Norman Fischer, Joan Halifax and Jon Kabat Zinn, she trained as a mindfulness teacher through the Oasis Teacher Training Institute of the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. She teaches mindfulness-based interventions, awareness, and compassion practices from a range of traditions. A former President of the board of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, Professor Magee is a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute, where she recently completed a two-year term on its steering council. She is a member of the board of advisors of the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness and the board of directors for the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute.
Rhonda is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on mindfulness in legal education, and on teaching about race using mindfulness, including “Educating Lawyers to Meditate?” 79 UMKC L. Rev. 535 (2011), “The Way of ColorInsight: Understanding Race and Law Effectively Using Mindfulness-Based ColorInsight Practices”, 8 Georgetown J. of Mod. Crit. Race Perspectives 251 (2016), “Teaching Mindfulness with Mindfulness of Diversity,” in McCown et al, Resources for Teaching Mindfulness: An International Handbook (Springer, 2017), and “Community Engaged Mindfulness and Social Justice: An Inquiry and Call to Action”, in Purser et al., Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context and Social Engagement (2017).
Her first book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness, will be published in September 2019 by TarcherPerigee, a member of the Penguin Random House Group. Order your copy now.
Azim Khamisa
Founder, Tariq Khamisa Foundation
Azim Khamisa
Founder, Tariq Khamisa Foundation
Following the murder of his son in 1995, Azim Khamisa founded the Tariq Khamisa Foundation (TKF.org), which started a subsequent forgiveness movement that has reached millions.
He has received over 80 local, national and international awards amongst which are: In 1997 he received the National Crime Victims Special Community Service Award presented by President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno, In 2002, he received Search for Common Ground’s prestigious award alongside Desmond Tutu and Ted Koppel In 2004, he participated in the Synthesis Dialogues with His Holiness the Dalai Lama which was hosted by Pope John Paul at his summer palace in Castelgandolfo, Italy and in 2006 he was given the "Spirit of Crazy Horse Award" from the Reclaiming Youth Network alongside Mohammad Ali. In addition, Azim has been the recipient of the California Peace Prize in 2003 and the Pepsi Freedom Heroes Award in 2006. He has received seral other Peacemaker of the Year awards
Azim has served as TKF's founder and chairperson for over 24 years. He is an emissary of peace and an international inspirational speaker with over 700 keynotes, including one to 300,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial at the Stand For Children Rally organized by the Children’s Defense Fund, as well as a speech to the United Nations General Assembly at the High level forum on the culture of peace.
Azim serves on the Board in the capacity of Vice Chair for the Institute of Noetic Science (www.noetic.org). IONS was founded 46 years ago by Edgar Mitchell who was the 6th man to walk on the moon and is a leading global institution on researching consciousness.
With a strong passion to share his message with the youth and to inspire nonviolent leaders to become proactive as peacebuilders, Azim, in addition, has given over 1,000 presentations to over a million students worldwide. He is a published author of five books: Award-winning Murder to Forgiveness (being made into a feature film); From Forgiveness to Fulfillment, From Fulfillment to Peace and The Secrets of the Bulletproof Spirit: How to bounce back from life’s hardest hits co-authored with Jillian Quinn and published by Random House. His 5th book “Leadership for the greater good – A guide for the truth to power champions” recently released in May 2020. He has been featured countless times in local, national and international media. In November 2018, Azim spoke for the TEDWomen conference that has been viewed by over 1 million viewers: go.TED.com/azimandples.
Azim was born in Kenya of Eastern roots and educated in England in mathematics and finance and has over 45 plus experience in international finance. Azim lives in La Jolla, California and is the proud father of daughter Tasreen and grandfather of Shahin, Khalil and Miya
And for more information on Azim, please visit www.AzimKhamisa.com
Tony Hicks
Tariq Khamisa Foundation
Tony Hicks
Tariq Khamisa Foundation
In 1990, Tony Hicks came to live with his grandfather after a young life overexposed to violence, gangs, abuse, rejection, and rage. Ples was a role model, boundary, and passionate grandfather to Tony but the teenage years were difficult. One afternoon in January 1995 Tony ran away from home to be with the wrong crowd. That night, after a day of drinking and drugs, Tony became part of a pizza delivery robbery. He was given a loaded handgun and told to shoot the driver who had refused to give up the pizzas.
Tony murdered twenty-year- old Tariq Khamisa, an innocent young man working his way through college. At the age of fourteen, Tony became the youngest juvenile in California to be charged and convicted as an adult. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Tony’s parole hearing was scheduled for November 2018 where he was found suitable for parole. In April 2019 Tony Hicks was released from prison. Tony continues to be supported by the Hicks/Felix and Khamisa family.
Psychedelics & Mental Health
Session 7
Deepak Chopra, MD
Founder, The Chopra Foundation Author, Total Meditation
Deepak Chopra, MD
Founder, The Chopra Foundation Author, Total Meditation
Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities.
Gita Vaid MD
Board Certified Psychiatrist
Gita Vaid MD
Board Certified Psychiatrist
Gita Vaid, MD is a Board Certified Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. Dr. Vaid completed her residency training at NYU Medical Center and psychoanalytic training at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Education affiliated with NYU. She has a rich research and biological background, completing a fellowship in clinical psychopharmacology and neurophysiology at New York Medical College and a research fellowship at NYU Medical Center.
Dr. Vaid is currently on faculty and teaches at both IPE and the NYU Department of Psychiatry. She has a special interest in teaching interview technique, psychoanalytic theory and British object relations.
Dr. Vaid’s current focus and interest is in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. She is a MAPS training therapist and part of the NY site Phase 3 MDMA psychotherapy study for PTSD. She trained with Phil Wolfson MD with KAP and has been using it in clinical practice while developing psychotherapy models to reimagine how psychotherapy is practiced and might be blended with various complementary modalities.
JR Rahn
Founder & CEO, MindMed
JR Rahn
Founder & CEO, MindMed
JR is the CEO & Co-Founder of MindMed (NASDAQ: MNMD), the first ever publicly listed psychedelic medicine company. MindMed is a clinical-stage psychedelic medicine biotech company addressing mental illness and addiction. The company is assembling a compelling drug development pipeline of innovative treatments based on psychedelic substances including Psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, DMT and an Ibogaine derivative, 18-MC. Before starting MindMed, JR worked in market expansion and operations at Uber and led a previous fintech startup through Y Combinator in Silicon Valley.
Silvia Vásquez-Lavado
Explorer, Mountaineer Founder, Courageous Girls
Silvia Vásquez-Lavado
Explorer, Mountaineer Founder, Courageous Girls
Silvia Vásquez-Lavado is a humanitarian, adventure mountaineer, social entrepreneur, and technologist. In 2016, Silvia became the first Peruvian, openly gay woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal and by 2018 she completed climbing 7 Summits (otherwise known as the tallest mountain in each continent). Each adventure tells a new story, filled with tragic loss, incredible resilience, courage and healing. In 2015, Silvia went on to create a non-profit called Courageous Girls, in which she coordinated mountain climbing excursions to Everest for girls who survived sexual abuse. Her achievements led her to be recognized as an Ambassador in Peru and a symbol of women empowerment around the world. Silvia's memoir, In The Shadow of The Mountain, is publishing February 22, 2022 and will be turned into a feature film, featuring Selena Gomez as Silvia. She is currently a North Face ambassador, public speaker, mentor and is gearing up for skiing the South Pole in Antarctica.
Albert Lin
National Geographic Society Explorer Research Scientist, UCSD
Albert Lin
National Geographic Society Explorer Research Scientist, UCSD
Albert Lin is an internationally renowned scientist, innovator, technologist, entrepreneur, and an award winning National Geographic Explorer. He is director of the Center for Human Frontiers at the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego. He received his PhD in materials science and engineering from UC San Diego. His work has been featured in the Washington Post, BBC, NPR, ABC news, TEDx, Wired magazine, Gizmodo, al Jazeera, National Geographic, Newsweek, and the Harvard Business Review. He has founded and directed numerous programs including the UC San Diego National Geographic Engineers for Exploration Program, the Exploration Lab, the Distributed Health Labs, and the international effort known as the Valley of the Khans Project in collaboration with National Geographic. He is the host of numerous National Geographic documentaries, including the popular series Lost Cities with Albert Lin.
Roland Griffiths, Ph.D.
Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Roland Griffiths, Ph.D.
Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., is the Oliver Lee McCabe, III Professor in the Neuropsychopharmacology of Consciousness in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences and Director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs and he is author of over 400 scientific publications. About 20 years ago, he initiated a research program at Johns Hopkins investigating effects of the classic psychedelic substance psilocybin, the active component in "magic mushrooms." Remarkably, many research participants rate their experience of psilocybin as among the most personally meaningful of their lives, and they attribute enduring positive changes in moods, attitudes and behavior months to years after the experience. Completed and ongoing studies include those in healthy volunteers, in beginning and long-term meditators, and in religious leaders. Therapeutic studies with psilocybin include treatment of psychological distress in cancer patients, major depressive disorder, nicotine addiction, anorexia nervosa, and various other psychiatric disorders. Related studies of brain imaging and drug interactions are examining pharmacological and neural mechanisms of action. His research group has also conducted a series of survey studies characterizing various naturally-occurring and psychedelic-occasioned transformative experiences including mystical, religious, and Near Death experiences, as well as experiences claimed to reduce depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.
Movement, Nutrition & Mental Health
Session 8
Russell Wilson
QB, Seattle Seahawks, Founder of Limitless Minds and Why Not You Foundation
Russell Wilson
QB, Seattle Seahawks, Founder of Limitless Minds and Why Not You Foundation
Russell is the Super Bowl-winning quarterback to the Seattle Seahawks and the Co-founder and Chairman of Limitless Minds. He is an entrepreneur and philanthropist and holds the highest winning percentage in NFL History. He was awarded the Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2021.
Russell has an unwavering belief that "Success Leaves Clues" and can teach your team the value of being on a constant Quest For Knowledge. Russell has proven to be the poster-child for neutral thinking and the utilization of strategic "inner-language" to impact one's behaviors, which will ultimately dictate elite results.
Harry Wilson
Founder of Limitless Minds
Harry Wilson
Founder of Limitless Minds
Harry spent more than a decade as a successful leader and innovator in the biotech/pharma space, and 4 years as a Division 1 athlete (football and baseball). As a Co-founder and CEO of Limitless Minds, Harry has taken his years as a perennial top-performer, in both leadership and contributor roles, to a broader audience.
Bonnie Kaplan, PhD
Professor Emeritus, University of Calgary Co-Author, The Better Brain
Bonnie Kaplan, PhD
Professor Emeritus, University of Calgary Co-Author, The Better Brain
Bonnie J. Kaplan, PhD, is a Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. As one of the 2017 top 150 'Difference Makers" in Canada in the area of Mental Health, she has published widely on the biological basis of developmental disorders and mental health – particularly, the contribution of nutrition to brain development and brain function.
Elissa Epel, PhD
Professor and Vice Chair - Department of Psychiatry, at University of California, San Francisco
Elissa Epel, PhD
Professor and Vice Chair - Department of Psychiatry, at University of California, San Francisco
Elissa Epel, Ph.D, is a Professor at UCSF. She studies how chronic stress can impact biological aging (such as the telomere/telomerase system), and how meditation interventions may buffer stress effects and promote psychological and physiological thriving. Epel is one of the first recipients of a JWB Brick Foundation grant, and is studying and comparing the effects of wim hof breathing, exercise, and meditation on mental health and cell aging. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Epel co-wrote “The Telomere Effect” with Liz Blackburn, a New York Times best seller under Science.
Dr. Uma Naidoo
Psychiatrist Author, This is Your Brain on Food
Dr. Uma Naidoo
Psychiatrist Author, This is Your Brain on Food
Michelin-starred chef David Bouley described Dr. Uma Naidoo as the world’s first “triple threat” in the food as medicine space: She is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, Professional Chef and Nutrition Specialist. Her niche work is in Nutritional Psychiatry and she is regarded both nationally and internationally as a medical pioneer in this more newly recognized field.
Featured in the Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Harvard Health Press, Goop, and many others, Dr. Uma has a special interest on the impact of food on mood and other mental health conditions.
In her role as a Clinical Scientist, Dr. Naidoo founded and directs the first hospital-based clinical service in Nutritional Psychiatry in the USA. She is the Director of Nutritional and Lifestyle
Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) & Director of Nutritional Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital Academy while serving on the faculty at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Naidoo graduated from the Harvard-Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program in Boston during which she received several awards, some of which included a “Junior Investigator Award” (American Psychiatric Association); “Leadership Development for Physicians and Scientists” award (Harvard), as well as being the very first psychiatrist to be awarded the coveted “Curtis Prout Scholar in Medical Education”. Dr. Naidoo has been asked by The American Psychiatric Association to author the first academic text in Nutritional Psychiatry.
In addition to this, Dr. Naidoo is the author of the upcoming title, This Is Your Brain On Food to be released August 4th, 2020. In her book, she shows cutting-edge science explaining the
ways in which food contributes to our mental health and how a sound diet can help treat and prevent a wide range of psychological and cognitive health issues, from ADHD to anxiety, depression, OCD, and others.
Alex Smith
NFL QB
Alex Smith
NFL QB
Alex Smith is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League for 16 seasons. He played college football at Utah, where he was recognized as an All-American and led his team to victory in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl. Following his collegiate success, he was selected first overall by the San Francisco 49ers in the 2005 NFL Draft.
Smith led the 49ers to their first NFC West division title and playoff win since 2002, along with the teams first NFC Championship Game appearance since 1997. The next year he joined the Kansas City Chiefs, where he guided them to four playoff runs between 2013 and 2017 and one postseason victory in 2015, their first since 1993. Smith also received three Pro Bowl selections during his Chiefs tenure and led the league in passer rating for 2017. He was traded to the Washington Redskins in 2018 which during his first season with Washington, Smith suffered a life-threatening injury to his right leg that nearly resulted in amputation. Although expected to never play again, he completed a lengthy rehabilitation process that allowed him to walk on the field as the starting Quarterback in 2020, leading the team to an NFC East division title and earning him NFL Comeback Player of the Year. He retired after his incredible comeback and recovery. His comeback from the injury is regarded as one of the greatest in NFL history.
Charlie Engle
Ultramarathon Runner Author, Running Man
Charlie Engle
Ultramarathon Runner Author, Running Man
Charlie Engle is one of the premier ultra-endurance adventure athletes in the world today. He’s run across more than 40 countries but counts his most important accomplishment as his 28 years living clean and sober. Charlie’s record-setting 4,500 run across the Sahara Desert, documented in the film RUNNING THE SAHARA, led to the creation of H2O Africa, which is known today as Water.org, co-founded by Matt Damon.
Charlie has been a featured speaker at the United Nations, at NATO Headquarters in Belgium and onboard the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier. He regularly trains Fortune 500 companies in strategies for resilience and addressing addiction issues. His best-selling memoir RUNNING MAN was published by Simon and Schuster in 2016.
Eddie Stern
Yoga Instructor, Author and Lecturer
Eddie Stern
Yoga Instructor, Author and Lecturer
Eddie Stern is an Ashtanga Yoga teacher, author, and lecturer from New York City. He has a passion for engaging in a multidisciplinary approach to furthering understanding, education, and access to yoga through technology, scientific research, collaboration, and encouraging diversity in all aspects of his work. He studies philosophy, Sanskrit, ritual, science, and religion, and has a great love for music and art, which play a big role in his teaching of yoga.
Holistic Approaches To Trauma
Session 9
General Robert F. Dees
Retired Major General, U.S. Army, Valor Farm
General Robert F. Dees
Retired Major General, U.S. Army, Valor Farm
Major General (Retired) Robert F. “Bob” Dees served for 31 years in the U.S. Army in a wide variety of command and staff positions culminating in his last three assignments as Assistant Division Commander for Operations, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault); Commander, Second Infantry Division, United States Forces Korea; and as Deputy Commanding General, V (US/GE) Corps in Europe, concurrently serving as Commander, US-Israeli Combined Task Force for Missile Defense.
On the education front, Bob is a graduate of numerous military schools including the Command and General Staff College, the Naval Postgraduate School, the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and the Royal College of Defence Studies in London. He has authored and taught Management Science topics in the Department of Engineering at West Point, as well as multiple Resilience courses at Liberty University.
Following military retirement in January 2003, Bob served as a Microsoft Corporation executive; followed by leadership of a non-profit outreach to the military. He authored the Resilience Trilogy (Resilient Warriors, Resilient Leaders, and Resilient Nations) and pioneered resilience programs for the military as Vice President for Military Outreach at Liberty University. In the 2016 Presidential cycle, Bob served as National Security Advisor and Campaign Chairman for Dr. Ben Carson. Bob now heads Resilience God Style, a national movement to restore resilience to every area of American life, including recent publication of the Resilience God Style book, study guide, video series, and training game (www.ResilienceGodStyle.com).
As a thought leader on Veterans’ outreach programs, Bob is a senior advisor for the newly formed Faith-based Veterans Support Alliance (FBVSA). Bob is also President of the National Center for Healthy Veterans (www.HealthyVeterans.org) with the mission of “Returning Healthy Veterans to America.” This broad and comprehensive Healthy Veteran initiative ranges from trauma recovery using best practice, faith-based programs to veteran microbusinesses which afford dignified work, skills training, and economic opportunity. Community is a critical element of the initiative, including veteran tiny home villages for formerly homeless Veterans and others. While the Healthy Veteran initiative will help Veterans, the real winner is America with Healthy Veterans positively impacting culture as role models for our youth, as experienced leaders in business, and as standard bearers in every walk of life.
Bob speaks at numerous seminars and conferences, as well as commentary on national security, leadership, and resilience in a wide array of media, military, business and church venues. He was featured as one of 30 “Master Leaders” in America by noted author George Barna and was awarded the Council for National Policy George Washington Military Leadership Award in 2018.
Bob and wife Kathleen have been married for 47 years, and together have two children and eight grandchildren. They are grateful for the privilege of serving God, Nation, and Others during these critical times.
Josh Rock
President & CEO National Center for Healthy Veterans
Josh Rock
President & CEO National Center for Healthy Veterans
Mr. Rock served in the United States Army Infantry from 2002 to 2009. He was assigned to the following units: 1st Armored Division 1st Battalion 36th Infantry Regiment (Mechanized), 1st Battalion 509th Infantry Regiment (Airborne), and 4th Brigade Combat Team 10th Mountain Division (Light). He has held various positions ranging from Radio-Telephone Operator (RTO), Fireteam Leader, to Personal Security Detail Leader (PSD). He deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 with 1st Armored Division 1st Battalion 36th Infantry Regiment (Mechanized).
Being driven to take on every challenge presented, he attended various military schools and courses during his service such as; U.S. Army Basic Training / Infantry School, U.S. Army Nuclear-Biological-Chemical School, U.S. Army Basic Airborne School, U.S. Army Warrior Leadership Course. After his military service he furthered his education by earning a Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies from Dixie State University. During this time, he was elected twice as the President of the Veteran Student Association and was awarded the Communications Department – Academic Student of the Year and Lambda Phi Eta Communications Honor Society Academic Scholar. Currently, Mr. Rock is pursuing a Master of Business Administration, specializing in Project Management from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
His own inability to solely deal with his Combat Trauma has led him to be a mental health advocate for other Veterans and their families. The journey began with co-creating Ride for Recovery, an equine therapy program with Geroge and Tracy Winkley at Star Cross Ranch, Deridder, LA. As always, being driven to take on a challenge, he began to work with MG (ret.) Bob and Kathleen Dees, to help bring awareness and hope on a national level by speaking to and helping to train local churches, communities, and veterans organizations on not just dealing with but the hope in healing combat trauma.
Joshua’s goal has always been to take the hard lessons learned and various modalities to active-duty troops, veterans, their families, and the wider community to help address combat trauma. This continues today with the National Center for Healthy Veterans (www.HealthyVeterans.org) with the mission of “Returning Healthy Veterans to America.” This broad and comprehensive Healthy Veteran initiative ranges from trauma recovery using best practice, faith-based programs to veteran microbusinesses which afford dignified work, skills training, and economic opportunity. Community is a critical element of the initiative, including veteran tiny home villages for formerly homeless Veterans and others. While the Healthy Veteran initiative will help Veterans, the real winner is America with Healthy Veterans positively impacting culture as role models for our youth, as experienced leaders in business, and as standard bearers in every walk of life.
Joshua, his wife Jenna and Duke (dog) are enjoying their newlywed year and look forward to seeing where God leads them to serve this Nation and others together.
Helen (Lena) Verdeli, MSc. PhD.
Associate Professor, Columbia University
Helen (Lena) Verdeli, MSc. PhD.
Associate Professor, Columbia University
Lena Verdeli, Ph.D, MSc, is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Director of Clinical Training at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Founder and Director of the Teachers College Global Mental Health lab. Over the years Dr. Verdeli has received funding from governments (US-NIMH; Canadian government –Grand Challenges Canada; UK- Medical Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council); intergovernmental agencies (WHO, UNHCR); and foundations (NARSAD, Eleanor Cook Foundation, etc) to test psychotherapy for prevention and treatment of mood disorders. In the past fifteen years Lena Verdeli has played a key role in landmark studies involving adaptation, training, and testing of psychotherapy protocols used by both specialists and non-specialists around the globe (psychologists, psychiatrists, primary care staff, community health workers, etc). She collaborated internationally with academic groups, ministries of health, local NGOs and international agencies to alleviate the suffering of adults locally defined as depressed in southern Uganda; war-affected adolescents in IDP camps in northern Uganda; traumatized IDP women in Colombia; distressed patients in primary care in Goa, India; depressed community members in Haiti; war-affected Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh; displaced Congolese and Burundian refugees in Tanzania and Venezuelans in Peru.
Dr. Verdeli is a Scientific Advisory Council member of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Scientific Advisory Board of Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. She received the Klerman Young Scientist award; the APA Division 52 Mentoring Award; and chaired the research workgroup of the Family NGO at the UN. She is the first author of the manual on Group Interpersonal Psychotherapy which has been disseminated globally online by WHO (http://www.who.int/mental_health/mhgap/interpersonal_therapy/en/)
Verdeli's research in Uganda was instrumental to collecting the data necessary for WHO to recommend interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) – together with cognitive behavioral therapy and antidepressant medicines – as a recommended treatment for depression. In her words: “IPT is not new; what’s new is our delivery of it and our model of training others to use it. Whether we train laypeople to use IPT with their fellow community members, as we did in Uganda, or train professionals through a systematic national effort, as we’re doing now in Lebanon, our hallmark is to employ inexpensive, feasible and culturally relevant approaches. The work has to be the result of real partnerships on the ground, in which all the players have a voice – including refugees themselves."
Shamini Jain, PhD
Founder and CEO, Consciousness and Healing Initiative
Shamini Jain, PhD
Founder and CEO, Consciousness and Healing Initiative
Dr. Shamini Jain is the Founder and and CEO of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative (CHI), a collaborative accelerator of scientists, healers, artists, educators and social entrepreneurs to help lead humanity to heal ourselves. She is also an Assistant Professor at UC San Diego and is known for her research and teaching in meditation and biofield healing practices. Her book, Healing Ourselves, with Sounds True Publications, is available on pre-order and will be released September 2021.Learn more at www.shaminijain.com and http://www.chi.is.
Media & Storytelling
Session 10
Gabriella Wright
Co-Founder of Never Alone Movement, Actress, and Activist
Rosemary Rawcliffe
International Filmmaker & Humanitarian Founder, Frame of Mind Films
Rosemary Rawcliffe
International Filmmaker & Humanitarian Founder, Frame of Mind Films
Rosemary Rawcliffe is an EMMY® award-winning executive producer, producer, and director with a lifetime of international experience in television, film, video, and theatrical production. As a humanitarian and founder of Frame of Mind Films, Inc., Rosemary has a lifelong commitment to creating films that focus on stories from the female perspective, stories that bear witness to human rights, spirit, hope, and courage. Her most recent credit as a director and producer include the award-winning feature documentary The Great 14th: Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama In his Own Words, the Emmy Award-winning documentary Women of Tibet: A Quiet Revolution, and Women of Tibet: Gyalyum Chemo - The Great Mother, about His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s mother.
Sandra de Castro Buffington
Founder, StoryAction, LLC
Sandra de Castro Buffington
Founder, StoryAction, LLC
Sandra de Castro Buffington is a global leader in social impact entertainment and a pioneer in conscious media. Sandra’s groundbreaking work with Hollywood and international creative capitals has ignited new narratives of transformation and innovation worldwide. She has worked in 50 countries over 20+ years on behalf of women, girls and families.
As Founder and President of StoryAction, LLC; Founder and former Director of UCLA’s Global Media Center for Social Impact; and former Director of USC’s Hollywood, Health and Society, Sandra has worked with film, television and emerging media professionals to accurately and consciously reflect the most important topics of our time from rape culture to human trafficking, immigration to mass incarceration, health to sustainability, nonviolence to mindfulness.
Working extensively with Hollywood, and creative communities in India, Egypt, and Brazil among others, has given Sandra a global perspective on the profound impact storytelling has on consciousness and behavior, and the limitless possibilities for the role media can play in transforming culture worldwide. She leads research to measure the impact of pro-social storylines on viewers’ knowledge, attitudes and behavior, and has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, such as Health Communication, Global Public Health, and American Journal of Media Psychology.
Sandra is Co-Producer of an important new film in development entitled, BRAINWASHED, which reveals how common cinematic shot design techniques disempower, fragment and isolate women and girls.
During Sandra’s tenure at UCLA’s Global Media Center for Social Impact, Sandra’s groundbreaking work led to social impact storylines including a Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) episode on rape that resulted in a 43% increase in calls to the National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN). For her work, she was awarded the World Film Institute’s American Riviera Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2014, The Female Eye Film Festival’s Honorary Maverick Award in 2015, and a Presidential Citation from the Society for Public Health Education in 2016.
As the former Director of USC’s Hollywood, Health & Society, Sandra provided resources to Hollywood’s creative community with the goal of improving the accuracy of health-related storylines on top television programs and films, resulting in 565 storylines that aired on 91 television shows across 35 networks from 2009-2012. Her work inspired a 90210 (CW) multi-episode story arc on breast cancer and the BRCA gene, resulting in 11.9% of viewers reporting they had scheduled screening appointments with their doctors. For her work, Sandra was named by PODER Hispanic Magazine as one of “The Nation’s 100 Most Influential Hispanics” in 2012.
Sandra created a global network of centers for social impact entertainment, with Hollywood as the hub. In India, she launched the first global center in collaboration with the Asian Center for Entertainment Education in 2011, which is serving as a resource for accurate health and impact information for Bollywood’s film and TV industries, and a center in Nigeria to work with Nollywood. Sandra created, on behalf of UNFPA/Egypt, the “Conscious Media Award” for the Cairo International Film Festival, the longest-running festival in the Middle East, Arab world and Africa, and presented the prestigious award in 2018 and 2019.
Formerly Vice President of the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), Sandra guided the flagship Women Lead program to equip, mobilize and empower women globally and nurtured a network of 5,000 alumni in 140 countries. With the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, Sandra launched an award-winning vasectomy promotion TV campaign in Brazil, earning seven international advertising awards in 1989-1990, including a Bronze Lion at the Cannes Lion Festival, Gold Medal at the London International Advertising Awards, and Bronze Medal at Television and Cinema Advertising Competition in New York, and increased vasectomies by 80% in Sao Paulo.
Sandra earned a Master of Public Health degree from The Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Science from the College of Santa Fe, graduating Magna Cum Laude with a scholarship for women in science. Among her numerous honors, Sandra received the USAID Maximizing Access and Quality Outstanding Achievement Award and Brazil’s Award for Leadership in Bahia State in 1997.
Sandra was nominated a member of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle, founded by Deepak Chopra, in 2018. She is former associate faculty at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a past Board member of the Pan American Health and Education Foundation. Sandra served on the boards of Harvard Medical School’s Personal Genomics Education Project, Venice Arts, Women @ The Frontier, and the Foundation for Conscious Evolution. Sandra is Brazilian-American, fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish, and proficient in French. Sandra seeks to elevate consciousness and improve health, justice and well-being through storytelling and impact campaigns worldwide.
Website: https://storyaction.com
Dorith Mous
Creator of Together-Alone
Dorith Mous
Creator of Together-Alone
Multiple award-winning, Dutch multi-hyphenate Dorith Mous (1986), was seemingly born into her art, gaining beautiful knowledge of physical form and capturing depth from a subject through her own nomadic experience as a fashion model for two decades.
Having moved fluidly from a storied career in front of the lens to one behind it, as a photographer and filmmaker, Dorith elicits an artful finesse of the soul – one in which her subjects both exude and challenge the archetypes of beauty, while provoking ideas, ideals and ideologies.
With her successful anti-discriminatory exhibition in New York City, entitled IamYOU, and her ongoing cinematic series Together-Alone, which focuses on destigmatizing mental health, Dorith continues to create awareness by means of harvesting the honesty that permeates through her portraiture of subjects.
The first four episodes of Together-Alone are to be viewed here:
https://vimeo.com/showcase/togetheralone
And on www.watchargo.com
Stephen Powers
Amity Foundation
Stephen Powers
Amity Foundation
Stephen Powers is an MIT-educated, Grammy®-winning A&R executive, record producer, Emmy®-nominated TV producer, film producer, Nautilus Award-winning publisher, and impact entrepreneur who has served as founder, President and CEO of numerous media companies. His awards and recognition include Producer of the Year, Independent Record Executive of the Year, a Lifetime Achievement Award, gold and platinum records with Tina Turner, Duran Duran, Joe Cocker, The Beach Boys, Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana, Bob Hope, Brian Setzer, and his personal favorite, John Lee Hooker, who was 73 years of age when “The Healer” was released by Powers’ Chameleon Records and went on to win a Grammy® for Best Contemporary Blues Recording. During his tenure as CEO of Agape Media International, in partnership with Michael Beckwith he was Marketing Director for the mega-hit film, “The Secret.”
Recent projects include “We Are Never Alone,” starring Deepak Chopra and Gabriella Wright as a grieving mother whose teenage son dies by suicide.
Powers is now CEO of Powers Omnimedia and Co-Founder of Wisdome Immersive Art Park (www.wisdome.la), which was deemed “the future of entertainment” by Forbes Magazine. He is passionate about creating transformative content, producing, promoting artists and art forms that uplift the human spirit.
Global Futures
Session 11
Gerry Bodeker
PhD, Global Mental Wellness Initiative
Gerry Bodeker
PhD, Global Mental Wellness Initiative
Professor Gerry Bodeker, whose doctoral studies were at Harvard, researches and advises on integrative medicine and wellness. A clinical psychologist by training, he has researched and taught in medical sciences at Oxford for two decades, is an adjunct professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, and Chair of the Mental Wellness Initiative of the Global Wellness Institute. He works with the private sector, governments and UN organizations, including WHO and the Asian Development Bank, advising on culturally themed wellness policy and strategies. He has published six books, including the World Health Organization Global Atlas on Traditional and Complementary Medicine, and recently co-authored a chapter on Wellbeing and Mental Wellness in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Global Public Health.
Margareth Brehpohl
Margareth Brehpohl of Lapinha, Brazil
Margareth Brehpohl
Margareth Brehpohl of Lapinha, Brazil
Margareth Brepohl has been Lapinha Spa’s co-owner since 1978. Margareth has implemented quality control in the last 20 years, contributing towards Lapinha’s benchmark position in Brazil and in Latin America. A clinical psychologist and family therapist, she also teaches university-level courses and leads wellbeing workshops for couples and families facing challenges and difficulties in different life stages. Her current focus is on sustainability, environmental projects and wellness real estate.
Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., FACS
17th Surgeon General of the United States
Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., FACS
17th Surgeon General of the United States
Born to a poor immigrant family in New York City, Richard Carmona experienced homelessness, hunger, and health disparities during his youth. The experiences greatly sensitized him to the relationships among culture, health, education and economic status and ultimately shaped his future.
After dropping out of high school, Dr. Carmona enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967 where he received a GED. By the time he left active duty, he was a Special Forces, combat-decorated Vietnam veteran. He then pursued a college degree and entered medical school at the University of California – San Francisco where he won the prestigious Gold Cane award as the top graduate.
Dr. Carmona became a surgeon with a sub-specialty in trauma, burns and critical care and was recruited to Tucson to establish the first trauma system in southern Arizona which he did successfully. Later, while working full time as a hospital and health system CEO, he earned a master’s degree in public health policy and administration at the University of Arizona.
Dr. Carmona has served for over 34 years with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Tucson, including as deputy sheriff, detective, SWAT team leader and department surgeon. He is one of the most highly decorated police officers in Arizona, and his numerous awards include the National Top Cop Award, the National SWAT Officer of the Year, and the National Tactical EMS Award. Dr. Carmona is a nationally recognized SWAT expert and has published extensively on SWAT training and tactics, forensics, and tactical emergency medical support. Dr. Carmona has also served as a medical director of police and fire departments and is a fully qualified peace officer with expertise in special operations and emergency preparedness, including weapons of mass destruction.
In 2006 Vice Admiral Carmona successfully completed the statutory four-year term as Surgeon General and was named vice chairman of Canyon Ranch, CEO of the health division and president of the Canyon Ranch Institute. Dr. Carmona continues his Canyon Ranch leadership role as the Chief of Health Innovations. He also serves on several public corporate boards and works with private equity and venture capital firms to identify emerging science and technology to translate to market for economic and public benefit.
Dr. Yvonne Cagle
NASA Astronaut, Aerospace Surgeon
Dr. Yvonne Cagle
NASA Astronaut, Aerospace Surgeon
Dr. Yvonne Darlene Cagle is an Aerospace Surgeon, entrepreneur and consulting professor for Stanford University’s department of cardiovascular medicine and its department of electrical engineering. In addition, Dr. Cagle also has served as a certified senior aviation medical examiner for the FAA and a qualified advanced cardiac life support instructor. Dr. Cagle has served as the innovative liaison for Google, Singularity University, and other Silicon Valley tech industries. Dr. Cagle has globally established groundbreaking work in fitness, STEAM outreach, space sustainability.
Dr. Cagle holds adjunct professorships with Stanford University, UC Davis, and UTMB, Galveston. Dr. Cagle was a Visiting Professor and earned an honorary Ph.D. from Fordham University and while investigating mitigating neurocognitive countermeasures to optimize long duration space crew behavioral health and performance.
After earning her undergraduate degree from San Francisco State University, Dr. Cagle earned an M.D. from the University of Washington. She completed an internship at Highland General Hospital in Oakland, Calif., and a residency in family practice at Ghent Family Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA.
A retired Colonel of the US Air Force, Dr. Cagle is a recipient of the National Defense Service Medal, Air Force Achievement Medal, United States Air Force Air Staff Exceptional Physician Commendation and National Technical Association Distinguished Scientist Award, Dr. Cagle began her medical career as a certified flight surgeon. She was actively involved in mission support of aircraft providing medical support and rescue in a variety of aeromedical missions.
Dr. Cagle has contributed ongoing data to the longitudinal study on astronaut health and served as a consultant for space telemedicine. She was a member of the NASA Working Group and traveled to Russia to establish international medical standards and procedures for astronauts.
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