Epiphanies in Proximity: Personal Stories of Turning Points

Speakers

• Walé Oyéjidé

  Speaker

  Founder, Designer, Ikiré Jones

  Walé Oyéjidé, Esq. is a designer, writer, musician and lawyer that combats bias with creative storytelling. As the founder of Ikiré Jones, he employs fashion design as a vehicle to celebrate the perspectives of marginalized populations.

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• Mokhtar Alkhanshali

  Speaker

  Founder & CEO, Port of Mokha

  Historian, community organizer, and coffee innovator, Mokhtar Alkhanshali envisions a world where industry empowers rather than exploits, uplifts rather than represses. Following his studies, he worked with some of the most respected civil rights and community organizations including the ACLU and Asian Law Caucus. On several occasions he’s been requested to partner with the city of San Francisco in working on initiatives regarding civil liberties. In 2013 Mokhtar shifted his focus towards his family’s roots as coffee farmers in Yemen. Seeking to reverse Yemen’s nearly lost art of coffee cultivation, he founded Port of Mokha. Combining his knowledge of specialty coffee production, progressive infrastructure strategy and community organizing, Mokhtar has helped to reverse the declining quality of Yemeni coffee and re-establish it as the one of industries most treasured origins. Best-selling author Dave Eggers’ forthcoming title “The Monk of Mokha” traces Mokhtar’s journey as a social entrepreneur and his harrowing escape from war torn Yemen with his first coffee samples. Mokhtar can be found amongst his coffee farmers in remote villages or speaking around the world on topics of social entrepreneurship, community development and, of course, coffee.

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• John Valverde

  Speaker

  President & CEO, YouthBuild USA

  John Valverde is president and CEO of YouthBuild USA. He joined YouthBuild in 2017 after decades of work as an advocate for creating access to opportunity and removing barriers for formerly incarcerated and marginalized people. John began working with imprisoned individuals in 1992 to ensure access to HIV/AIDS counseling, high school equivalency instruction, alternatives to violence programs, and college education. In 1998, he co-founded Hudson Link for Higher Education, the first privately funded accredited college program in New York’s prisons. As a leader of lived experience who was incarcerated at the age of 21, John is a true reflection of the importance of the healing and equity of second chances and example for the young people of YouthBuild who are seeking their own second chance. John is a Marano Fellow of the Aspen Institute’s Sector Skills Academy; a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow; co-chair of the National Service, Civic Engagement and Volunteering pillar of the Partners

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• Bisola Temitope Akinmuyiwa

  Speaker

  Community Paralegal, Justice & Empowerment Initiatives - Nigeria, Justice & Empowerment Initiatives

  My name is Akinmuyiwa Bisola Temitope, am a community paralegal, render free legal services. Also a media coordinator. In 2018 I was nominated has a member of Management Committee (MC) in slum dwellers international (SDI).

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• Angeline Murimirwa

  Speaker

  Executive Director - Africa, CAMFED

  Angeline Murimirwa, one of the first young women to receive support from the Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) to go to secondary school in Zimbabwe, today leads female education and empowerment programmes across more than 5,700 marginalised school communities in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, unlocking the potential of hundreds of thousands of girls and young women across sub-Saharan Africa. Angeline is a key founding member of the Camfed Association, CAMA, a powerful pan-African movement of 120,000 educated young women. United by a background of rural poverty, CAMA members understand the desire for education, and the enormous hurdles girls face in securing that right. CAMA provides a crucial support network, enabling young women to step up as role models, mentors and entrepreneurs in their communities, armed, as Angeline puts it, with ‘the audacity to dream, to question, and to lead.” Angeline, a serving member of the Girls’ Education Alliance, also served on the Board of the Zimbabwe National Youth Council, and represented Camfed on the Education Coordination Group and the UNAIDS Gender Task Force. She was awarded Prize for Women's Creativity in Rural Life by the Women's World Summit Foundation in Switzerland presented with the 2017 Diamond Ball Honors Award by the Clara Lionel Foundation, recognising her past, present and future support of young leaders, entrepreneurship and civic engagement. Her international platforms include the Brookings Center for Universal Education in Washington, D.C., and the Skoll World Forum. Angeline’s story features in ‘Half the Sky’, a book by award-winning writers Nick Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn.

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• Lindsey Spindle

  Moderator

  President, Samueli Family Philanthropies and COO, H&S Ventures, Samueli Foundation

  Lindsey Spindle serves as President of the Samueli Family Philanthropies and Chief Operating Officer of H&S Ventures which oversees all the Samueli Family’s for-profit and not-for-profit activities. The philanthropic entities operating under the oversight of H&S Ventures include the Samueli Foundation, the Anaheim Ducks Foundation, the San Diego Gulls Foundation, the Irvine Ice Foundation, and The Rinks Foundation. Spindle was President of The Jeff Skoll Group, where she connected and advised Mr. Skoll’s entrepreneurial portfolio of philanthropic and commercial organizations that include the impact entertainment company Participant, Capricorn Investment Group, and the Skoll Foundation. The Skoll Foundation’s mission is centered on social entrepreneurship and innovation, with a focus on five main, interrelated areas: climate change, inclusive economies, protection of democracy, pandemics prevention and health systems strengthening, and racial justice. Participant has produced more than

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