Persistent and global health crises require a medical workforce that mirrors the populations it serves. Diverse perspectives are statistically shown to achieve better patient outcomes, innovation, and more equitable care.

As the U.S. elections approach, fear and division are rampant. This timely conversation explores how media manipulation and political tactics drive division and what leaders can do to bridge these gaps. With insights from a retired Green Beret, we offer practical tools for overcoming polarization and fostering real connection in a world low on trust. Learn how to lead with empathy and strength, even in the most challenging times.

Intergenerational trauma can lead to a perpetual cycle of substance abuse, addiction, mental health disorders, child abuse, interpersonal violence, and other criminal behavior. We can break the cycle of intergenerational trauma through greater access to mental health and substance abuse treatment, education, and community awareness.

Dr. Joseph is passionate about building leaders and helping them develop frameworks that will carry them into their careers. With her focus on understanding the evolving role of women in leadership, she’ll discuss what is critical for us to understand about the challenges facing young career professionals.

Military spouses face one of the highest unemployment rates of any demographic in America at nearly 30%. While also facing an incredible under-employment problem. The military, government, nonprofits, corporations, and Department of Defense are spending millions to solve this issue, yet it continues to climb.

Youth voices and youth stories are at the center of Get Lit’s curriculum in which students claim classic/contemporary poems that resonate with their hopes, dreams, and life experiences.

In this talk, Fabiola breaks down the need for empowering other women, especially women artisans and female entrepreneurs to sustain their craft knowledge and skills. She shares her experience partnering with women artisans and female entrepreneurs in Oaxaca, Mexico through her social enterprise tlali•pani, co-founded with her husband.

With the rise of businesses exploding on social media, Muslim women who once had barriers in place, such as not being able to commit to working hours due to children, are now creating successful businesses online. It is now time to speak up and share their stories.

In today’s world, it’s become increasingly important for individuals and organizations to prioritize inclusion. In this conversation, Dr. Suzanne Wertheim shares one element where everyone can strive toward inclusivity: language.

“Women’s economic empowerment is not just a moral imperative, it is an economic no-brainer.” Women make significant contributions to economic growth, wealth creation, innovation, employment, and human capital. Yet, their participation is constrained by structural impediments and biases.

A harsh reality must be faced: Female founders still face huge challenges rendering access to opportunities and funding. In a world where diversity is key, how do we change?

Dr. Rosenberg will help us reframe Imposter Syndrome which includes addressing skills, knowledge, experience, and mastery along with discussing intersecting practices such as diminishing accomplishments, perfectionism, harsh self-criticism, refusing compliments, not speaking up and a culture of racism, sexism, etc. that can influence one’s openness and comfort with presenting one’s true self.

With so much turmoil in the world today and everyone working in time-compressed situations, when would now be a good time to understand how you could raise your hand to help or be helped.

The equality effect is an international network of human rights advocates (including grassroots community members, artists, musicians, filmmakers, health care workers, journalists, lawyers, teachers, students, judges, and Parliamentarians) working collaboratively to improve the lives of women and girls by using existing human rights law to achieve concrete change. We will talk about one of their current projects, 160girls.org, and the impact it is having.

This conversation considers the origins and evolution of the movement for environmental justice as a grassroots demand for a bold vision of democracy that emphasizes the links among human health, racial justice, and ecological sustainability.

In a society of seemingly unending conflict, impasse, and polarization, many of us feel our communities tearing apart at the seams. Using an anti-oppression lens, author Melody Stanford Martin offers an approach rooted in restorative justice: conflict transformation.

Businesses are often founded to make a difference in a particular industry. However, owners do not always consider the impact they will make in the lives of the people working for them. Business owners and leaders often struggle to focus on their people—especially when clients are calling, and the needs of the business feel urgent. The trickle-down effect eventually results in unhappy people at work, lack of meaning or purpose, and feeling unfulfilled when they return home or enter society every day. But what if we could change this result? What if businesses believed that it is their societal duty to help people be happier? Can you imagine the trickle-down effect then? Less depression, kinder people, better marriages . . . the list goes on. In this discussion, we will talk about how business owners and leaders can positively impact their people, including the importance of a culture of trust, motivating career paths, and valuing life balance.

When women become active participants in defining their development strategies, change takes place. African Women Rising has been on the frontlines working in Northern Uganda for the last 15 years, an area long-damaged by conflict and extreme humanitarian aid dependency. The recognition of women living in extreme poverty as powerful agents for change is forging a shift in how we implement development and the meaning of community empowerment.

Billions of dollars go into education, training, health, and other support for low-status communities in America, yet economic stagnation persists – at times interrupted only by displacement as a result of population increases from re-urbanization and infrastructure improvements such as transit, parks, and traffic calming measures.

Our relationships, the systems of which we operate, our attempts to understand new sets of information can sometimes (who are we kidding, all of the time!) become polarized. We have forced each other and ourselves into a binary state of understanding and doing when in reality, living in the middle, embracing the uncertainty, plowing forward to a complete—yet impossible to achieve—understanding should be our focus in the next chapter of our work.

Jeff will talk about the past 20 years and through 90+ study trips to the American Deep South and Washington, D.C., how Sojourn Project has been immersing middle and high school students from diverse backgrounds in academic, transformative weeklong moving-classroom Journeys.

While diversity in the workplace is a common idea particularly in the tech industry, Tim will relate his personal autistic discrimination experience in the tech workplace including being fired multiple times for being different.

Jan has been working diligently to get in front of the crisis of domestic violence here in Santa Barbara, and working at the state level to understand and learn from the best practices of others. She has strong opinions on the impact of isolation and understands that home is not the safest place for some people.

Scott believes if we’re going to hand this country off to our children better than we found it, we will have to overcome the distrust and disengagement in this country by bridging beyond our groups. We’re going to have to get back to a level of connection that transcends race, gender, and politics.

All of our lives are being affected by Coronavirus in some way, but those living in refugee camps or in makeshift settlements are particularly vulnerable. Shelter is a critical need for people who are simply struggling to survive after losing their homes to disaster or conflict.

In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois asked the question, “How does it feel to be a problem?” Day-to-day many of us witness and tolerate marginalization. In this critical juncture in our history, Dr. Gaunt shares lessons from Black girls’ musical play and from embracing discomfort by agreeing to be offended or from vulnerable sharing about marginalization.

Lisa Biggs’ day job has her helping educators around the globe understand how maps tell stories about culture, history, and current events. Her passion project is taking storytelling skills and using them to help children.

Human trafficking occurs when a person is forced into service against their will—usually forced work or prostitution. Often one person controls another by exploiting a vulnerability. Than’s organization, UNSEEN, is working through collaboration across a broad spectrum of participants worldwide to reduce trafficking.

Formed in response to the destabilizing impacts of racism and anti-blackness, we aspire to build resilient communities for the African diaspora and other marginalized people along the Central Coast.

Harry was on the 2018 TEDxSantaBarbara stage and returns to talk about the confluence of COVID and Social Justice. We’ll discuss understanding the transformation that needs to happen as we come to grips with the amount of work facing us moving forward.

Dr. Powell will discuss how the combined impact of COVID-19 and racism is brewing a lethal force of mental health syndemics — or the social patterning of co-occurring disease conditions. COVID-19 has all the ingredients of a trauma pandemic in the making.

Health encompasses mental, social, economic, and educational success and stability – all of which are eroded by structural racism. If US institutions want to combat racism like the public health issue it is, they need to address not its symptoms, but its causes

Rethinking Public SafetyPeace isn’t the absence of crime, it’s the absence of pain.Garrett addressed many issues related to public safety in this 30-minute conversation. We began with misconceptions the general public has about law enforcement which led to a discussion about the need for training and continuing education. Garrett explains the importance of refreshing something he called, “perishable skills.” He …