Theme: Small Town, Huge Ideas

Sugar Land brings together huge ideas to open the minds and share ideas to their small town.

Ismaili Jamatkhana and Centre
1700 First Colony Blvd
Sugar Land, Texas, 77479
United States

Doug Grady

Doug Grady has been studying and teaching the pathways to personal potential for over 20 years. Doug is a professional speaker, musician, and President of High Achievers. He is the author of The Ripple Effect. His companies, writings, trainings, and music are designed with one purpose: to help people reach their God-given potential. Doug gives a significant portion of his time and money to local and global causes. He has been on several mission trips, most recently to Ecuador where he was part of a twelve man team building homes for the poorest of the poor. Doug is an active member of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA.

Erik Swanson

Best Selling Author & Award Winning International Speaker Erik Swanson consistently wow’s his audiences worldwide with his entertaining and interactive keynote speeches on GREAT ATTITUDES! Erik, or as many people know him as “Mr. Awesome”, has been changing lives globally as he shares his powerful “HABITUDE WARRIOR” training principles and strategies on stages with other top Professional Speakers such as Brian Tracy, Les Brown, Jack Canfield, Bill Walsh, Bob Proctor, Denis Waitley, Sharon Lechter, Loral Langemeier, and many others from The Secret, The Napoleon Hill Foundation. For the past 18 years, Erik has been transforming lives turning people’s dreams into realities and can easily be found high fiving perfect strangers, changing their moods in an instant!

Erin Williford

With experience designing everything from roads and bayous to bike parks and tennis courts, Erin knows what it takes to get a project done while managing a multi-discipline team of consultants. Her passion for bringing people together, both in the built environment and on the teams she manages, leads to greater collaboration and ultimately more satisfying results. Her degrees in civil and environmental engineering and meteorology as well as her personal interest in rivers and how they work helped shape the design for Buffalo Bayou Park. When she isn’t working, Erin enjoys spending time outdoors with her darling husband and three precious daughters.

Farid Premani

Farid Premani is a public speaker, author, radio broadcaster and market research consultant. He has worked in eight different countries providing career coaching, digital consulting and social development research to reputed corporations and not-for-profit giants. He is the founder of Aleedex Research & Consulting Group (www.aleedex.com), President of Texas School of Continuing Education (www.tscer.org) and runs a technology startup Careerstep.org. He is passionate when it comes to numbers and consumer insights digging data in this digital age and have been lucky to leverage learning from some of very high-end projects worked for World Bank CGAP Group, Germany Frankfurt University and Easy Paisa helping in alleviate poverty.

Huma Jafry

Dr. Huma Jafry has earned her Ph.D in Nanomaterials Chemistry from Rice University. She is the founder and chief scientist at NanoInnovations, where she works on developing micro and nanotechnology based sensors for health care monitoring. Huma has also worked on projects focused on applications for water purification systems, self-cleaning fabrics, and heat abatement and radiation attenuation nanotechnologies for the space industry. As an undergraduate student, Huma developed technology for haptic scissors for use in tele-medicine and remote surgeries. Huma’s research over the years has led to several publications. Huma currently serves on the board of the Sugar Land Discovery Center, and has previously served as a volunteer for many years within the Ismaili Muslim community. Huma is an avid reader who loves enjoys adventure travel with her husband, a neurologist, and their two children.

John Evans

As a native of Sugar Land, TX, John Evans has always found the crossover between education and technology fascinating. With a B. A in English and an M. Ed in Curriculum and Instruction, John is able to apply this fascination while teaching English at Grace School in Houston. When not teaching, he spends his time reading fiction and playing with his son.

Kathryn Karges

Dr. Kathryn A. Karges is an obstetrician and gynecologist at CHI St. Luke’s Caritas Women’s Care in Sugar Land, Texas. She treats a variety of women’s health conditions and provides both routine and high-risk obstetrical care. She especially enjoys working with couples who seek to utilize a natural approach to managing fertility and health. Following medical school at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Dr. Karges completed her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at the Methodist Hospital in Houston. She then completed a fellowship in medical and surgical NaProTECHNOLOGY® under Dr. Thomas Hilgers, with a special emphasis on helping couples who have difficulty conceiving. She is one of only a handful of physicians in the United States with this training.

Kevan Kjar

During the last two decades, Kevan has helped thousands of executive, sales and marketing professionals in countries such as the U.S., England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Norway, Thailand, India, United Arab Emirates, and South America. Kevan and his wife, Anita, have five children and live in beautiful Eagle, ID with their youngest son, Josh. He holds a master degree in business administration, is a certified NLP practitioner and a recovering Scoutmaster. Kevan has attended the world renown “Story” training by the entertainment guru Robert McKee, and draws from it for story strategy consulting. Kevan is the co-author of The ArrowHead: Winning the Story War. His hobbies include running, hiking, black & white movies and collecting commercials.

Melanie Johnson

Melanie Churella Johnson owned and operated two independent TV stations in Houston and Dallas. She has been in front of and behind the camera. She built and marketed the Houston Mansion. Melanie is currently the owner of Elite Online Publishing and Charity Auction Consignments, which has raised close to $400,000 for nonprofits. Melanie is a five-time best-selling author. She has two teenage boys and resided in Houston Texas. She loves spending time with her family and traveling.

Naveed Lalani

Naveed is a serial entrepreneur, education strategist, and community builder. He is currently the founder of The Start, a 4-week bootcamp for aspiring entrepreneurs. Naveed serves as an advisor to the Thiel Fellowship and leads entrepreneurship programs, including IPN BootCamp and IPN LaunchPad, for the Ismaili Professionals Network. Naveed received his Bachelor of Science in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007; graduating with High Honors and receiving the Eva Stevenson Woods Endowed Presidential Scholarship and GSD&M Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Advertising.

Pratyusha Pilla

Pratyusha is a recent graduate from the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently attending the UNT Health Science Center Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences to pursue a Masters in Medical Sciences. She is an alumnus of Alpha Phi Omega and a volunteer with the American Heart Association. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Atlantis Educational Services, Inc. Colorism is a lesser known social issue describing discrimination purely on the basis of skin tone. She hopes to bring to light the harmful nature of colorism and redefine beauty as a subjective experience. Raising awareness for this issue is the first step in alleviating the damage it causes. Together we can hold the media, cultural standards and society as a whole accountable for placing an undue premium on lighter skin tones. You should never think that you have to change yourself to be beautiful.

Raj Mankad

Raj Mankad is Editor of Cite: The Architecture + Design Review of Houston. His writing helped bring about the launch of Sunday Streets HTX and the planned linking of commuter bus systems from Houston to Galveston. He completed a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston.

Rumi Chunara

As an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at NYU, Rumi Chunara works at the intersection of Big Data and Public Health, using information gleaned from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to predict epidemics, track obesity rates on a local level, and much more.

Sharmila Anandasabapathy

Sharmila Anandasabapathy, M.D. is a Professor of Medicine in Gastroenterology and Director of Baylor Global Initiatives and the Baylor Global Innovation Center at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. In her current role, she oversees Baylor’s global programs and affiliations. The Baylor Global Innovation Center seeks to develop novel, environmentally appropriate technologies and approaches to addressing global disease burden. This includes the development and validation of innovative mobile-applications for clinical care, point-of care diagnostic technologies, and portable, low-cost devices for the diagnosis and management of chronic, non-communicable diseases worldwide.

Yamile Jackson

In 2001 after working in engineering and construction for the oil and gas industry for over a decade, Yamile gave birth prematurely to Zachary, who weighed less than 2 lbs. and was in the intensive care unit for 5 months. He survived the deluge of Tropical Storm Allison that flooded his hospital in Houston and shutdown the power to his life-support equipment. Zachary was kept alive “by hand” for 9 hours until he was evacuated. During those agonizing hours Yamile held him in Kangaroo Care to keep him warm and made a promise that Zachary’s pain and struggle to survive were not going to be in vain.

Yixin Wang

Yixin Wang started playing Guzheng at the age of 4 in China, inspired by an old man who was always playing this instrument in her neighborhood. She won her first national metal at the age of 7, and began performing around. After finishing all the amateur levels in Guzheng and stepped into professional level, she moved to Houston with her family. As a current junior studying in Tompkins High School in Katy, she is very active in all kinds of cultural events and has been frequently performing around Houston and Katy. She also started forming ensemble groups with western instruments on her own.