The area’s leading creators, entrepreneurs, educators, artists, geeks, designers, scientists, leaders, thinkers and doers will gather in Detroit on Thursday, November 9th to share positive ideas for the world from Detroit.

Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
315 E Warren Ave
Detroit, Michigan, 48201
United States

Alana Glass

Alana M. Glass, Esq. is an innovative sports entrepreneur and passionate leader within the legal profession. It is no secret that Alana is driven and determined to be an owner of a professional sports franchise. This dream was conceived during her time as a student-athlete and manager on the University of Minnesota’s Women’s Basketball team. She is a regular contributor to Forbes.com SportsMoney, the founder of Kennedy Clay Sports & Entertainment, and IWantToBeAnOwner.com, a sports blog featuring “The Stuff” you want to talk about in professional sports from the next generation of sports ownership. Currently, Alana is a law school administrator at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School where she also serves as an adjunct professor. She earned a Juris Doctor, Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Intellectual Property, and Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Corporate Law & Finance from WMU-Cooley. In addition to her legal degrees, Alana graduated from the University of Minnesota’s College of Agriculture Food and Environmental Science where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science. Following law school, she opened The Law Office of Alana Glass and simultaneously worked as a patent analyst at Cardinal Intellectual Property headquartered in Evanston, Illinois. Alana is also a member of the State Bar of Michigan.

Cameron Zvara

Cameron Zvara found his passion when he was six years old. It started with a children’s magic set he received for his birthday. While most children his age were participating in normal activities, Cameron was working on his magic tricks. Now 23, and a 2017 graduate of Northwood University, Cameron is a full time comedy magician who performs over 150 shows every year for community and corporate events. Cameron has performed for villages in the Dominican Republic, opened live on stage for the Detroit Tiger’s Winter Caravan Tour, and was named “Michigan’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2013 by the National Federation of Independent Business. Cameron also performs in high schools using his magic to motivate students. He talks about the importance of following one's passion, and ultimately turning it into a career.

Craig Wilkins

Architect, academic and author Craig L. Wilkins is recognized as one of the country’s leading scholars on African Americans in architecture. Exploring the various social, cultural, political, historical and aesthetic contributions, his books, essays, articles, and public talks explore the rich social, cultural, political, historical and aesthetic contributions of oft-ignored practitioners of color.

Jay Harrison

Dr. Jay P. Harrison is a nationally recognized authority and speaker on such topics as internet security, disaster recovery and robotics. Jay has co-founded companies such as Deneb Robotics, acquired by Dassault Systems, and served as an advisor to the Gov. of Michigan and the Mayor of Detroit.

Jon Rimanelli

Jon is an electronics entrepreneur and private pilot with over 1000 hours of flight time (SEL, SES, IFR). With over 20 years of experience in electronics manufacturing, Jon established Nextronix in 2000 specializing in printed circuit board design, fabrication and assembly a core business. Having fabricated millions of mission critical printed circuits, we support our customers with prototypes and volume manufacturing capabilities for automotive, aerospace, communications, industrial and defense applications. Given recent advances in automation, electric propulsion and light weight materials, Jon founded Detroit Aircraft Corporation to design and build a new class of VTOL aircraft for short haul mobility between cities and large hub-and-spoke airports. For the last three years, they have built and sold number defense grade unmanned aircraft for customer around the globe.

Kimberly Dowdell

Kimberly is a Detroit-based architect, real estate developer and entrepreneur. A native of Detroit, Kimberly grew up with an ambition to revitalize cities using real estate development and sustainable design as tools for renewal. Through her experience as an architecture student at Cornell and as a young professional in Washington, D.C. and New York, she has been working toward her goal of creating transformative development projects in a variety of urban contexts. Kimberly returned to her hometown in 2015 to serve on the City of Detroit's Housing and Revitalization team. Prior to Kimberly's public service, she was a Sheila C. Johnson Leadership Fellow within the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard. Prior to graduate school, she worked as a licensed architect and a real estate project manager in New York. Kimberly became a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional in 2007, demonstrating her commitment to sustainability in the built environment. In 2008, Kimberly established the annual community service project for the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), which has now hosted projects in eight cities throughout the U.S. In 2005, Kimberly co-founded SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design) to identify, measure and address “Triple Bottom Line” issues during the design process. SEED's mission is to “Advance the right of every person to live in a socially, economically and environmentally healthy community.” Kimberly’s contributions to public service were honored with her recognition as one of the top 100 national leaders in Public Interest Design, 2012, by PublicInterestDesign.org (now named ImpactDesignHub.org). Her career was also profiled in the 3rd Edition of Dr. Lee Waldrep’s acclaimed book, Becoming An Architect: A Guide to Careers in Design, 2014. Kimberly’s overarching professional mission is to improve the quality of life for people living in cities.

Marlin Williams

Marlin was an aspiring mortician until she learned to code at the age of 25, which was 22-years ago. She learned to code in seven languages in 13-weeks and it totally changed the trajectory of her life. In 2013, Marlin founded Sisters Code with the goal of bridging the tech gap and empowering "The Mature Geek."

Paul Thomas

Dr Paul Thomas is a Family Medicine doctor in Detroit, delivering affordable, accessible health care in a neighborhood with no other primary care doctors. Completed medical school at Wayne State and residency at Oakwood. On a mission to revolutionize our health care delivery system, one patient at a time.

Sakila Islam

Sakila Islam is a Bangladeshi immigrant, a Citywide Poets alum, a graduate of Detroit International Academy for Young Women, and a current student at University of Michigan. She was a two-time member of the Detroit Youth Poetry Slam Team and still continues to work with InsideOut Literary Arts in a number of special projects.