Theme: Create. Dialogue.

What’s better than a really good conversation? A really good dialogue. What does great dialogue rely on? Creativity.

Creativity that’s provocative, disruptive, stunning, and unchartered. It has the power to change lives and challenges our beliefs.

It’s time we rewrite the rules and get creative. It’s time we… Create. Dialogue.

#CreateDialogue

The PlayStation Theatre
1515 Broadway
New York City, New York, 10036
United States

Ahmed Badr

Student, writer, social entrepreneur, poet, founder of Narratio

Ahmed is a writer, social entrepreneur, poet and former refugee from Iraq. On July 25th, 2006, Ahmed's home in Baghdad was bombed by militia troops. He and his family relocated to Syria as refugees for two and a half years before receiving approval to move to the United States.Ahmed founded Narratio, a global platform for youth empowerment through creative expression. Narratio publishes works of art from all over the globe, and hosts workshops centered around the power of storytelling and creativity. In collaboration with the Syrian artist and architect Mohamad Hafez, Ahmed co-founded UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage, a multi-media installation that remodels the homes of refugees inside a series of suitcases in an effort to humanize and give voice to a demographic that is often viewed in the abstract. Ahmed is a sophomore at Wesleyan University, where he is a Fellow at the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life.

Amy León

Musician, a poet, an activist, an educator.

Amy León is a musician, a poet, an activist and an educator. She performs frequently all over New York and has toured numerous times throughout Europe performing in collaboration with the BBC, Roundhouse, The Battersea Arts Center, Amnesty International and more. An alumna of the Nuyorican Slam Team, she fuses music and poetry through powerfully transparent performances focusing on social inequalities while celebrating love, blackness and what it means to be woman. She is the author of two collections of poetry: the water under the bridge and Mouth Full of Concrete, and has just released her debut album, Something Melancholy. Amy is currently working on a new play and her next EP, while anxiously awaiting the release of her first children's book via Walker Books in 2019.

Ash Bhat

Founder, Botcheck.me

At the age of 16, Ash sold a software company that built personalized mobile applications for high schools and school districts. His junior year of high school, he dropped out of school and co-founded 1StudentBody. At 1StudentBody, Ash built applications that were used in over a third of all US high schools, recruited and led the mobile engineering team, and assisted in raising millions of dollars in venture capital. In 2014, Ash founded Tetherball with Mohammad Adib, which came out of a hackathon. The company was acquired in 2015. At the age of 18, Ash returned to school. Currently, Ash is focusing his time on projects around social impact. In 2017, he launched RoBhat Labs, a group primarily focused on using advance machine learning techniques to tackle complex problems. Earlier this year, Ash launched NewsBotAI, a messenger bot that classifies fake news and political bias on Facebook. In October, RoBhat Labs launched its newest project - Botcheck.me.

Ben Ferencz

Chief Prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials

Benjamin B. Ferencz was born in Transylvania in 1920 and moved to America when he was ten months old. After he graduated from Harvard Law School in 1943, he enlisted in the army. Under General Patton, Ferencz fought in every major battle of the war. He was later transferred to a newly created War Crimes Branch to gather evidence of Nazi brutality. When the war was over, Ferencz returned to New York and was subsequently recruited for the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Ferencz was named Chief Prosecutor for the United States in the Nuremberg "Einsatzgruppen Case." The Associated Press called it “the biggest murder trial in history.” Twenty-two defendants were charged with murdering over a million people. Ferencz was 27 years old and it was his first case. He then played a key role in negotiating and implementing German agreements to compensate victims of Nazi persecution. Since then, Ferencz has devoted his life to studying and writing about world peace.

Diana Chao

Founder, Letters to Strangers

This is all true: 1) Diana Chao is a 19-year-old Chinese-American immigrant; 2) She grew up in California and currently studies physics at Princeton University; 3) She spent a lot of her life confused. Growing up in an English tongue-tied family, she found herself working at a young age (12-hour labor shifts on weekends > gym membership, hands down). Then the confusion set in. She fell temporarily blind multiple times due to uveitis, yet pursued photography nonetheless. Her stubbornness about elevating POC stories to the fine art industry led to features by Vogue Italia, Adobe and Redbubble. To date, Diana has exhibited to over 75,000 people. She received a publishing deal for fantasy fiction at the age of 13, was recognized by the U.S. Navy for her research on dengue virus when she was 16 years old, and researched for NASA with a feature at the American Astronomical Society conference by the time she was 18 years old.

Eva Lewis

Activist, Founder of the I Project

Eva Maria Lewis is an eighteen-year-old activist and artist from the south side of Chicago, Illinois. During her junior year of high school, she created The I Project. The I Project combines art and activism to advocate for intersectionality. In the summer of 2016, after leading thousands through the streets of downtown Chicago to protest police brutality, Eva and three other Black girls founded Youth for Black Lives. She has spoken and performed at many places, including the United Nations in New York City twice. In March of 2017, Eva received the Pioneer Award from the Chicago Foundation for Women. In April of 2017, she received the Princeton Prize for Race Relations. Most recently, in June of 2017, she received the Rising Star award from the DuSable Museum at their Night of 100 Stars. Eva’s work has been published in Teen Vogue several times. She is currently a first year student at the University of Pennsylvania on a full ride with the Questbridge College Match Scholarship.

Finnegan Harries

Designer, architect

Finnegan Harries is a British designer and an architect-in-training at Parsons School of Design. In 2011, he founded the popular YouTube blog JacksGap with his twin brother Jack Harries. The blog has more than 4.1 million subscribers and 200 million views. The brothers have used their influence on YouTube and social media to drive dialogue around social and environmental challenges such as mental health and climate change. In 2015, Finn moved from London to New York to pursue a degree in architecture at Parsons School of Design. He will graduate in 2018. Finn also sits on the Executive Board of an American 501(c)(3) non-profit called The School Fund, where he advises on design and digital strategy. The School Fund provides scholarships to ambitious students in developing countries by crowdfunding what is needed and distributing grants through local partners in the countries where they work.

Nina Moran

Skateboarder, activist, actress

Nina Moran is a skateboarder, an activist and an actress from Brooklyn, New York. She is a founding member of New York City-based skateboard collective, The Skate Kitchen. Using social media, Nina has been supporting women by throwing impromptu all-girl skate sessions because she is passionate about changing the gender stigma around skateboarding. Nina has inspired girls from all over the east coast to join in. She is also one of the stars of director Crystal Moselle's narrative feature about skateboarding, co-starring Jaden Smith.

Phillip Chbeeb

Dancer/choreographer

Phillip Chbeeb, a 28-year-old director/choreographer from Houston,Texas, has worked with numerous music artists (including working on Ed Sheeran's "Don't", with Taylor Swift, with Justin Bieber, etc.), and has been featured in various TV shows around the world. Most notably, Phillip has been featured in Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance” (SYTYCD)] and MTV's "America's Best Dance Crew.” He was a choreographer in Summit Entertainments' "Step Up Revolution" and "Step Up All In". His work can be seen in Virgin America's Safety Video, Microsoft’s Surface Commercial, Dancing with the Stars, Cirque Du Soleil and various viral content on the Internet. His art combines geometric forms with gripping visual metaphors in order to craft unique perspectives on the human condition.

Phillip Picardi

Chief Content Officer and founding editor of Condé Nast’s, THEM

Phillip Picardi is the Chief Content Officer and founding editor of the newly-launched THEM, Condé Nast’s first-ever platform devoted to the queer community. He is also the digital editorial director of both Teen Vogue and Allure, where he oversees audience, content and social strategy. When Picardi re-joined Teen Vogue in 2015 (he was formerly an intern and an assistant for the magazine), he launched the website’s politics and wellness coverage, shifting the brand’s focus from fashion and celebrity to themes of gender equality and social justice. In turn, TeenVogue.com traffic skyrocketed from 2 to 12 million monthly unique visitors in just two years, nabbing two Webby Awards, a GLAAD Award and Adweek nods along the way. Most recently, Picardi was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People, and one of the 50 Most Influential LGBTQ People in Media by The Advocate.

Shantell Martin

Artist

The work of Shantell Martin is a meditation of lines — a language of characters, creatures and messages that invites her viewers to share in her creative process. Part autobiographical and part dreamlike whimsy, Martin has created her own world that bridges fine art, performance art, technology and the everyday experience: conversations, objects and places. Underlying Martin’s work is a quest for identity — her own, discovered and refined in the development of her characteristic style, and that of the viewer, engaged by Martin’s direct questioning and further explored in her winding lines. Her artwork has appeared in the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of the Contemporary African Diaspora, Bata Show Museum and a number of private galleries. Martin’s diverse portfolio illustrates her gift of navigating many worlds. From early beginnings with live performance drawing in the mega clubs of Tokyo, Martin made her way to New York where she pushed the limits of her trademark continuous line.

Steve Lacy

Musician, producer

Steve Lacy is the youngest member of the band The Internet. When he was only 16 years old, he co-produced their Grammy-nominated LP, Ego Death. After graduating high school and turning 18 years old last year, he traveled the world from Fuji Rock Japan to Splendor in The Grass (Australia) to Bonnaroo. He is now home in Compton, California, collaborating with and producing for artists including Kendrick Lamar, Mark Ronson, Vampire Weekend and Tyler The Creator, and has projects in market with J. Cole, Big Sean, Syd, and more.Steve’s refers to his first solo project as a “song series”, a sampling of the breadth and depth of his talents that breaks away from the traditional EP or LP format – less a structured body of work, and more like a series of sketches that might hang on a gallery wall. Steve wrote, produced and recorded the project entirely using his iPhone. He played live guitar and bass, created drum patterns and even recorded vocals via the built-in iPhone microphone.

Sydney Floryanzia

Student, Researcher

In sixth grade, when middle school bullies and crushes seem to be the only thing on everyone’s minds, Sydney was finding a way to solve one of the National Academy of Engineering’s fourteen Grand Challenges of the 21st century; Reverse Engineering the Brain. Her journey to this unusual point was even more peculiar, as it did not begin with engineering, math and science, but with Sydney’s love of music. Her passion fueled her research in labs across the country, and led her to become plugged into the scientific community at large. It was then that she realized her unique position. A young, black, Christian, music-loving girl in attendance at national STEM conferences was definitely not the norm. Rather than letting this deter her, Sydney made it her mission to show the world that the best teams for solving national challenges, would be teams filled with diverse minds from diverse backgrounds.

Tanner Peterson

Musician, songwriter and producer

Tanners is the artist project of Brooklyn-based musician, songwriter and producer Tanner Peterson. A Tennessee native, she graduated from New York University with a degree in music and audio engineering. She is now using her degree to create emotionally evocative psychedelic pop. As a female with a strong passion for creative production and engineering, she strives to encourage women to take charge of their own productions by teaching students and young girls about the basics of music technology. Her debut EP Tanners is set for an early 2018 release.