From behind the camera, Maria Fortiz-Morse quietly focuses on capturing the beauty, vulnerability and courage of her subjects. She is drawn toward stories of people who live on the margins of society. When making documentaries, Maria seeks to communicate the essential humanity of her subjects to a wide-ranging audience. She believes passionately that non-fiction films …

Beyond images of veiled women, vast deserts, and other stereotypes lies a gentle country and its people. Mojdeh walks us through a day in contemporary Iran, from ancient gardens and monuments in Esfahan to the lives of young professional women working in tech in the country’s capital. Mojdeh Marashi is a designer, innovator, futurist, artist …

Valerie Landau recently traveled to Cuba and met with Mariela Castro, President Raul Castro's daughter. She will report on the current initiatives to promote gender equity and LGBT rights, as part of a comprehensive campaign involving multiple state entities including: education, health, legislation, legislator education initiatives, neighborhood campaigns, free legal counseling and state-funded community organizers …

Esther is the author of Moonshots in Education. She will speak about launching blended learning in the classroom. A Distinguished Visiting Scholar at MediaX at Stanford, Esther is the founder of the Palo Alto High School Media Arts Program that focuses on empowering students through the use of media (newspaper, magazine, yearbook, websites, video production, …

Along with nutrition and exercise, sleep is a pillar of health, but all too often healthy sleep is whittled away by the competing demands of work, school, and family, and fragmented by stress, the immediacy of electronics, and coexisting health problems. Dr. Shannon S. Sullivan will help us learn more about the bidirectional relationship between …

Unshackle the world's most forgotten women The most vulnerable person on the planet is a girl. We're losing our girls to childhood marriage, pregnancy and slavery. Rising International's dream is to create a world where women and girls matter. Carmel Jud is the visionary founder and executive director of Rising International. Her entrepreneurial passion began …

Nitzan Cohen Arazi will share her take on 5 key factors which make Israel #1 in number of startups outside Silicon Valley. Having served as commander in the Israeli air force, through being an investor to starting her own company, Nitzan will tell her personal story while putting an emphasis on the impact that the …

Take a virtual tour through the collection of the deYoung and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor focused on artworks created by women. What do we know about their lives? Their art? Join a creative conversation about art, women, and women in art! Maurene Viele is a retired physician who specialized in blood …

Dr. Bahar Hashemi has a broad range of experiences in treating adults, children and adolescents of diverse backgrounds with complex issues including depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, ADHD, eating disorders and autism spectrum disorders. Dr. Hashemi is board certified both in adult and child & adolescent psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology …

Sonia will describe some of the most exciting developments in health technology, such as organ printing, gene editing, liquid biopsies, and parabiosis. She'll also explore what these technologies mean for your health as well as the broader policy and cultural implications. Futurist Sonia Arrison is a best-selling author and analyst who has studied the impact …