Najla Mangoush is an adjunct professor at George Mason University and Northern Virginia community college. Currently teaching Restorative Justice and Trauma awareness in resilience community. She is a Doctoral candidate at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. 

Master of Arts (MA) in Conflict Transformation, Center for Justice & Peacebuilding, Eastern Mennonite University. As both a practitioner and independent researcher with focus on war to peace transitions, advance skills in peace processes: Restorative justice, mediation, political negotiations, customary law, and restorative justice, gender. International experience: Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Somaliland. Recent publications "Customary Practice and Restorative Justice in Libya: Hybrid Approach," United States Institute of Peace (2015). "Speaking their peace," contributed as interviewer for war trauma victims (2015). Co-author Najla Mangoush, Cassandra Lawrence, Dr. Sara Singha, and Rev. Douglas Leonard (2018). Currently working on a chapter on mediation on Oman forward by William Zarman and will be published by Uppsala University (2019). 

Roland’s philanthropic work is driven by his passion to ensure systems are conducive to Black wealth accumulation, voting rights and protections, and developing talent pipelines to ensure more Black decision makers in philanthropy. 

Roland believes in trust-based philanthropy, an approach to minimize the power imbalance between grantmaker and grantseeker and takes the position that the grantseeker knows what is best for their community and projects.

Roland is New York City based and spends most of his personal time developing his craft as a musician.

Cedric Nwafor is a founder of ROOTS Africa. A passion for agriculture and its people drives Cedric, a social entrepreneur and public speaker who has organized, facilitated and spoken at various events across Africa and the US. While earning his Bachelor’s degree, he visited farms in Idaho and Maryland as well as in Rwanda, Liberia, Cameroon, Ghana, and Uganda to learn different approaches to farm life and management. Along the way, Cedric became an agricultural evangelist, engaging African youth in civic affairs in both cities and rural communities. He believes that engaging the young generations in agriculture is vital to the future of the African continent and the socio-economic well-being of its people.

https://roots-africa.org/

Brianna McGowan is a developer, poet, data scientist, advocate, and dancer passionate about intersecting worlds and building Equitism. She encourages people to boldly envision a future that defies the status quo. She code's to move women and people of color into tech, and change the face of the industry. She is committed to projects that promote social responsibility and community vibrancy. She is the Cofounder & Chief Technology Officer of Delicious Democracy: DC's Creative Advocacy Lab. She is the Python Director for Women Who Code D.C. and a volunteer for Black Girls Code. She attends hackathons, writes poetry, teach modern dance, and advocate for D.C. Statehood and Ranked Choice Voting. She gave a TEDx talk on "Know Your Values in the Age of Automation."

Sam Bonar is a comedic strategist who helps politicians and leaders use improvisation, radical play, gaming, and joyful tech to move the needle in campaigns and advocacy. He is a systems tinkerer, bard activist DC Statehood and ranked choice voting advocate, and miscommunication consultant helping to build an ecosystem for a more Delicious Democracy. Sam is the Cofounder & Chief Strategy Officer of Delicious Democracy, a creative advocacy lab where they experiment against cultural apathy, fusing big structural change with personal transformation.  In comedy, he is the headline performer at Washington Improv Theater. He teaches, coaches, and leads organizational workshops honing various skills: authenticity, agility, communication and active listening, team building and collaboration, and understanding the role of comedy within drama and how to more effectively use your political voice.

Site - https://www.deliciousdemocracy.com/

Steven Feldstein is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, where he focuses on issues of democracy, technology, human rights, U.S. foreign policy, conflict trends, and Africa. He is also an associate professor and the holder of the Frank and Bethine Church Chair of Public Affairs at Boise State University.

Feldstein most recently served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau in the U.S. Department of State, where he had responsibility for Africa policy, international labor affairs, and international religious freedom. Previously he was the director of the office of policy at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and also served as counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he oversaw U.S. foreign assistance programs, State Department management and operations, and international organizations.

Feldstein is currently writing a book on the intersection of advanced technology, global repression, and governance. His articles and commentary have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Journal of Democracy, Just Security, the National Interest, Salon, the Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration, Newsweek, World Politics Review, and the Conversation.

Kahstoserakwathe Paulette Moore is an independent filmmaker, lecturer, artist and educator. Moore is Kanyen'kehàka (Mohawk) and an enrolled member of Six Nations of the Grand River territory where she is based. She is a full-time Kanyen'kehàka (Mohawk) language immersion student. Moore spent two decades based in Washington DC working as a director, producer and writer with Discovery Channel, National Geographic, PBS, ABC and other media outlets. In 2004 she began making independent, community-based films as Shenandoah University's filmmaker-in-residence in Winchester, Virginia. Her 2007 film "Wit, Will and Walls" documents the history of desegregation in the Shenandoah Valley and has been used extensively to facilitate dialogue about race. In 2009 Moore began work as an associate professor of media arts and peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA. There, she collaborated with students to create "To Wisconsin with Love": a film about Ojibwe resistance and envisioning in response to what would have been the world's largest open-pit taconite mine. In 2016 Moore collaborated with Northland College (Ashland, WI) students to create "From Wisconsin with Love" which focuses on the spiritual, economic, physical, and legal aspects of the act of harvest from the perspective of Ojibwe prophecy and practice. Her work often features art pieces linked to her films including several incarnations of a collaborative community embroidery project.

Jamal Grant is the Founder of the NET Mentoring Group, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization he founded to address the STEM academic achievement and opportunity gap in Greater Boston. The NET Mentoring Group serves underrepresented minorities and young girls in the Boston area through providing STEM programming, mentorship and access to resources in the city. Jamal is a former mechanical and aerospace systems engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and is currently a Dual MBA/MPP candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Harvard Kennedy School of Government (2022). Recently, he has taken his experiential learning to new heights in organizing a documentary film project trip to South Africa in March 2019 where he and a team of three other researchers explored wealth inequality in South Africa 25 years since the first democratically-elected government.