Zainab Salbi
Loung Ung
Jaha Dukureh
Wynton Marsalis
Suketu Mehta

Zainab Salbi

Bestselling Author, TV Host &
Founder of Women for Women International

Host & Creator of "Through Her Eyes with Zainab Salbi," on Yahoo News!

Author, Freedom Is An Inside Job

Loung Ung

Activist and Author of the bestseller
First They Killed My Father.

Now an Angelina Jolie feature film • Netflix.

Jaha Dukureh

• Founder of Safe Hands for Girls & Survivor of FGM and Child Marriage

• First ever UN Goodwill Ambassador to Africa for FGM & Child Marriage

• 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee

Wynton Marsalis

Trumpeter • Composer • Bandleader • Educator

Managing & Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center

Suketu Mehta

Author of This Land Is Our Land:
An Immigrant's Manifesto

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

Highlighted Speakers

Zainab Salbi

“One of the 25 Women Changing the World” — People. One of the “100 leading global thinkers” — Foreign Policy Magazine. The "#1 Most Influential Arab Woman in the World” — Arabian Business. The Iraqi-American humanitarian, bestselling author, TV Host and media commentator founded Women for Women International at the age of 23. The organization has since helped over 478,000 marginalized women rebuild their lives in 8 conflict areas. She is the author of several books including the national bestseller Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam, and her latest, Freedom is an Inside Job: Owning Our Darkness And Our Light To Heal Ourselves And The World. Her TV shows include “Through Her Eyes with Zainab Salbi” on Yahoo! News, exploring contemporary issues from a female perspective and #MeToo, Now What? which broadcast nationally on PBS (2018). She appears regularly as a commentator on MSNBC and other media outlets.

Suketu Mehta

The renowned author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found shifts his focus to attack the issue of immigration head-on with This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, June 2019). Mehta draws on his own experience as an Indian-born teenager growing up in New York City and his reporting around the world, and subjects the worldwide anti-immigrant backlash to withering scrutiny. As he explains, the West is being destroyed not by immigrants but by the fear of immigrants. Mehta juxtaposes the phony narratives of populist ideologues with the ordinary heroism of laborers, nannies, and others from Queens to Dubai. As civil strife and climate change drive borders to become so porous, Mehta also stresses the destructive legacies of colonialism and global inequality, and shows how the U.S. and the West benefit from accepting more immigrants.

Loung Ung

The activist and bestselling author of First They Killed My Father: A daughter of Cambodia remembers, now a critically acclaimed feature film produced and directed by Angelina Jolie, released by Netflix. Loung Ung shares her story of survival during the Cambodian genocide and her work as an activist in a lecture that delivers "an empowering message of survival, activism and gratitude."

TRANSparency: Speaking Our Truths - A Trans Panel

The panel features three trans writers, all contributors to the book Written on the Body: Letters from Trans and Non-Binary Survivors of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, edited by Lexie Bean (2019 Lambda Literary Award finalist). They speak on trans peoples' struggle to find safety at home, in the body, and other unwelcoming places. This includes limited access to basic health care, counseling services, community support, as well as the court system, leaving trans people vulnerable to repetitive violence and assault. “...(an) incredible conversation on challenging cultures of violence, exploring identity, and rewriting trauma narratives for collective healing.” —Hampshire College

Temple Grandin

The most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. The bestselling author, innovator & animal scientist was subject of the HBO feature film “Temple Grandin,” starring Claire Danes. Her TED Talk "The World Needs All Kinds Of Minds," has been viewed almost 5 million times. Dr. Grandin is sought after globally to speak about her experiences with autism, cattle handling and the humane treatment of animals. She has been featured widely in the global media. Time Magazine named her one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Jamie Metzl

Jamie Metzl’s new book, Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity, is taking the country by storm. From the leading geopolitical expert and technology futurist comes a groundbreaking exploration of the many ways genetic-engineering is shaking the core foundations of our lives ― sex, war, love, and death. Passionate, provocative, and highly illuminating, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta says, “If you can only read one book on the future of our species, this is it.”