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How social wealth can transform your career
Nisaini Rexach reveals why sending 150 resumes gets you nowhere—and what actually works. As Microsoft's Community Engagement Lead, she shares her radical approach to career advancement through "social wealth": intentional relationship-building that compounds over time. From Chicago's government housing to rooms with Fortune 500 CEOs, Rexach never submitted a resume for any role. She introduces powerful frameworks including the "shareholder" concept, demonstrates how every encounter is an interview, and explains why your network underwrites your next opportunity. Through compelling personal stories and her mentee Paige's transformation, Rexach provides actionable strategies for building connections that create career opportunities traditional networking never could.
How artists can protect their work from AI
We are what we do — our identities are the sum of our knowledge, experiences and actions. In a world rapidly filled with AI generators, what does it take to protect our identity, and those of the generations to come? Heather Zheng, co-director of the SANDLAB at UChicago, presents bold ideas that empower individuals to restore control over their identity by changing how they share data online. Together with her partner, Ben Zhao, the two UChicago professors and their team have released Glaze and Nightshade, tools that disrupt generative AI from training on and mimicking artists without their consent.
Building trust across America's divides
In this powerful talk, Meg Whitty shares lessons from childhood campaign trails in rural Iowa that shaped her career building coalitions for sustainable aviation fuel. Drawing from experience across agriculture, energy, and aviation sectors, she reveals how authentic trust unlocks solutions to seemingly impossible challenges. Whitty demonstrates how the same communities devastated by hospital closures and economic decline can lead the clean energy transition, creating jobs while solving aviation's 3% contribution to global emissions. The presentation examines specific techniques for bringing together competing interests around shared goals, challenging false choices between economy and environment. Her message resonates particularly with leaders seeking to bridge political and geographic divides.
The Art of Noticing
What happens when a doctor trades his stethoscope for a camera? Photodocumentarian Tony Menias reveals how slowing down transforms the way we see ourselves and each other. From medical missions to National Geographic, his decade-long journey captures life's hidden rhythms and our shared humanity. Through stunning imagery and raw reflection, Tony shows how everyday moments become visual poetry when we pause to truly notice. This talk invites you to witness the divine connections that surround us daily—teaching that when we see with our hearts, not just our eyes, strangers become family and chaos becomes peace.
How quantum technologies may impact your life
Physicist David Awschalom takes us on a fast-paced journey from Star Trek to quantum teleportation, showing how what once seemed like science fiction is quickly becoming reality. Equal parts inspiring and mind-bending, he reveals how uncertainty—the quirky heart of quantum physics—is actually a powerful engine of discovery, fueling breakthroughs in computing, medicine, and secure communication. This talk makes clear that our quantum future is not just coming—it’s already here.
Can Social Media End Gun Violence
At Project Unloaded, Olivia Brown challenges conventional views of social media to present an evidence-based framework for reducing gun violence through online activism. She outlines a practical blueprint for using social media connections to drive social change.
How Youth Lead Peacekeeping
After being surrounded by gang violence and losing a friend because of it, Monse Ayala discovered three essential needs that are lacking in vulnerable communities – community, stability, and recognition. Through intimate stories of loss and transformation, she reveals how meeting these core needs can break cycles of violence.
Interrupting Violence Through Mercy
When Cobe Williams faced his father's killer, he chose mercy over revenge – a decision that would launch him into a career in violence prevention. Williams demonstrates how deep listening and authentic connection can interrupt cycles of violence.
The Hidden Toll of Peacekeeping
Dr. Kathryn Bocanegra reveals a blind spot in the community violence intervention space – the trauma experienced by peacekeepers themselves. Drawing from 15 years of research and frontline experience, she demonstrates how violence intervention workers carry deep wounds while healing others.
When We Become Invisible
Ernest Cato shows how partnership-based policing can transform high-crime areas in America’s cities.
A silent threat & powerful opportunity under cities
Alessandro F. Rotta Loria’s talk delivers an intense emotional and intellectual experience about the urban underground, unveiling a silent threat that simultaneously represents a massive opportunity for the clean energy transition of cities, before we run out of time.
How exascale computers accelerate scientific discovery
Michael Papka takes us on a journey into the world of supercomputing and the extraordinary power of collaboration. From outpacing antibiotic-resistant bacteria to predicting the path of catastrophic hurricanes, today’s challenges demand solutions at unprecedented speeds.
Who's ready to engineer a world that works for all?
What would the world be like if the disability community designed it?" With this provocative question, Vanessa Harris opens a groundbreaking exploration of universal access.
How our stories hold the power to transform healthcare
When architect Abbie Clary experienced the heartbreaking loss of her father within a fragmented healthcare system, it forever transformed her approach to healthcare design.
How cities can save the world
From McDonald's solar-powered flagship to the flood-resilient Riverwalk, Carol Ross Barney showcases how thoughtful design creates healthier, more resilient, and livable cities.
Photography, sisterhood, and play as healing
How do we heal? Through an intimate exploration of trauma and healing, photographer Scheherazade Tillet shares how documenting her sister's recovery from sexual assault transformed both their lives while also inspiring her to work with similarly Black girls and young women. Two decades later, Tillet reveals that she discovered how photography and play can become powerful tools for healing intergenerational trauma.
How tiny particles may explain why we exist
From questioning the universe's edge as a child in Athens to leading America's premier particle physics laboratory, Dr. Lia Merminga shares her remarkable journey through the world of scientific discovery.
AI uses too much energy—nanotech is the solution
Mark Hersam is a nanotechnologist who believes that understanding materials at the shortest of length scales can provide solutions to the world’s largest problems. Using an interdisciplinary approach at the intersection of neuroscience and nanoelectronics, Hersam presents a solution to the greatest societal threat posed by AI.
Evolving fashion from destructive to seductive and constructive
After decades of designing clothes for women, Maria Pinto has uncovered a deep truth about fashion and making intentional decisions about what we wear: You must first ask, “Who am I?” Maria explores seduction, beauty, sustainability, and the nature of making decisions that are intentionally grounded in who we are and who we hope to be.
The life changing power of designing with dirt
From immigrant parents to successful urban spaces, Ernie Wong weaves a story of struggling to gain his father's acceptance to creating an equitable world through landscape architecture. In doing so, he unveils a powerful truth about what it means to design urban spaces for our future generations, and how it transforms our lives. With reference to current climate and societal challenges, Ernie describes the innovative projects that capture the flavors of changing neighborhoods in Chicago and their futures.