Melanie Kahl
Melanie imagines a world where the process of designing together is as transformative as the product. During her basecamp year, she was a student of transformation, understanding what designers and facilitators might miss when it comes to holding people creatively through times of transition. She’s begun blending existing models with concepts from the the world of somatics, developmental psychology, and relational community development—to create a model for Holding Possibility.
This work is emergent and experiential. After immersing in the liminal world of summer camp and conversations with doulas, hospice chaplains, clowns, middle school teachers, and psychedelic guides, she is actively exploring partnership models for a pilot exchange program with design and change leaders. In the meantime, she is piloting a transformation workshop and telling stories collected from the year.
The 2020s will be the decade of holding— crisis, change, and collective imagination. Here’s to holding each other into new possibilities.
Melanie imagines a world where the process of designing together is as transformative as the product. During her basecamp year, she was a student of transformation, understanding what designers and facilitators might miss when it comes to holding people creatively through times of transition. She’s begun blending existing models with concepts from the the world of somatics, developmental psychology, and relational community development—to create a model for Holding Possibility.
This work is emergent and experiential. After immersing in the liminal world of summer camp and conversations with doulas, hospice chaplains, clowns, middle school teachers, and psychedelic guides, she is actively exploring partnership models for a pilot exchange program with design and change leaders. In the meantime, she is piloting a transformation workshop and telling stories collected from the year.
The 2020s will be the decade of holding— crisis, change, and collective imagination. Here’s to holding each other into new possibilities.
Aideé Granados
For the past year, Aideé has been driving the growth of SuperVive Comunidad, which started as a pilot in April 2022. SuperVive Comunidad is an app where Hispanics can access culturally relevant wellness education and, most importantly, build social capital. The power of community is crucial for achieving health and wellness goals. SuperVive Comunidad currently has 550+ members, 83% in the United States and 17% outside the country. Members can find information through live classes, podcast episodes, group coaching, healthy recipes, wellness challenges, expert capsules, wellness videos, a virtual gym, and a meditation center. This is accessible through freemium and premium memberships that invite everyone to enjoy the benefits of building a healthier, happier, and more resilient community.
For the past year, Aideé has been driving the growth of SuperVive Comunidad, which started as a pilot in April 2022. SuperVive Comunidad is an app where Hispanics can access culturally relevant wellness education and, most importantly, build social capital. The power of community is crucial for achieving health and wellness goals. SuperVive Comunidad currently has 550+ members, 83% in the United States and 17% outside the country. Members can find information through live classes, podcast episodes, group coaching, healthy recipes, wellness challenges, expert capsules, wellness videos, a virtual gym, and a meditation center. This is accessible through freemium and premium memberships that invite everyone to enjoy the benefits of building a healthier, happier, and more resilient community.
Heather Tsavaris
Heather imagines a world where people are too connected to one another to hate and where those who are not typically given a seat at the table can find purpose and meaning through community problem solving. She will spend the year exploring how community problem solving groups enable equitable pathways to contribution and belonging for all.
Heather imagines a world where people are too connected to one another to hate and where those who are not typically given a seat at the table can find purpose and meaning through community problem solving. She will spend the year exploring how community problem solving groups enable equitable pathways to contribution and belonging for all.
Seanan Fong
Seanan imagines a world where people in every neighborhood can celebrate, mourn, and honor their human journey together, no matter who they are or what they believe. An ordained minister turned product designer, he will spend this year developing public ritual spaces that engage and enrich local neighborhoods.
Seanan imagines a world where people in every neighborhood can celebrate, mourn, and honor their human journey together, no matter who they are or what they believe. An ordained minister turned product designer, he will spend this year developing public ritual spaces that engage and enrich local neighborhoods.
Torran Anderson
Torran imagines a world where humans as a whole impact the natural world in a positive way. He is reframing how we teach and communicate about climate change and will spend the year developing an escape room climate change game at Biosphere 2 where participants address our most serious challenges through play. He works at the Institute for Energy Solutions at the University of Arizona and is the artist-in-residence at the Environmental Education Exchange.
Torran imagines a world where humans as a whole impact the natural world in a positive way. He is reframing how we teach and communicate about climate change and will spend the year developing an escape room climate change game at Biosphere 2 where participants address our most serious challenges through play. He works at the Institute for Energy Solutions at the University of Arizona and is the artist-in-residence at the Environmental Education Exchange.
Jill Wolfe
Jill imagines a world where veterans — especially female veterans and veterans of color — hold executive leadership positions in every sector of society. She will spend the year drawing on her experiences as a former US Army military intelligence soldier, an entrepreneur, a marketing professional, and an adjunct professor, to create The Veterans Leadership Institute and offer creative support for a new generation of military veteran changemakers and leaders.
Jill imagines a world where veterans — especially female veterans and veterans of color — hold executive leadership positions in every sector of society. She will spend the year drawing on her experiences as a former US Army military intelligence soldier, an entrepreneur, a marketing professional, and an adjunct professor, to create The Veterans Leadership Institute and offer creative support for a new generation of military veteran changemakers and leaders.
Kevin Webb
Kevin imagines a world where building with nature is once again the default choice. He will be building a community that spans entrepreneurship and conservation, to explore what possibilities exist at the intersection of people, nature, and technology.
Kevin imagines a world where building with nature is once again the default choice. He will be building a community that spans entrepreneurship and conservation, to explore what possibilities exist at the intersection of people, nature, and technology.
Naomi Stone
During her fellowship year Naomi developed the patent-pending Enso Circular Economy Marketplace where organizations can sell their waste to compatible industries, reducing pollution while promoting environmental and financial sustainability. She's changing the "zero-sum game" mentality that pro-environment means anti-business with an enhanced triple bottom line that promotes advances in sustainability with its opportunity for profit. The most ardent capitalists become the biggest drivers of success, not only for this marketplace but for the environment.
After graduating with a BS in environmental engineering from MIT, Naomi Stone wanted to bridge the gap between environmentalism and financial prosperity for her industrial clients. To effect real change she knew she needed to communicate with corporate stakeholders so she earned an MBA from Columbia Business School. For the past 19 years, Naomi has served as President and CEO of MugenKioku Corporation, helping companies mitigate pollution. Now she wants to make environmental stewards out of even the most capitalist of societies. This year, she is developing a platform to change global perception of a material’s limited life cycle, recognizing its intrinsic value even after the first…or second use.
Jalyn Gordon
During her fellowship year Jalyn developed a series of sabbatical offerings to transform Black Activists' obligation to time, urgency and perfection while intentionally creating space for them to have a complete thought. She imagines a world where Black Activists have the opportunity to escape the chaos of daily life and return to their natural state of calm, clarity and focus. Repair, healing & restoration - the necessary ingredients to sustain impact in community work.
Jalyn is a Community Builder, facilitator, strategist, reader, consultant, mama and Black millennial. She is the Founder of The Afrocentric Communiversity LLC, an African-centered consulting company for nonprofits and Community Builders. As a Mira Fellow, she will explore how passionate, civically engaged groups move from grassroots to “grasstop”.
Morgan Vien
During her fellowship year Morgan Vien developed the concept of stoke, and designed processes and experiences for individuals and communities to find their stoke, name the barriers in their way, and to begin making small changes toward a path of a more activated, engaged and stoked life. On this journey she has explored the ways our contributions to society might be more stoked-based rather than obligation-based and she has begun to imagine how the culture of school, work and the world changes when we have practices and systems that allow for everyone to live into their stoke and up to their potential. She has found that the powerful experience of being stoked is contagious and that one stoked human can inspire as many people as they can reach. When we contribute our unique brilliance and magic to the world, we give more, do better and light up the world around us. #staystoked
Morgan Vien is a leader, a learner, and a designer. She coaches and facilitates systems leaders toward deeper learning, equity, and change-making by using design thinking and activating the mindsets necessary for thoughtful, agile leadership. She works most closely with Envision Learning Partners, School Retool, the d.school at Stanford, and as Liberatory Design Faculty for the National Equity Project. Prior to this chapter, she was a Principal and a Founding Teacher in the Small Autonomous Schools Movement in Oakland, CA.
Morgan believes that a more fulfilling and liberated life for each of us is possible if we design a system that offers us the resources, mindsets, and opportunities to discover our stoke and contribute to our collective good. She will spend this year exploring how opportunities for meaningful contribution and collaborative problem- solving might allow us to be our most authentic selves and therefore a more thriving collective.
If you look closely enough you might see sparks of light coming from her workspace as she designs new futures and makes magic happen. #staystoked #unbox
Nita Evans
During her fellowship year Nita developed Kommit, a unique mentor-based community designed for Black athletes and their families that connects them with resources and mentors who provide support and guidance to ensure that when Black men enter college with a ball in one hand, they leave with a degree and viable career plan in the other; affirming their worth and value as more than an athlete in this world. Each year, thousands of young Black males gain access to college through the pathway of athletics. Yet, many miss out on valuable career prep opportunities and others never graduate. Nita imagines a world where every Black male can be and achieve anything in life.
Nita Evans has spent her career dedicated to issues of equity and access in higher education for students and families from marginalized communities. With a PhD in Sociology and twenty years of college teaching experience, Nita is the Chair of the Master of Arts in Social Impact program at Claremont Lincoln University. She is a race and sport scholar-activist who provides a bridge between the academy and the communities she serves. Nita has an ambitious vision for ensuring every Black male who enters college with a football in one hand leaves with a degree in the other. Addressing the longstanding graduation inequities in college sports, Nita is developing a turnaround plan rooted in social justice that prepares Black athletes for college and career as thinkers, leaders and innovators. Her goal is to create upward mobility and a cycle of success for Black men and their families.
Lin Shi
During her fellowship year Lin built a financial wellbeing community called the Money Health Collective. We cannot solve what we do not talk about -- as a society, we don't talk about money. She’s creating a safe, cathartic space for participants to share their personal money stories and to support one another on their journeys. The Collective is open and accessible to everyone; sessions are free, volunteer-run, and virtual. The goal of the Money Health Collective is to empower all of its participants, in order to build a community that collectively generates hope and raises societal wellbeing for all. Lin imagines a future where poverty and scarcity no longer exist.
Over the last decade, Lin has worked across sectors with the goal of raising the level of financial wellbeing for all. Through helping companies develop employee financial wellness programs and volunteering with nonprofits and government agencies on financial education and workforce development, she has seen how pervasive and debilitating financial stress can be across demographics.
Lin intends to test and build a novel financial coaching ecosystem that nurtures mutually empowering relationships amongst all its participants: financial coaches, coaching recipients, and sponsors. The goals of this ecosystem are to build a support system for coaching recipients, provide a living wage for financial coaches, and allow financial sponsors to see clear returns in their investment in communities.
Professionally, Lin is an actuary and consultant. She serves as a board member for several nonprofits helping the local community. She was selected as a Fulbright grantee and ambassador, and WEF Young Global Shaper.
Marc Mares
During his fellowship year Marc built a community to provide fitness, structure, and support to youth. Through experimentation and iteration, Marc developed a simple and surprisingly low cost community that increases the physical condition, enhances the emotional wellbeing, and improves the educational outcomes of its participants. Through teaching values like grit, confidence, and empathy, Marc has created a bonded group. What if the youth of every community felt supported to reach their full potential? What if they all saw a future for themselves? Come learn more about The Huddle, a simple and effective way to build strong communities from the ground up. More
A Coast Guard officer and middle school/high school distance running coach, Marc Mares believes fitness can do more than just improve health. It can serve as the backbone to strengthen adolescent communities.
For the past year Marc has been running a fitness group in Oakland, CA for adolescents of all athletic abilities. This year Marc will create and test a plan to scale his wildly successful model to adolescent communities across the country. Marc believes that even with very limited resources these communities can move forward and unite around the values of hard work, courage, and humility.
Susie Wise
During her fellowship year Susie explored Design for Belonging. We’ve all heard of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI); and while well-intentioned it is a land of quotas and metrics. It skips over the most important aspect of bringing diverse groups together -- solving problems. Every race, gender, and culture knows what it feels like to belong. Susie has created a tool kit to Design for Belonging that helps us notice the world around us and provides a framework for finding solutions for everything from group dynamics to product design. Equality begins when we’re all working towards the same goal. Belonging is what we’ve all been looking for.
Susie Wise is liberatory design faculty at the National Equity Project and an adjunct professor at the Stanford d.school where she founded the K12 Lab. Susie believes we can create more belonging and less othering in our communities through design. We live within systems where important outcomes -- maternal health, life expectancy, time spent in prison, and educational achievement -- are all influenced by race. It doesn't have to be that way.
Susie will spend the year researching and defining Design for Belonging. What are the elements in a city or a building or a group that create belonging? She believes designing for belonging can eliminate numerous downstream troubles; inequities in schools, mental health stigmas, communal indecision on housing or climate change. If we design for belonging we can build a world where everyone is honored.
Betty Ray
During her fellowship year Betty explored the power and simplicity of ritual. During these difficult times it’s often hard to find any order in the chaos. But in fact we’ve had the solution for thousands of years. Humans have used ritual to make sense of their surroundings and find intention and purpose when life provides none. Every religion and every culture since the beginning of time has put forward rituals. Betty has found the common language of these rituals and modernized the process of creating them. With Betty’s toolkit anyone can create a unique ritual for their own life and begin finding a way out of the chaos and into a more intentional life.
After a decade at the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Betty Ray was plagued by a question: Why are young people suffering with depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide at such soaring rates?
At Teachers College, Columbia University - Betty landed on rites of passage as a long-forgotten approach to preparing young people for life in an uncertain future. This year she wants to design and create a set of modern rites of passage so all youth feel grounded and supported through the turbulent challenges of adolescence
Travis Ning
During his fellowship year Travis worked to change the harmful power dynamic present in international philanthropy and has created the Awareness Accord. Most philanthropic engagement follows the classic drama triangle, hero, victim, villain. This dynamic creates huge inefficiencies in the philanthropic process. The hero (donor) is always right. The victims must be happy for any assistance they are given. And there must always be a villain. In his 20 years of development experience Travis has seen countless resources wasted supporting this dynamic rather than solving the problems at hand. The Awareness Accord gives everyone a chance to change the interpersonal dynamic. Intentions are aligned and respect is given to all parties throughout the engagement process.
For 20 years, Travis Ning has worked in international development around the world. He knows that human connection is an essential part of finding solutions, but that the design of these experiences can produce a negative "hero-victim" result. With the world more connected every day, there is an opportunity to revisit and reframe the way we "do good."
This year Travis will explore and test alternatives to The Drama Triangle (hero, victim, and villain) in Guatemala with MAIA, a program serving Mayan girls in rural Guatemala. Travis will explore and test ways to turn good intentions/actions into mutually-empowering experiences for all stakeholders and hopefully begin to change our frame on philanthropy.