Sarah Fraser, radio and TV personality, is the host of the enormously popular Hey Frase Podcast on iTunes. The podcast was downloaded over 500k times in it’s first six months alone. Sarah co-hosts the show with her long time friend and renaissance man, Samy K. The podcast is funny, inspiring, pop-culture driven, and DC based.

Sarah was also the host of The Sarah, Ty, and Mel Show on DC’s 107.3 in Washington, DC. Notably, Sarah was a lead co-host of the only radio show in the DC-metro area that features two women’s names in the title, and appears weekly on FOX 5’s number one rated Good Day DC where she discusses her Pulse topic. Topics include: “Do Open Marriages Ever Really Work” to “Social Media Prenups.” Her spark and comedic timing also landed her the in-stadium co-host gig for the 2011 Washington Nationals. Sarah’s first talk show pilot – “Hey Frase” – was launched as a panel host show via YouTube in the spring of 2013 and made available to her 47K twitter followers, and combined 25k Facebook followers.

From 2007 to 2013 Sarah spent her mornings co-hosting the D.C. metropolitan area’s top-rated morning drive show among adults, which boasted more than 20 million listeners in the DC metro area and on iheartradio. As the former co-host of the enormously popular “The Kane Show” of HOT 99.5 (WIHT-FM), Sarah’s voice was heard through syndication on WZFT-FM in Baltimore, Maryland, WFLZ-FM in Tampa, Florida, KISS 107 FM in Cincinnati, Ohio, Radio Now 101.9 FM in Memphis, Tennessee and 98.9 Radio Now FM in Louisville, Kentucky. Additionally, Sarah hosted the popular “The Sarah Show” on HOT 99.5, which served as the mid-day lead in program to The Ryan Seacrest Show.

Aanal is an accomplished dancer, choreographer and teacher. She is the founder of Studio Dhoom, a thriving dance studio with multiple locations across Northern Virginia.

Trained in Indian classical Kuchipudi dance form and in multiple Indian folk and semi-classical dances, Aanal has been dancing all her life. After earning her M.Ed in e-Learning and Instructional design from George Mason University and a career at The Nature Conservancy, she decided to pursue her true passion of teaching dance after the birth of her first son.

Having heard from numerous people including children learning Indian classical and other dance forms, she realized that existing dance instruction was missing one key ingredient - a personal connection with youth & motivation. She started her first dance class with 2 students and a simple motto "Culture is sacred. Preserving it should be fun!". Combining her dance background with her instructional design skills, Studio Dhoom now has more than 400 active dancers of all age groups. Working under the umbrella of Bollywood dancing, she has helped promote the vibrant and culture-rich traditional genres of Indian dancing including folk and semi-classical dancing styles.

Aanal's work and contributions have been recognized across the community and Studio Dhoom students have won many competitions and performed at prestigious events such as the NBA Washington Wizards half-time show, several Bollywood concerts at Warner Theater and EagleBank Arena and the National Cherry Blossom festival.

She draws strength and continued passion realizing the impact of her work on passing on the rich cultural heritage to the next generation through the medium of dance - all while having fun!

Ridwan Adhami is an accomplished photographer, filmmaker, creative director, and public speaker. Traveling all over the world, Adhami has been a voice for the voiceless, capturing stories that inspire humans to confront their perceptions while advocating for social justice and equality through his art. Adhami was born and raised in Queens, NY and has been a professional photographer for over 15 years. His journey with his camera began in college at NYIT, where he would shoot underground hip hop shows and surround himself with others who shared a passion for art. It was then that he discovered his love for storytelling and has never turned back. After years of working as an artist, he founded his visual media company, RidzDesign. He published his first book, 366 - Photo A Day, in 2012. Known for his striking, conceptual imagery, his visual language is the product of a layered identity, combining underground NYC hip hop, Syrian heritage, American upbringing, and Muslim faith. He strives to blend faith and art in way that is impactful while staying true to his roots. His distinctive style, which combines all-American appeal with raw, gripping, urban imagery, has catapulted him to work with internationally renowned artists and brands. His photo-films      include Hamdulillah for the Iraqi-Canadian artist Narcicyst and multiple projects with European pop group Outlandish. Most recently, he is recognized for his collaboration with famous street artist Shepard Fairey on his ‘We the People’ poster series. He is currently based in Virginia with his wife Susy and daughter Anisa, where he serves as the Creative Director for Islamic Relief USA, an international humanitarian non-profit organization. For six years, he has traveled to 19 countries, collecting stories of the forgotten – photographs and videos that he shares with the world under the name Scars and Smiles.

Alan Marco is the Chief Economist at the US Patent and Trademark Office, where his research focuses policy-relevant topics in intellectual property. He is the co-creator of the USPTO’s PatentsView.org, a free and open platform for exploring and accessing high-quality patent data. He has published academic articles on the intellectual property marketplace, uncertainty in intellectual property rights, patent valuation, and high-tech mergers. Dr. Marco obtained his PhD in Economics from U.C. Berkeley, and he has held faculty positions as associate professor in the Williams School of Commerce at Washington and Lee University and associate professor of economics at Vassar College. In the Fall, Dr. Marco will begin a faculty position in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Philip Auerswald is a writer and economist based in Washington DC. He has most recently authored The Code Economy: A Forty-Thousand-Year History (Oxford University Press, 2017), a book about how human creativity and algorithms have coevolved over the span of millennia. He is an associate professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and he currently serves and the co-chair and executive director of the Global Entrepreneurship Research Network, an initiative of the Kauffman Foundation. He is also the cofounder of Zilla Global LLC, a venture dedicated to nurturing ecosystems opportunity around digital land records (Zilla.Land), and the cofounder and coeditor of Innovations, a quarterly journal about entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges published by MIT Press.

In June 2013 Philip led the launch of the National Center for Entre- preneurship and Innovation (NCEI.US), an organization dedicated to using the National Mall in Washington DC as a platform to celebrate and support entrepreneurship and innovation in the United States.

Baby Bry Bry is the exaggerated ego of a songwriter and performer from Long Beach, CA based in Washington, DC. Once backed by the "lounge-punk" outfit The Apologists, Baby Bry Bry is now just another sad white man with a guitar. Stylistically-schizophrenic but always melodramatic, Baby Bry Bry has played at the Kennedy Center, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the 9:30 Club, and too many basements to count. He founded the label Odessa Madre Tapes in 2014, is the namesake of a roast of Qualia Coffee, and will release his debut LP “Who’s Got Time For Feelings At A Time Like This?” this fall.

As students at Virginia Tech, Alley and Jack took an engineering trip to Uganda in 2012.  This trip sparked the idea for their company, Taaluma Totes, which makes backpacks out of traditional fabrics from around the world.  These backpacks are made in Virginia by adults with disabilities and a portion of the profits fund micro-loans in the country where the fabric originated…each backpack “Carrying a Country” of its own.

After a shot on ABC’s Shark Tank, they have continued their fabric hunt around the world.  They spend 9 months of the year overseas in search of the world’s funkiest fabrics.  Some of their favorites places include Indonesia for its culture, Thailand for its people, and Ecuador for its nature.

Social Entrepreneur. Endurance Athlete. Author. Speaker, Len Forkas.

Len Forkas shares team-building lessons such as the power of forgiveness, humility and gratitude, knowing your limits, and honoring roles. It all started years ago, when he learned that his son Matt had leukemia. Forkas immediately began searching for a way to help Matt, now an adult, cope with the debilitating loneliness and isolation that occurs to all children during treatment. At a time when webcam technology was still in its infancy, he pioneered a way for his son to connect digitally to his classmates. In 2003, he founded Hopecam, a non-profit dedicated to providing the same for cancer-stricken children around the world.

Len’s unrelenting dedication to Hopecam compelled him to accept a daunting fundraising challenge. In 2012, he competed in one of the world’s toughest endurance events: Race across America, a 3,000-mile, coast-to-coast solo bicycle race that participants must finish in 12 days. Len finished in 11. Len describes the management challenges and what he learned as he fought through the scorch of deserts and the joint-wrenching cold of 11,000-foot mountain elevations, propelled by an effective all-volunteer team that supported him around the clock. Len raised $350,000 for Hopecam during the race and has since connected over 1,000 children with cancer to over 10,000 classmates in 44 states. Len is competing in Race across America on June 13th 2017 with the goal of raising $1 million to connect the next 1,000 children.

Len Forkas is the founder of Milestone Communications, a Reston, Virginia based owner and developer of wireless towers in the Mid-Atlantic region that for over 16 years has partnered with local governments under revenue sharing leases. Len is the author of the book “What Spins the Wheel: Leadership lessons from our Race for Hope” Len has appeared on CNN Anderson Cooper 360, Fox & Friends, and local affiliates of ABC & Fox News

Called too tough for the Marine Corps, Lieutenant Colonel Kate Germano made headlines in June 2015 when she took a stand and confronted systemic problems of gender bias and lowered expectations for women. She fought back and became a national figure by speaking out against discrimination and advocating for higher expectations for women in the military. A 20-year career Marine and combat veteran, Kate has written extensively on the cultural challenges faced by service women, the change to official policy that opened all military jobs and units to women, and the need to de-segregate Marine Corps recruit training.

Dorothie Hellman was a CPA at Touche Ross (now Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu), Vice President for Financial Support at the Beyond War Foundation, and has devoted her life to studying the human condition and how to improve it. Martin Hellman taught Electrical Engineering at MIT and Stanford University and, with his colleague Whit Diffie, won this year’s ACM Turing Award, for their invention of public key cryptography – the technology that underpins electronic commerce. The Hellmans are using Marty’s half of the associated million dollar prize to further their efforts to build a more peaceful, sustainable world, with promotion of the ideas in their recently released book being the initial focus. A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet, reveals the mistakes that nearly ended their marriage as well as the positive changes that allowed them to build a truly loving relationship. It also explains why the lessons they learned are the same ones the nations of the world need to grasp to build a more peaceful, sustainable planet. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry calls it "a truly unique book” that “should be read by married couples seeking peace at home, as well as by diplomats seeking peace in the world.”

Marty alone:

Martin Hellman taught Electrical Engineering at MIT and Stanford University and, with his colleague Whit Diffie, won this year’s ACM Turing Award for their invention of public key cryptography – the technology that underpins electronic commerce. He and his wife Dorothie are using his half of the associated million dollar prize to further their efforts to build a more peaceful, sustainable world, with promotion of the ideas in their recently released book being the initial focus. A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet, reveals the mistakes that nearly ended their marriage as well as the positive changes that allowed them to build a truly loving relationship. It also explains why the lessons they learned are the same ones the nations of the world need to grasp to build a more peaceful, sustainable planet. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry calls it "a truly unique book” that “should be read by married couples seeking peace at home, as well as by diplomats seeking peace in the world.”

Dorothie alone:

Dorothie Hellman was a CPA at Touche Ross (now Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu), Vice President for Financial Support at the Beyond War Foundation, and has devoted her life to studying the human condition and how to improve it. She and her husband Martin recently completed writing A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet. This book reveals the mistakes that nearly ended their marriage as well as the positive changes that allowed them to build a truly loving relationship. It also explains why the lessons they learned are the same ones the nations of the world need to grasp to build a more peaceful, sustainable planet. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry calls it "a truly unique book” that “should be read by married couples seeking peace at home, as well as by diplomats seeking peace in the world.” The Hellmans are using Marty’s half of the million dollar ACM Turing Award to further their efforts to build a more peaceful, sustainable world, with promotion of the ideas in their  book being the initial focus.

Joel Garreau, author of Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, is the foremost chronicler of the biggest revolution in 150 years in how humans build cities.  Most recently, his study of technology’s impact on culture and values has led him to conclude that the future of cities is “Edge City 2.0: The Santa-Fe-ing of the Planet.”

All cities are always shaped by the state-of-the-art transportation technologies of the time.  Today, accelerating technologies are transforming cities faster and more thoroughly than did the automobile – from the upheaval in retail and office space to robotic cars and gigabit connections.

But the gold standard of human interaction remains face-to-face contact, and it is becoming ever ever more valuable as a result of being that rarity – something not digitizable in the foreseeable future.  Garreau argues that face-to-face is the one and only reason for cities in the future. Places that are good at providing it will thrive. Those that are not, will die.  This is especially true of Edge Cities 1.0 like Tysons that were optimized for the automobile, the jet passenger plane and corporate computing.  They now risk being left behind in favor of places that for the first time are becoming highly urbane without becoming urban.   Think Monticello with broadband.

A former reporter and editor at The Washington Post, Joel today is the Professor of Law, Culture and Values at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and is Affiliated Faculty in its School for the Future of Innovation in Society.

John Devlin is the Cover Conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra. Of his recent debut with the NSO and soloist Joshua Bell, Anne Midgette of the Washington Post wrote that Devlin “led the evening with flair … and was visibly in his element.”

In addition to his work with the NSO, John is the Assistant Conductor of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and the Artistic Director and Conductor of Gourmet Symphony With these, and other orchestras, Devlin has conducted at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and at the Music Center at Strathmore.

Devlin’s mission as a conductor is to deliver concerts that frame orchestral music in new and innovative ways. His artistic leadership has inspired many forward-thinking concepts such as Gourmet Symphony, Go-Go Symphony, Seamless Symphony, Interactive Symphony and the New Retro Project. Each reflects Devlin’s mission of making classical music attainable and engaging for all audiences. The Washington Post has hailed these projects as “refreshingly unfamiliar” events that deliver “a new audience for classical music,” and have brought “the sold-out house to its feet, cheering.”

Devlin is also an active conductor of outstanding high school and collegiate ensembles. He currently serves on the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Music as the Assistant Director of Orchestral Studies. John has also conducted numerous honor ensembles, including the Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and Maine All-State Orchestras.

Devlin graduated with both a master’s and a doctoral degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Maryland School of Music, where he studied with James Ross. His undergraduate degree is from Emory University where he graduated summa cum laude with a double major in Music and Latin.

Liam McKinley is a sophomore at the Potomac School in McLean, Virginia.  Liam has been interested in technology from a young age, working on robotics initially, then moving on to application development.  Liam won the first International Botathon, sponsored by VentureBeat, in 2016.  Liam's entry was SkoolBot, a conversational bot front-end to Google Classroom for students and parents.  Liam beat over 250 other participants from around the globe to win the event, and was the only student in the competition.  Liam has subsequently focused on the build-out of SkoolBot as a full commercial offering, and is now launching SkoolBot to the market in partnership with kik, the popular messaging app with over 300 million users.  Liam's other interests include running and fencing, where he just qualified as a High School First Team All American.

Sara Minkara is the Founder and CEO of Empowerment Through Integration (ETI), a nonprofit that focused on the empowerment and inclusion of youth with visual impairment in the MENA region. Sara, herself, is a Blind, Lebanese American who lost her sight at the age of 7. She founded ETI out of her own personal experience and passion for empowering blind youth to be the catalyst for change in their communities. She is an internationally recognized advocate in the areas of disability inclusion and social entrepreneurship. Her personal and professional commitment to disability rights and youth empowerment began while she was an undergrad at Wellesley College and continued throughout her time at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. Since starting ETI, Sara has continued her work in the social sector while also growing ETI from a summer camp to an organization that today reaches over 3,000 across Lebanon and the United States.

Sara has received numerous awards for her passionate advocacy for disability rights. In 2009, she was honored with the Clinton Global Initiative Outstanding Commitment Award. In 2011, she was selected as a Rhodes Scholar finalist and received the Massachusetts Institute of Technology IDEAS Global Challenge Award and Margaret Freeman Bowers Award. In 2015, a video on ETI’s work received first place at the Girl’s Impact World Firm Festival. Additionally, in 2015, she was selected as an Echoing Green Fellow and a Halcyon Incubator fellow for ETI’s innovative work. This past year, she was also asked invited to speak on a panel at the United Nations Conference of State Parties and to deliver a TEDx talk. She was also selected as a Forbes “30 Under 30” for the 2017 class in the Social Entrepreneurs Division.

Robert’s aggressively bipartisan approach was honed during a highly respected legislative career that began on Congressman Barney Frank’s (D-MA) staff and culminated in House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde’s (R-IL) endorsement of his appointment to the Justice Department as Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs.

Robert built a reputation for collegiality and effectiveness through his collaboration with Republican members and staff on issues including the omnibus patent reform bill, database protection standards, and copyright liability for Internet service providers.

In 1999, Mr. Raben's reputation and effectiveness caught the attention of the White House, earning him an appointment as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and, subsequently, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs.

After graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and New York University School of Law, Robert was an associate with the law firm of Arnold & Porter. Soon after, he joined the faculty of Georgetown University Law School as an adjunct professor - a position he held until his confirmation as Assistant Attorney General. In 2002 Robert founded The Raben Group and serves as President.

Additionally, Robert is the President of the Hispanic Bar Association of DC Foundation and currently chairs the Hispanic National Bar Association’s Endorsement Committee. He serves on the boards of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, The American Constitution Society, International Refugee Assistance Project, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, NCLR Action Fund and the DC Public Education Fund.

Samah Safi Bayazid, is a 28-year-old award-winning filmmaker who lives in Washington DC. She studied filmmaking and screenwriting at New York Film Academy and became a filmmaker at 22 years old. She is one of the first professional Muslim women filmmakers in the industry.

Samah brought her Middle Eastern understanding to the west to produce unique humanitarian and bridge-building entertainment for audiences through her such short films, PSAs, TV campaigns, TV programs, documentaries, drama series, and music videos.

Samah hopes that her work and productions will help bring together audiences from different cultures and backgrounds. Her work has already reached millions of views on social media and millions of people around the world.

Her latest film “Orshena”, is a short film that addresses the refugees issue around the world and the hardship of losing their beloved ones and has been officially selected for many international film festivals. It recently won the Award of Excellence in the Indie Film Festival in California.

Samah is also very active on social media, where she has more than 250,000 followers.

Having spent 2 1Ž2 years biking through 28 countries, using phrasebooks and picture cut-outs to express needs and convey information, Alan was convinced of the power of pictures for communication. Upon his return to the US in 1989, he started Kwikpoint, a company that publishes picture-based communication tools to overcome language barriers.

Kwikpoint publications are used by the US Military in combat zones to communicate with locals to gather intelligence.  Troops have used kwikpoints to find IEDs, landmines, bomb-making factories and weapons caches, saving countless lives. In 2004, Kwikpoint became standard issue for all troops going into war zones.

Kwikpoints are also used by global health agencies including the Red Cross, CDC, FDA, USAID, UN, Project Hope and Doctors Without Boarders in health initiatives pertaining to TB, HIV/AIDS and Diabetes. More than 400 Kwikpoint titles have reached over 10,000,000 people worldwide.

Alan’s latest focus is on stroke health education, a cause near and dear to his heart because of a tragic loss he suffered as a child. He hopes that his “Spot a Stroke, Stop a Stroke” campaign will help lower the statistics of 6,000,000 deaths due to stroke globally each year and save many more lives.

Stephanie Summerville is an actress, singer and storyteller.

She is most known for her work with The Moth, a Peabody Award-winning, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. Her stories have been featured in several of The Moth’s Main Stage productions, a documentary, CDs, podcasts and the Peabody Award-winning “The Moth Radio Hour”, which airs weekly on public radio stations worldwide. (TheMoth.org)

Stephanie appeared in the national storytelling tour of A More Perfect Union: Stories of Prejudice and Power, as part of “Characters Unite” — the USA Network’s award-winning public service program, created to address the social injustices and cultural divides still prevalent in our society, to encourage more productive dialogue, and foster greater tolerance and acceptance. (charactersunite.com)

One of her stories was featured in the 2013 New York Times’ Best Seller, The Moth: 50 True Stories.

She also narrates clean romance novellas for Audible.com.

She loves anime, the music of  John Williams and all things New York. Aside from being a graduate of Sarah Lawrence, she’s proud of the fact that she can sing nearly every TV theme song from the 60s through the 80s from memory.