Awais Azhar is a Community and Regional Planning PhD student and Teaching Assistant at The University of Texas at Austin in the School of Architecture. His research focuses on how racial justice can be operationalized in relation to housing and land use planning. His previous research focused on affordable housing strategies in the United States and housing displacement in Pakistan. Over the past six years, Awais has been involved in affordable housing and social justice advocacy in Austin, Texas. He currently serves on the City of Austin Planning Commission, Executive Committee of the Austin Housing Coalition, the Advocacy Committee of HousingWorks Austin, the Membership Council of the Austin Continuum of Care, and the Board of Directors of Equality Texas. Awais has a Master of Science in Community and Regional Planning degree and a Master of Public Affairs degree from the University of Texas at Austin, with a portfolio in Nonprofit Studies. He also has a Bachelor in Architecture degree from the National College of Arts, Pakistan. Previously, he worked as Program Manager for the Austin Community Investment Collaborative at HousingWorks Austin, focusing on affordable housing policy and research.

Mary Bailey is a dedicated community organizer and social justice advocate. As managing director & co-founder of the criminal justice reform non-profit, Last Prisoner Project, Mary leads development efforts and cultivates community partnerships that enable Last Prisoner Project to fight for the release of cannabis prisoners and support them as they rebuild their lives. Her dedication to this mission has bolstered the organization's programs, which has saved over 360 years of prison time, provided $9M in legal services, passed 10 record clearance laws, and distributed over $3.8M to constituents through direct grants, commissary funds, and other financial support. She feels strongly that nobody should be in prison for cannabis and is dedicated to helping to inspire a more socially conscious cannabis industry. Before co-founding Last Prisoner Project, she was the CEO of Alpha Agency, a Hawaii-based production company specializing in creating events that inspire positive social change through music, education, and community engagement. She also hosted the Maui Cannabis Conference, the Maui Yoga Festival, and monthly community block parties for the County of Maui Office of Economic Development. Mary received the High Times Dope Award and the High Times list of the Top 100 Most Influential People in the Cannabis Industry, the Advocate of the Year Award from Benzinga, the Top 100 Most Influential People for Activism by Cannabis Global Times, 40 under 40 from Cannabis Now Magazine, and serves as a SXSW Mentor.

Jonathan 'Chaka' Mahone is a visionary storyteller who believes in the power of art, and the importance of the artist as a community catalyst for social and cultural change, economic development, healing, planning, and collective conversation. As a performing artist and musician, he has traveled the world as one-half of the award-winning hip hop duo, Riders Against the Storm (RAS). As a civic leader, Mahone became the first African-American Chair of Austin's Music Commission in 2021. After more than a decade pushing through barriers constructed by the historic race and genre biases of Austin's music industry, he founded DAWA (a Swahili, Hindi, and Arabic word for medicine), in 2019 to provide a safety net for People of Color that are experiencing short term life crisis. More specifically, people of color who are givers: musicians, artists, social workers, teachers, healing practitioners, and service industry workers. Through its mission of giving to the givers, and its vision of centering community and culture to drive social impact, DAWA (Diversity Awareness and Wellness in Action) has directly invested over a half million dollars in this group over the last 6 years.

Taylor McGraw is a journalist and educator dedicated to giving young people the tools to tell their own stories. Prior to co-founding The Bell in 2017, he spent five years teaching and coaching in New York City schools, where he recognized that the voices most impacted by education policy were the ones least involved in shaping it. Under his leadership, The Bell has grown from a podcast project into a nationally recognized leader in youth-led journalism. The organization’s student reporting has shifted from the classroom to the halls of power: its coverage of school segregation and inequity has been cited in citywide policy discussions and featured on national airwaves. The Bell’s student reporters have twice been named finalists for the National Awards for Education Reporting, competing against professional newsrooms of all sizes. Beyond producing impactful youth-led storytelling, Taylor is a driving force for systemic change in journalism education. In 2022, he spearheaded the formation of the NYC Youth Journalism Coalition, a collective effort to strengthen the journalism career pipeline. Through the Coalition's "Journalism for All" initiative, The Bell and partners are actively expanding journalism programs to dozens of schools that historically lacked them, democratizing access to the field for thousands of students. Now based in Jackson, Mississippi, Taylor is scaling The Bell's work through the Jackson Youth Newsroom, a program focused on building a new generation of civic-minded journalists in the Deep South. Taylor holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, an MA in Teaching from Relay GSE, and a BA in Public Policy Leadership from the University of Mississippi. His love for journalism began at his own high school newspaper in Oxford, Mississippi, and he remains committed to ensuring that every student has a platform to speak truth to power.

Francene Blythe-Lewis currently serves as President and CEO of Vision Maker Media (VMM), the longest-running Native American media organization, and a cornerstone of Indigenous public broadcasting. As CEO, Blythe-Lewis is an established executive producer on award-winning documentaries and series, including Almost an Island, Searching for Sequoyah, IndigiGenius, Roots of Comedy with Jesus Trejo, Without Arrows, The Bears on Pine Ridge, and She Cried That Day. She emphasizes expanding the thematic range and contemporary visibility of Native stories in public media. Previously, Blythe-Lewis served as Director of Programs at the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and as Director of National Geographic’s All Roads Film Project, where she redirected significant resources toward Indigenous filmmakers whereby cultivating long-term media careers for many that she supported worldwide. She has held visionary leadership roles at the Smithsonian Institution, and her professional impact is defined by building durable Indigenous media infrastructure—ensuring Native stories are created by Native people, supported by sustainable systems, and shared nationally with audiences and for posterity.