Sessions

Session seating is first come, first served. Thank you for your cooperation.

We leverage the neuroscience of storytelling to stimulate empathy and courageous conversations to underline inclusive behavior. In this session, we will be calling attention to our capability of contributing to diversity, inclusion, and well-being within our communities through allyship and action. The session is led by the award-winning founder of StoryBolt, Dr. Nassim Abdi, a storyteller and evangelist dedicated to finding the intersection of entertainment and learning in the area of DEI. She has 12 years of academic experience researching identity and intersectionality as they relate to systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Nassim will kick off the session with an engagement activity, and then we will watch a brief documentary, Woman in Motion, about Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols, the woman who changed NASA.

Learning Objectives:

• Understanding DEI as a facet of basic human and professional development, a soft skill required of all employees, resulting in innovation ROI for the organization.
• Understanding our role in promoting diversity and inclusion effectively in the workplace.
• Being able to cite specific examples of individual and collective acts that lead to an increase in diversity.
• Understanding effective allyship and identifying specific personal actions to be a better ally.
• Becoming familiar with a new method of addressing implicit bias that uses storytelling and empathy as the primary focus.