Derek Gent is Director of the Vancity Foundation, which proudly leads an arms-length Community Foundation associated with the members of Vancity Credit Union in BC. With financial assets of more than $55M, including 150+ Donor Advised Funds and a core endowment, they model a progressive approach to investment, while making grants, engaging in advocacy work and delivering collaborative programs with a focus on sustainable upstream development rather than aid. His professional career started in microcredit with BRAC in Bangladesh, after an MBA from Queen's University. He worked as a management consultant before a variety of roles at Coast Capital Savings and Vancity. Derek currently chairs the Public Policy Committee of Imagine Canada, an important umbrella organization representing the interests of charities and nonprofits across the country, as well as board roles with New Market Funds, Cooperators Foundation, Responsible Investment Association and as Vancouver City Co-Chair for Aga Khan Foundation.

Judith Marcuse's career spans over 50 years of professional work as a dancer, choreographer, producer, teacher, writer, consultant and lecturer in Canada and abroad. She has created over 100 original works for dance, theatre, opera, film and television and has produced seven large-scale, arts festivals. Founder/Co-Director of the International Centre of Art for Social Change and a Senior Fellow of Ashoka International, she is Adjunct Professor and Artist in Residence at SFU where she presently leads a five-year, national study and teaches Canada's first graduate program in art for social change. Among many honours, she has received Canada's major choreographic awards and an honorary doctorate. www.icasc.ca 

Currently the director of professional programs in the Faculty of Environment at Simon Fraser University where I design and convene programs for sustainability professionals as well as engage with community organizations on collaborative research. I am the faculty teaching fellow, SFU's representative on the SSHRC global research project called Participedia, a role that came to me as the founder of the continuing studies professional certificate in dialogue and engagement and past director of SFU's Dialogue Programs. I teach in SFU's certificate programs in Sustainable Community Development and in Dialogue and Civic Engagement. In my spare time I enjoy working with local governments, community organizations and others on their social learning, dialogue and engagement challenges and strategies. 

Stephen Dooley became the second executive director of the SFU Surrey campus on November 1st, 2013. Prior to joining the SFU team, he worked at Kwantlen Polytechnic University for more than 20 years, where he was the founder of The Centre For Interdisciplinary Research: Community Learning and Engagement. Steve has a strong commitment to the development of community-campus partnerships. As SFU Surrey campus director, Steve sits at a number of community partnership tables, including the City of Surrey’s Social Policy Advisory Committee, the Surrey Poverty Reduction Coalition (co-chair), the Local Immigration Partnership, and the Surrey Healthier Community Partnership. Steve is also a director of the Surrey Board of Trade (SBOT). 

Jenna Tenn-Yuk is a spoken word artist, public speaker, facilitator and storyteller. She has performed and spoken nationally at TEDx, Parliament Hill and numerous conferences on identity, finding one’s voice and building bridges between diverse communities. She has written for several publications, including the Huffington Post and the Ottawa Citizen, and was a 2014 Vancouver Biennale artist-in-residence. Jenna believes in the power of storytelling to break silences, connect people and change the world around us. She currently lives in Toronto where she works as a writing coach with Firefly Creative Writing.

Hi, I’m Sam Bradd.