This year Titus Kaphar and Vijay Gupta join a whopping SIX other Lavin Speakers in receiving MacArthur “Genius” Grants—a prestigious honor awarded to those who are forging truly significant progress towards “building a more just, verdant and peaceful world.” Get to know Lavin’s “geniuses”:
Titus Kaphar’s sculptures, paintings, and installations create new and striking ways of seeing mass incarceration, injustice, history, art, civic agency and more. Watch his standing-o garnering TED talk below:
Vijay Gupta is the charismatic, huge-hearted founder of Street Symphony—a musical advocacy program that empowers communities experiencing extreme poverty, incarceration, and homelessness. Watch him explain how music works as medicine:
Nikole Hannah-Jones is an award-winning investigative journalist whose reporting on the re-segregation of American schools has reshaped national conversations around education reform. Watch her break down how and why schools are still divided by race:
LaToya Ruby Frazier’s art is a weapon. She uses it to document communities living in post-industrial American cities: riven by poverty, racism, healthcare inequality and environmental toxicity. Her work amplifies vulnerable voices and transforms our sense of place. Watch her discuss the process by which art instigates social change:
Angela Duckworth’s landmark research on grit has changed the way the world looks at success and academic achievement. Passion and perseverance play a bigger role than natural skill and smarts, and those qualities can be fostered in anyone. Watch her viral TED talk below:
Through the powerful lens of economics, the core issues effecting American society—equality, education, race—look very different. Watch economics professor Raj Chetty, one of Harvard’s youngest tenured professors ever, discuss what big data teaches us about The American Dream:
For thirty years, Bill Strickland has used his innovative arts and training centers to transform the lives of thousands of impoverished adults and teenagers. His story—how he went from a failing student to a trustee on his school’s board—combined with his real success in the world of education will restore your faith in ethical leadership. Watch it now:
Why do some societies prosper, while others die? What can we learn from the collective history of every human society? Jared Diamond is a celebrated scientist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and champion of sustainable development who shows us, in the below video, how we got here, and where we’re going:
