Ms. Brenda Palms Barber is CEO of the North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) and Founder of Sweet Beginnings, LLC. Since 1999, she has grown NLEN from two to 14 employees and developed an annual budget of over $1.6 million. It now serves 1,500 people annually with employment opportunities, entrepreneurial careers, and education tracks. Sweet Beginnings is wholly owned subsidiary of NLEN that produces premium honey in urban apiaries and manufactures and markets the Beeline product family. Its products are sold in 11 Whole Foods Markets, Peapod, Peninsula Chicago Hotel, and over 35 boutiques across the nation. Brenda has received major awards from the MacArthur Foundation, Chicago magazine, and the Social Venture Network. Mainstream media outlets such as CBS Evening News, Chicago Tribune, NBC5 (Chicago), National Public Radio, and others have showcased her work.
Mr. Emile Cambry is Founder and CEO of BLUE1647, a technology and entrepreneurship incubator. He is recipient of several major awards, including the Ideas Awards Fellowship, given to "leaders and change agents of the world tomorrow, who are making a huge impact on their local and regional communities today." He is also a recipient of the Gold Medal Edison Award, given to "visionaries" who seek to "write a new chapter in American innovation history." Mr. Cambry's 21st Century Youth Project was recognized as the country's most innovative educational program by the Edison Awards in 2012. And in 2014, Emile has received separate innovation awards by the Chicago Urban League and the Chicago Inventors Organization. He has a strong passion for community-based enterprise, and is also the Festival Director, Founder, and President of the Chicago International Social Change Film Festival.
Dr. Patrick J. Murphy is a full Professor in the Driehaus College of Business and tenured member of DePaul's entrepreneurship faculty. He has received multiple awards for research and teaching excellence, has lectured in multiple countries, and has served as consultant or advisor to over 100 entrepreneurs in Chicago and beyond. His work has been featured in Businessweek, USA Today, US News and World Report, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, and other major media outlets and he has appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on TV programs such as "Viewpoints" and "Chicago Tonight" as an expert to discuss entrepreneurial phenomena. He has published over 20 articles in leading scholarly business journals. His book about leading bold ventures in radically uncertain environments, Mutiny and Its Bounty, was published by Yale University Press in 2013.
Dr. Alaka Wali is Curator of North American Anthropology in the Science and Education Division at The Field Museum in Chicago. Her work explores and examines social contexts and enterprise activity from urban settings to the Amazon regions of Peru. Her projects have entailed community engagement and conservation via arts programs in poor communities, the promotion of social, cultural and artistic aspects of Mexican Immigrants' social networks, and social cohesion using arts programs and arts-based strategies. Dr. Wali has received major grants from the Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. She has spoken at multiple community organizations in Chicago and appeared on several radio and television programs. She is author of two books, several monographs, and over 40 articles, and is a past editorial board member of American Anthropologist.
