This year, we’re excited to bring you a stunning array of inspiring plenary sessions at the NAFSA 2011 Annual Conference & Expo. In keeping with our conference theme, this year our speakers represent some of the world’s leading educational innovators. You don’t want to miss these sessions!
On Tuesday, May 31, our opening plenary features Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, creator of the comic book series THE 99 – a fast-growing international sensation with a team of super heroes, each based on Islamic archetypes, tackle life’s pressing issues, including cross-cultural understanding. As a special treat, we will be showing a full episode of the new THE 99 animated series at 4:00 pm, just before the plenary starts. Everyone attending the plenary will also get a free copy of one of THE 99 comics. Dr. Al-Mutawa will sign comics after the session. Read a recent blog post from Dr. Al-Mutawa.
On Wednesday morning, June 1, we’re delighted to highlight the work of three social entrepreneurs in a panel moderated by award-winning Canadian journalist Belle Puri. Our panelists include:
- Hammad Hammad, whose organization Inspire Dreams serves Palestinian refugee youth, providing them with leadership training, college preparation courses, and English-language instruction;
- Kristin Hayden, founder of OneWorld Now!, which works with underserved high school students in a multi-year afterschool program in Seattle, building global competencies, offering classes in Arabic and Mandarin, and providing study abroad opportunities; and
- Jessica Lax, who founded The Otesha Project, an organization that travels around Canada engaging young people in how to address some of the world’s most serious challenges, using an creative combination of performing arts and bicycle journeys.
At our International Plenary Luncheon on Friday, June 3 (tickets required), we’re pleased to welcome Anand Sudarshan, Managing Director and CEO of Manipal Education – one of India’s leading educational enterprises. Mr. Sudarshan has driven incredible growth at Manipal over the past several years, and is a key player in transforming the Indian higher education sector. You don’t want to miss his valuable insights on one of the world’s fastest growing international education marketplaces. If you haven’t already purchased a ticket you still can by contacting our registration company.
Over the next two weeks on the NAFSA blog, we’ll be featuring guest posts by our speakers so you can get a sneak peak of what’s in store for us in Vancouver. I hope you will submit your burning questions as comments to their posts. We’ll then have the speakers answer a few questions from the blog during their session.
And for the social media-minded, be sure to follow me at @MarleneAtNAFSA on Twitter for some behind the scenes tweets I’ll be sending out during the NAFSA conference. I’ll also be following the conversation online with the #nafsa11 hashtag.
I’m looking forward to seeing all of you in Vancouver!
Dr Al-Mutawa, The world of superheroes and villains lends itself to a morality of good and evil. How do you address this natural tendency towards duality and polarization in your story lines and characters wihtout slipping into this dangerous territory?