PLATFORM

Alex Rivera, Filmmaker, Digital Media Artist Alex Rivera has been telling new, urgent, and visually adventurous Latino stories for the past 15 years. Rivera is a Sundance Fellow, Rockefeller Fellow, and was named one of Variety Magazine’s “10 Directors to Watch.” He was born in 1973 to a native of Peru and a native of New Jersey. He’s professionally based in New York, but lives in Los Angeles.

Group discussion with journalist Harry Allen Harry talks with session speakers about the power to create. He delves into what it takes to put pen to paper to bring to life vivid and inclusive futures that have the potential to impact our current course.

Tananarive Due, Author, Screenwriter, Producer, Educator The winner of an American Book Award and a NAACP Image Award, Tananarive Due is the author of twelve novels and a civil rights memoir. In 2013, Due co-produced a short film, Danger Word, with her husband, Steven Barnes, and director Luchina Fisher. Alongside such luminaries as Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison, Due received the “New Voice in Literature Award” at the Yari Yari Pamberi conference co-sponsored by New York University’s Institute of African-American Affairs and African Studies Program and the Organization of Women Writers of Africa. Due has a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University and an M.A. in English literature from the University of Leeds, England, where she specialized in Nigerian literature as a Rotary Foundation Scholar.

Group discussion with Van Jones While wealth, power and influence are changing hands, not everyone as joined the struggle. And those that are not engaged in the revolution are at risk of not having a seat at the table when the final treaties are signed.

A Conversation With Jesse Jackson, Founder and President, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition The Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. is one of America’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. Over the past 40 years, he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality, and economic and social justice. Currently, Jackson is speaking out about a lack of diversity in Silicon Valley. He talks with Platform founder Hank Williams about what needs to happen to close the gap.