Invitation Only
An evening of inspiration and innovation
This event will feature rapid-fire conversations between esteemed leaders—our fellows and special guests within the Aspen Global Innovators Group Network—who are dedicated to advancing solutions that uplift their communities. Speakers will engage in dynamic discussions, sharing their groundbreaking work. Attendees will be able to hear firsthand about the challenges and triumphs in various fields and how these innovative solutions are making a difference.
This event is an excellent opportunity for networking, learning, and collaboration. We look forward to a stimulating evening filled with powerful conversations and forward-thinking ideas.
Speakers:
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- Anatole Manzi, Founder and Board Officer of Move Up Global; Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Director of Quality and Health System Strengthening at Partners in Health
- Courtney Smith, Co-owner of Piri and Co-founder of the Culinary Femme Collective – 2024 Healthy Communities Fellow
- Jacqueline Blocker, Director of Metriarch – 2024 Healthy Communities Fellow
- Lola Adedokun, Executive Director of Aspen Global Innovators Group
- Manny Ohonme, Founder, President and CEO of Samaritan’s Feet and Founder, The World Shoe Fund
- Sandra Martinez, Vice President of Strategy & Partnerships of Methodist Healthcare Ministries
- Alex Bailey, Founder of Black Outside Inc. – 2023 Healthy Communities Fellow
Bios:
Alex Bailey | Founder and Executive Director of Black Outside, Inc – 2023 Healthy Communities Fellow
Alex Bailey, Founder of Black Outside, Inc.,is an educator and third-generation outdoor enthusiast, who uses his radical imagination to re-envision outdoor programming for Black youth. He began his education career as a camp counselor, witnessing first-hand the transformative power the outdoors can have on youth while also recognizing the lack of diversity in the summer camp industry. Today, he works to cultivate spaces that meet Black youth and families at the intersection of joy, cultural relevancy, and outdoor exploration. Alex is the founding Executive Director of Black Outside, Inc and is a proud alum of Teach for America, Echoing Green, and Wild Gift.
Dr. Anatole Manzi | Founder and Board Officer of Move Up Global and Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Director of Quality and Health System Strengthening at Partners in Health
Anatole Manzi, PhD, MPhil, MSPH is Deputy Medical Chief and Director of the Quality and Health Systems Strengthening Department at Partners In Health (globally). He is also an Assistant Professor at the University of Global Health Equity and Visiting Professor at Tufts University and Harvard University in the United States of America. He is also a co-founder of Move Up Global, Inc., a Boston-based organization working to improve access to health and education in resource-limited communities. Prior to that, he led various programs, including Quality Improvement and the Training Department at PIH Boston. Dr Manzi moved to the United States after ten years of working in various capacities related to health systems strengthening in PIH-supported districts in Rwanda. On his professional journey, he has designed and led interventions that have made tremendous strides in quality improvement in key clinical areas, including maternal and child health, infectious diseases, and mental health in Rwanda, Malawi, Lesotho, Liberia, and Haiti. Dr Manzi is a member of various technical working groups including the World Health Organization (WHO), Global Maternal Newborn Network, and Emerging Voices for Global Health. Recently, Dr Manzi was appointed to join one of the best-known fellowships under the name of New Voices organized by the Aspen Institute in the United States. His research focuses on implementation science, specifically the evaluation and validation of quality improvement measures in public health in resource-limited settings.
Courtney Smith | Co-owner of Piri and Co-founder of the Culinary Femme Collective, and 2024 Healthy Communities Fellow
Courtney Smith is a daughter of Durham and of community organizers. She is a chef, an activist, and a storyteller who is deeply connected to her community. Her mission is to bring business owners, farmers, food producers, policymakers, and consumers together to heal through food, and to start imagining new food systems and communities. As a Black woman who has seen firsthand the injustices of our food system, which often discards the people at the frontlines of producing our food, (farm workers, food safety workers, cooks, and others) she wants to see a food system that honors the people who feed us. She is the co-owner of Piri and one of the co-founders of The Culinary Femme Collective, and her mission is to build support for femmes of color who want to impact their communities through food. She works with business owners, researchers, community organizers, farmers, and culinary creatives to support building a system that focuses on equity and a just food economy.
Jacqueline Blocker | Director of Metriarch, 2024 Healthy Communities Fellow
Jacqueline Blocker is a mother and lawyer with a decade of experience in legislative policy related to reproductive justice. As an Indigenous woman and descendant of the original Greenwood, a historic freedom town in Tulsa, Oklahoma, popularly known as America’s “Black Wall Street” due to prominent concentrations of African-American businesses. Jacqueline channels the entrepreneurial attitude of her great-grandmother into streamlining community efforts to improve maternal health outcomes and eradicate barriers to reproductive health. To this end, Jacqueline played a critical role in increasing pregnancy coverage under SoonerCare, making Oklahoma one of the first states to provide reimbursements for doula care under Medicaid. Jacqueline’s favorite part of her work is that she gets the opportunity to educate her community about the intersectionality of the issues that impact women’s health while democratizing access to resources and data.
Manny Ohonme | Founder, President and CEO of Samaritan’s Feet and Founder of The World Shoe Fund
To walk in Manny Ohonme’s shoes requires first imagining life without shoes. Like the 600 million people around the world today who don’t own shoes, Manny grew up in Nigeria without many of the basic necessities that create the opportunity to escape poverty and hardship.
A new world of possibility opened for him when a chance encounter with a missionary gave him the opportunity to win his first pair of shoes in a basketball competition. From a childhood spent selling water on the streets of Lagos, Manny’s new shoes put him on an unlikely path to earning a university scholarship in the U.S. and building a prominent career in global business.
Manny has leveraged his success and unique perspective to drive social impact on a visionary scale. In 2003, he founded Samaritan’s Feet with his wife, Traci, as a way of providing kids in need with the same catalyst to opportunity that he received. Together, they have distributed more than 9.4 million pairs of shoes in 109 countries and over 560 U.S. cities. Samaritan’s Feet and Mannyhave worked with organizations such as Walmart, Turner, General Motors, Skechers, Sanford Health, Truist, NCAA, NFL, and the NBA, along with world leaders, presidents, mayors, and global partners to help develop strategies to eliminate public health risks associated with not wearing shoes.
Samaritan’s Feet has provided the proof-of-concept for World Shoe Fund and World Shoe, Inc., which represents the strongest expression of Manny’s ambitions to merge product function and health services that create unlimited potential for millions of people. With the launch of the first factory in Africa producing antimicrobial, biodegradable shoes and the creation of a world-class management team, World Shoe has the potential to serve as an ambassador for African brands that create large-scale market opportunity and social impact.
As the author of Sole Purpose, and recipient of the 2021 Pontifical Hero Award for Inspiration from the Vatican and the Cura Foundation, Manny is a regular speaker to leaders and communities around the world. He currently serves as the Chair of the International Board of Directors for Sanford Health and the North Carolina USGLC Advisory Board.
Sandra Martinez | Vice President of Strategy & Partnerships of Methodist Healthcare Ministries
Sandra Martinez is the Vice President of Strategy & Partnerships at Methodist Healthcare Ministries where she oversees the Strategy and Impact department and the functions of strategic planning and development, research, and partnerships. Sandra provides strategic guidance and executive leadership in advancing MHM’s strategic plan to address systemic and root causes of health inequity. She is currently leading efforts to establish strategic partnerships that support cross sector collaboration and system level change while building MHM’s capacity as a partner, leader, and convener to advance health equity. Sandra received her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin and holds a master’s degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio in Political Science. She has more than 20 years of community leadership experience serving in various capacities focused in the areas of health and human services, public policy, and nonprofit sector.