You are invited to the first annual
The Mira Fellowship is launching its first cohort of thought leaders! Join us for an interactive evening supporting our fellows and their visions for the future. We will provide food, drinks, and inspiration. Come meet our new class of fellows!
Meet Eleanor
Eleanor Kane is an MIT environmental engineer who has worked in emissions regulation at the EPA for the last 9 years. She knows how much air quality effects the health of a city and she believes there's a reframe ready to be found.
Eleanor will spend this year in Mexico City seeking to reframe auto emissions in a way that could be scaled to developing cities around the world. A simple reduction in emissions can lead to a dramatic decrease in respiratory issues and an increase in quality of life for millions of people.
Meet Betty
After a decade at the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Betty Ray was plagued by a question: Why are young people suffering with depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide at such soaring rates?
At Teachers College, Columbia University - Betty landed on rites of passage as a long-forgotten approach to preparing young people for life in an uncertain future. This year she wants to design and create a set of modern rites of passage so all youth feel grounded and supported through the turbulent challenges of adolescence.
Meet Susie
Susie Wise is liberatory design faculty at the National Equity Project and an adjunct professor at the Stanford d.school where she founded the K12 Lab. Susie believes we can create more belonging and less othering in our communities through design. We live within systems where important outcomes -- maternal health, life expectancy, time spent in prison, and educational achievement -- are all influenced by race. It doesn't have to be that way.
Susie will spend the year researching and defining Design for Belonging. What are the elements in a city or a building or a group that create belonging? She believes designing for belonging can eliminate numerous downstream troubles; inequities in schools, mental health stigmas, communal indecision on housing or climate change. If we design for belonging we can build a world where everyone is honored.
Meet Travis
For 20 years, Travis Ning has worked in international development around the world. He knows that human connection is an essential part of finding solutions, but that the design of these experiences can produce a negative "hero-victim" result. With the world more connected every day, there is an opportunity to revisit and reframe the way we "do good."
This year Travis will explore and test alternatives to The Drama Triangle (hero, victim, and villain) in Guatemala with MAIA, a program serving Mayan girls in rural Guatemala. Travis will explore and test ways to turn good intentions/actions into mutually-empowering experiences for all stakeholders and hopefully begin to change our frame on philanthropy.
Meet Marc
A Coast Guard officer and middle school/high school distance running coach, Marc Mares believes fitness can do more than just improve health. It can serve as the backbone to strengthen adolescent communities.
For the past year Marc has been running a fitness group in Oakland, CA for adolescents of all athletic abilities. This year Marc will create and test a plan to scale his wildly successful model to adolescent communities across the country. Marc believes that even with very limited resources these communities can move forward and unite around the values of hard work, courage, and humility.