Her Journey

Aanya Virmani is a junior at Wilcox High School in Santa Clara, California. She is a Varsity Lincoln Douglas debater and a captain of her school debate team. Besides debate, she's been dancing for the past ten years, and is a dancer and instructor for a professional company outside of school. She absolutely loves volunteering, and loves helping out wherever she can. Mental Health issues are severely overlooked in today’s society and put down for the wrong reasons. The stigma around mental health is one that needs to be broken down, and her passion drives her to help break down that wall. As co-founder of The Mind Project, her job is to ensure that things run smoothly, mainly handling the graphic design, finance, and legal aspect of this non-profit. Niah Goudar is another co-founder of The Mind Project. She is a Junior at Newbury Park High school in Thousand Oaks, California. She is extremely active in her community and is involved in clubs, school, and numerous summer programs. She has founded the club Doctors of the World at her school, is Treasurer of Red Cross Club, Communications Officer of Youth and Government, Vice President of Essential Care, and a member of a few other clubs as well. In the summer, she held an internship at Art Trek and competed in business focused summer programs. As CEO of Piezogen and going through the process of getting a patent, she has gained experience in starting new projects and leading. As co-founder of The Mind Project, she co-manages the fundraiser directors and speaks at webinars in addition to leading the district partnership. In this episode, learn about the story of the founding and growth of The Mind Project, through which the founders are fighting the mental health stigma every day.

Dr. Toni Collis, Phd, is the CEO of Collis-Holmes Innovations, an award-winning leader and executive coach, International Keynote speaker, and women's leadership expert. Toni’s career has focused on facilitating the use of technology, and she believes that this requires true diversity in the future leadership of the tech industry. Toni’s career started in the field of Supercomputing and early in her career she focused on bringing the field of supercomputing to new users to facilitate discovery. As Founder of Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC), Toni developed and led innovations aiming to diversify the international Supercomputing workforce, providing training and consultancy on building inclusive workforces, and research into how to improve the representation of women. Today Toni is an award-winning executive coach, and works with women around the world to thrive in their careers, with a personal goal of assisting 2000 women into the tech boardroom in the next 5 years. Learn about how Toni first grew her interest in supercomputing and turned it into a lifelong passion for mentoring women and promoting diversity and inclusion within the tech industry.

Jeannette is a communication scholar, currently pursuing her PhD, who has been teaching kindness for over 20 years. Her world changed drastically after the sudden death of her son in 2002. In the incredible grief of losing Ben, the life-saving, world-changing power of kindness became her sole focus. With her heart broken open, she founded Ben’s Bells, a nonprofit that inspires and teaches the intentional practice of kindness. Using humor and storytelling, Jeannette helps people learn the skills they need to put their kind intention into action to strengthen relationships and communities. Learn more about Jeannette's inspirational story behind Ben's Bells and her journey growing and leading the nonprofit, along with her future plans and goals to continue spreading kindness.

Anya Shukla is a gap year college student and has been an artist for as long as she can remember. A proponent of racial equity in the arts, she co-founded The Colorization Collective, an organization that supports teen artists of color, in 2019. Her goal is to create space for teen artists of color who, like her, may feel underrepresented in the art community. Beyond The Collective, Anya also volunteers with the Institute for Systems Biology, where she creates tools to teach students about health equity. In her free time, she enjoys reading romance novels and eating Molly Moon's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream (preferably at the same time). Kathryn Lau has been a performing artist for all her life, training in classical ballet before transitioning into musical theater and acting. In 2019, she co-founded The Colorization Collective alongside Anya Shukla to support and promote teen artists of color. She strives to make the arts inclusive for all audiences and artists regardless of race, and promote authentic representation. Kathryn is currently a student at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. In this episode, find out how Anya and Kathryn are empowering teen artists of color across the globe and learn about their journey with developing their platform for creating this change, The Colorization Collective.

Jessica Manzo Carrera is a first-generation college graduate from Stockton, CA. She grew up in the projects and was inspired by her hard-working parents who were immigrant farmworkers. Determined to succeed, she took advantage of mentors and her local AVID program and graduated high school at the top of her class as a Dell Scholar. She attended Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles where she earned her BA. Determined to create social change, she joined L.A. Works’ RSVP team and has worked her way up from program coordinator to director in the past few years. During this time, she was part of The CUP (Council of Urban Professionals) Fellows inaugural west coast class. Which encourages participants to create meaningful change through board service, political engagement, volunteerism, public-private partnerships, social entrepreneurship, and more. As the RSVP Director, she holds primary responsibility for all RSVP activities including strategic planning, day-to-day program management, reporting, and budget management, management of the Advisory Council, and staff supervision. She ensures compliance with all RSVP program requirements, accountability, and efficient use of resources, as well as assists in RSVP community priority volunteer mobilization. In a fast-paced world where overworking and overlooking others has become a cultural norm, one of Jessica’s biggest priorities as a leader has always been to take the time to acknowledge everyone and to advocate for work-life balance when possible. This has become even more important and equally challenging as a first-time mother during the pandemic. Learn about how Jessica's early environment inspired her to pay it forward with her actions and give back to worthy causes through both volunteering on her own and encouraging volunteerism throughout her community.