Moxietalk With Kirt Jacobs

Sexually abused as a young child, Amy was told that she was to blame for what happened to her-which set off something in her mind, & made her believe that whenever something negative happened, it was her fault.” Abuse followed her throughout childhood including a traumatic rape at age 19. Amy often felt “marked,” as though something inherently evil in her allowed abusers to find her. It was years before she gave up her rights to being a victim & began to live a healthy, restored life. Her perspective widened, & she began to notice others who suffered the effects of sexual abuse, exploitation, & human trafficking. Now she devotes much of her energy to finding new approaches to prevent human trafficking & other sex crimes against women & children throughout KY, & ultimately to help victims begin their journey toward health & wholeness. Through this perspective, she founded Free2Hope Inc., a non-profit devoted to prevention programs & public training on human trafficking with

Dell Courtney is a native Louisvillian with an English Major from the University of Louisville. Her hand print & influence has been instrumental for decades in the “Behind-the-Scenes” work as a consultant or volunteer on such notable Louisville festivals as the Ethnic Heritage weekends in the 1970’s under her company’s banner Visionworks, LLC. She has overseen the development and management of such notable festivals as the: St. Patrick’s Parade from 1999–2009, the Halloween Parade from 2003-16, WorldFest in 2005-06, the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial national Signature Event from 2000-03 as well as the iconic Light Up Louisville Winter Wonderland Parade from 2004-12. She was also involved with Holidays Around the World from 2006-16 not to mention multiple 5K Runs & Walks, golf scrambles, community expos & summer festivals. Most recently she has overseen Louisville’s Veterans Day Parade from 2011-16 with two co-chairs to the “Spirit of ’45” commemoration, end of World War II event in 2015 & 16

Twyman Clements is a co-founder, CEO and President of Space Tango Inc. which enables R&D, bioengineering, and manufacturing in microgravity with the mission to create new industries to improve the lives of people on Earth. He is the lead designer of the KySat-2 CubeSat (under the Kentucky Space nonprofit), the TangoLab-1 research facility installed on the International Space Station and the company’s current product lines.

William Kellibrew IV is an international advocate for civil, human, women, children, and victims’ rights. He is a sought-after speaker on violence, trauma, trauma-informed care, and children exposed to violence. At age six, he was sexually abused by his mom’s neighbor, and at age ten, he watched helplessly as his mother and twelve-year-old brother were shot in their living room by his mother’s estranged boyfriend. In 2015, Kellibrew was nominated by U.S. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton to receive the U.S. Congressional Victims’ Rights Caucus Eva Murillo Unsung Hero Award for exemplifying and embodying the movement for victim rights through outstanding efforts in victim advocacy, allied professional advocacy, public policy and public awareness. He is currently a faculty member for SAMHSA’s National Center for Trauma-Informed Care, and a consultant for the Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center, as well as The William Kellibrew Foundation. In 2011, he wa

Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy is a Tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Louisville. He is the founding and current director of the Cyber Security Lab and an author of many books including Artificial Superintelligence: a Futuristic Approach. Dr. Yampolskiy’s main areas of interest are Artificial Intelligence Safety and Cybersecurity.

Growing up in central Illinois, Eric Simanek was surrounded by corn destined for feed or alcohol. He holds degrees in chemistry from the University of Illinois and Harvard University and is the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Texas Christian University (TCU) and Director of the TCU IdeaFactory. When he is not in a classroom or lab, he enjoys sharing his love of science with all ages and sharing whiskey with good friends.

Rudy Rucker is an American author and a mathematician who worked for twenty years as a Silicon Valley computer science professor. Regarded as a contemporary master of science-fiction and founder of the cyberpunk literary movement, he is best known for the novels in The Ware Tetralogy, the first two of which (Software and Wetware) both won Philip K. Dick awards. His thirty published books include both novels and non-fiction books on the fourth dimension, infinity, and the meaning of computation. Rucker edited the science fiction webzine Flurb until its closure in 2014.

Jennifer Carter is the Assistant Director of the Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics at Morehead State University and the Director of SpaceTrek, an all-girls camp dedicated to the empowerment of young women. Formerly, as a science teacher at Rowan County Senior High School, Jennifer built a space science program including courses in space systems engineering and astronomy. She is a NASA Teacher Liaison, a SOFIA Stratospheric Airborne Astronomy Ambassador, and a Pulsar Search Collaboratory university leader. Jennifer has had three students to discover pulsars, the corpse of large collapsed stars in our galaxy. She is active member of the Kentucky Girls STEM Collaborative leadership group and the Million Women Mentors steering committee. Jennifer has a bachelors of science in mathematics and physics, a masters of science in Industrial technology, and a masters of arts in teaching high school math, all from Morehead State University. Currently, Jennifer manages student research projects, a me

CNN chief national correspondent, analyst and anchor of Inside Politics John King offers his thoughts and insights on the increasing polarization of the US electorate. King will provide insights from the front-line of the national debate, historical context and thoughts on where we might go from here. He will then be joined by psychologist Phil Kraemer Ph.D. and artist Hannah Drake for a broader conversation offering differing perspectives on this issue and the fact that any possible “solutions” are fraught with many complex and very deep issues that go far beyond simply political differences.

Rowan Claypool is a social entrepreneur who believes that young knowledge economy workers are the future to prosperous communities. He is the founder of two organizations that have had a transformative effect on the city of Louisville and Commonwealth of Kentucky. In 1999, Claypool founded Bulldogs in the Bluegrass. a program that provides summer internships in Louisville, Kentucky for Yale undergraduates. Since it began, Bulldogs in the Bluegrass has brought over 570 Yalies to experience Louisville through a total immersion experience. Of those, many have returned to Louisville for full-time employment after graduation. Claypool also launched Teach Kentucky in 2001 to recruit the brightest and most ambitious young teachers to work in local public education. Since inception, Teach Kentucky has recruited 232 teachers, 141 of whom are still residing in Kentucky with 86% of participants still in the education profession.

Emily Dreyfuss is a Senior Writer at WIRED, one of the top 10 technology news websites in the world. Reaching approximately 30 million people monthly, WIRED focuses on how emerging technologies impact breakthroughs and innovations in business, the economy, politics, security, science, design, and culture. As Senior Writer at WIRED, Dreyfuss covers the intersection of technology and society and is in a unique position to monitor trends, innovations, and factors that influence the future. During the 2016 presidential election, she led WIRED’s National Affairs coverage. Before that, she managed and edited WIRED Opinion and WIRED Security sections.

Anshu Gupta, popularly known as the Clothing Man, is the Founder of an India-based nonprofit Goonj and one of India’s leading social entrepreneurs. Starting as a freelance journalist, he left a corporate job in 1998 and founded Goonj with a mission to address the most basic but ignored need of clothing and the multifaceted role it plays in villages across India. Today Goonj is a pan-India movement working equally widely in cities and villages, dealing with more than 3,000 tons of material annually and addressing a core challenge of our time – the growing gap between the urban prosperity and rural poverty. By taking the menacing growth of urban waste and using it effectively and efficiently as a tool to trigger large-scale development work on diverse issues, Goonj has created a model for a parallel economy which is not cash based but trash based. Anshu is a 2017 Curry-Stone Design Prize Social Change Circle Honoree, an annual prize awarded to innovative projects that use design to address pressing social justi

Deep Cotton is an American funk duo based in Atlanta, whose members are Chuck Lightning and Nate “Rocket” Wonder. Part of the Wondaland Arts Society, they are also sometimes called the “Punk Prophets”. Lightning and Wonder met in 2002 at Morehouse College in Atlanta. The pair were roommates and began collaborating when Lightning overheard Wonder playing music and started shouting to his music. Wonder said this became a competition to see who could “out-crazy” the other person, and their musical collaboration is basically a chance to do “whatever the hell we want.” They produce music, including that of Grammy-nominated artist Janelle Monáe, another co-founder of the Wondaland collective. They began to gain notoriety of their own after their song “We’re Far Enough from Heaven Now We Can Freak Out” was featured in a Sonos commercial featuring Monáe. The single was released in October 2012. Wonder is the older brother of Roman GianArthur, another member of the Wondaland Arts Collective.

The president, CEO, and founder of Answers in Genesis-US, and the highly acclaimed Creation Museum, and the world-renowned Ark Encounter, Ken Ham is one of the most in-demand Christian speakers in North America. Born a native Australian in 1951, Ken moved to America in 1987 to engage in speaking tours with another young-Earth creationist organization, the Inst. for Creation Research (ICR).  In 1994, Ham left ICR & founded Creation Science Ministries- changing its name to what is today known as Answers in Genesis or AiG-with the purpose of upholding the authority of the Bible from the very 1st verse. In May 2007, AiG opened Ham’s brainchild, a 75,000-sq-ft high-tech state-of-the-art facility-better known as the Creation Museum & education ctr., on 70 scenic acres in Petersburg, KY. It contains dozens of world-class exhibits-including impressive animatronic dinosaur models, a $1 million allosaur fossil, & planetarium. In its  1st 10 years, wait for it, the museum attracted 3 million guests!  On Feb.

Author, innovator, futurist, teacher, commentator and founder of Thrivals at IdeaFestival, Nat Irvin, II, is the Woodrow M. Strickler Executive in Residence, Professor of Management Practice, College of Business, the University of Louisville where he has taught change management, leadership, future studies, and team dynamics since 2007. From 1996-2007, Irvin led Future Focus 2020, a think tank dedicated to providing leadership in bringing futurist thinking to urban communities. In 2000, Future Focus 2020 became a center of the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where Dr. Irvin served as Executive Professor of Future Studies and as Assistant Dean for MBA Student Development.

Wendy Whelan spent 30 years with New York City Ballet, 23 of those years as a principal dancer. She has danced virtually every major Balanchine role, and worked closely with Jerome Robbins on many of his ballets. She originated leading roles in works by such notable choreographers as William Forsythe, Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, and Christopher Wheeldon. Wendy has been a guest artist with The Royal Ballet and the Kirov Ballet and has performed on nearly every major stage across the globe. She received the Dance Magazine Award in 2007, and in 2009 was given a Doctorate of Arts, honoris causa, from Bellarmine University. In 2011, she received both The Jerome Robbins Award and a Bessie Award for her Sustained Achievement in Performance. Since 2013, Wendy has been developing her own independent projects including, Restless Creature and Some Of A Thousand Words both co-produced by The Joyce Theater Productions, Whelan/Watson Other Stories co-produced by London’s Royal Opera House and Hagoromo, self-produced for

Fueled by new ideas, Kris Kimel began IdeaFestival and KSTC. Kimel is the founder of the international IdeaFestival, which originated in Lexington, Ky. in 2000 and moved to Louisville in 2006. The festival is designed to stimulate ideas and innovations across a multitude of categories – from filmmaking to healthcare, sustainable farming and more. The core of the festival is the belief that individuals don’t have to be geographically or economically privileged to have breakthrough ideas and create positive change. Kimel is also a leader and founder behind the development and successful implementation of Kentucky Space, Space Tango, and the Exomedicine Institute. In 1987, he founded the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC). KSTC is an independent non-profit company with an international reputation for designing and implementing innovative initiatives in science, technology, entrepreneurship and disruptive innovation. He currently serves as the organization’s president. Kimel holds bachelor’s and m

Acting is a calling for Ryan Burch. At 26, Burch is one of only two Americans, and one of just 27 from over 5,000 applicants, recently accepted into the prestigious London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art. One of the most elite acting schools in the world, the acting program has produced a roster of legendary actors including John Lithgow, Benedict Cumberbatch, Donald Sutherland, and Jim Broadbent. Burch has performed across the country in various regional summer stock productions such as “Evita,” “Les Miserables,” “The Fantasticks,” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” His latest project was a role on NBC’s “Chicago P.D.” Burch earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in musical theater at one of the top musical theater programs in the United States, Elon University in North Carolina. He began acting at Saint Xavier High School in Louisville, Ky. his freshman year, then attended the Governor’s School for the Arts in music theater his junior year of high school. Burch is a Louisville native.

Fred Noe carries on the 200-year family legacy of Jim Beam® master distillers. Noe is a 7th generation master distiller at the Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont, Ky. In his additional role as bourbon ambassador for the Jim Beam Distillery, he shares the whiskey making craft and his family’s rich legacy in the world of Kentucky bourbon. Noe is the son of the late Frederick “Booker” Noe Jr., master distiller emeritus of Jim Beam Brands Company and great-grandson of founder Jim Beam, who began the legacy when he set up a frontier still in 1795. He joined the family business after graduation from Bellarmine College in Louisville, Ky. Although he “grew up” in the business, he began his career on the bottling line of the distillery. Gradually, his father tutored him in all aspects of the bourbon-making process, including grain selection, fermentation, and distillation. Noe played an important role in the development and promotion of The Small Batch Bourbon Collection® — Basil Hayden’s®, Knob Creek®, Baker’s®, and Boo

Cole Gallagher is a NSCAA Scholar All American soccer player. Gallagher is a recent graduate of Kentucky Country Day School and is currently preparing for his freshman year as an Emory University student-athlete. As a student at KCD, Gallagher was named a Malone scholar, National Merit scholar, and Dabney Family scholar, and was a recipient of a University of Michigan Book Award. He also received the James Pitman Sams Jr. Award for his academic achievements, sportsmanship, citizenship, and outstanding qualities. Through his achievements and awards Gallagher’s proudest role at KCD has been serving the school as the president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. As a 4–year varsity player, he holds all goalkeeping records for the school, served three years as team captain, and was named the 2016 Kentucky Goalkeeper of the Year. Gallagher was recently named a 2017 NSCAA Scholar All American. This is considered the top honor and hardest to achieve by high school student-athletes in this country. To be nominat