Shakil Choudhury is an award-winning educator, consultant and author with over 25 years of experience in the field of racial justice, diversity and inclusion. He coaches executive teams and has worked with thousands of leaders across sectors in Canada and the United States to help improve their equity outcomes. Shakil also facilitates dialogue processes to resolve inter-group conflict, having led projects internationally as well as with organizations locally.

He is the author of Deep Diversity: A Compassionate, Scientific Approach to Achieving Racial Justice. Written in an accessible, storytelling manner, many have called it a “breakthrough” book on issues of systemic racial discrimination due to its non- judgmental approach that integrates human psychology with critical race perspectives.

Shakil’s most challenging and rewarding management experience, however, involves his two high-spirited children repeatedly teaching him the humble lessons of fatherhood. To clear his head during the week, Shakil loves to run the beautiful ravine trails near his home in Toronto.

Maha Bali is Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo. She has a PhD in Education from the University of Sheffield, UK. She is co-founder of virtuallyconnecting.org (a grassroots movement that challenges academic gatekeeping at conferences) and co-facilitator of Equity Unbound (an equity-focused, open, connected intercultural learning curriculum, which has also branched into academic community activities Continuity with Care, Socially Just Academia, a collaboration with OneHE: Community-building Resources and MYFest, an innovative 3-month professional learning journey.

She writes and speaks frequently about social justice, critical pedagogy, and open and online education.

She blogs regularly at http://blog.mahabali.me and tweets @bali_maha