Our Vision of Talent

August is a writer and artist from New Haven, CT. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Free Press. She has spoken about the low-tech movement on NBC and NPR, and is the author of two non-fiction books: a drawing guide (Octopus 2022) and a technocritical book, forthcoming from Vintage. She was a 2024 MacDowell fellow in fiction writing, and her debut novel Lambing Season will be published in 2026.

The Center for Archaic Networks is dedicated to the research and revival of human networks predating social media. Projects include a print magazine, a series of booklets tracing the history of human networks, and an offline community center in New York, which will feature this century's first screen-free co-working space.

Thomas Demonchaux is an architect and an award-winning architecture critic. His writing about design has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and in such journals as Log and n+1. He is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia University. His most recent book, with architect Deborah Berke, is Transform: Promising Places, Second Chances, and the Architecture of Transformational Change.

His “Envisioning Cluny” grant sent him to Harvard to report on an exhibit showcasing the historical Cluny Abbey, and the architectural historian Kenneth Conan.

The Sisters of the Little Way of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness are a private association of the faithful intending to become a religious institute. As religious sisters and consecrated women, they live a mission of listening, healing, and reparation in solidarity with people on the fringes of the Church, especially those who have been wounded, scandalized, or abused by members of the Church.

Leah Bourn is a student at Totino Grace High School in Fridley, Minnesota, and the founder of Sunshine for Seniors. After witnessing the isolation and loneliness of seniors in senior living facilities, she started Sunshine for Seniors to enhance the their well-being through community connections and support. Sunshine for Seniors promotes volunteering with seniors to decrease their loneliness and improve their quality of life. Leah won the Genesis Business Pitch Competition at the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship in 2023, and continued to develop her idea through the Start Up Venture Challenge in the Busch School of Business's Startup Venture Challenge in 2024.

Sofia is a builder/writer working in fintech in NYC. She has spent the past few years between Western Massachusetts, Nicaragua, the Canary Islands, Luxembourg, and Washington, DC, and working in film/music production (Ashfield Film Festival, Bimbache OpenArt), the gov/NGO space (UPNicaragua, Fulbright), and finance (BNP Paribas). The lodestar for her work is social transformation through empowering individuals at scale, inspired by her experience teaching and making films with children living in the slums of Granada, Nicaragua. Her current project, Smithy, is an interface for human beings and AI, leveraging the cognitive asymmetries between humans and AI models to generate efficiencies and value for companies, while equipping humans to cultivate agency, dignity, and creativity in their work.

Ariana Reines is an award-winning poet, playwright, and translator. She founded Invisible College in 2020, as a Divinity student at Harvard. An ecumentical study hall devoted to the close reading of ancient and sacred texts, poetry, and the arts, Invisible College gives special attention to numinous experience as it has been testified to across cultures and across time, in texts, artworks, and states of being—whether treasured or neglected.

http://www.invisiblecollege.art

Nellie Croy Smith is a writer and thinker, educator and entrepreneur from Columbus, Ohio. She has an MFA from Ohio State University and her essays have appeared in Fourth Genre, Relief, and Religion Dispatches. She also runs a marketing consultancy, advising tech and startup leaders on narrative and messaging strategy.

Story Club is a project dedicated to storytelling as peacebuilding infrastructure. Through writing/storytelling workshops in incarcerated and community settings, as well as in-person story dinners that bring diverse neighbors to the same table, Story Club nurtures the relational foundations that make all other social change possible. The project develops and shares free curriculum and resources so anyone can facilitate similar spaces in their own communities.