Keri Gray (Opening Plenary)
Keri Gray is a dynamic entrepreneur, facilitator, cancer survivor, and a passionate advocate for racial and disability justice. As the CEO of Ignite by Keri Gray, she is dedicated to fostering professional communities that are intentional and equitable, with a strong focus on racial and disability justice education.
She is the founder of the National Alliance of Melanin Disabled Advocates (the NAMED Advocates), an organization that is reshaping social justice movements’ approach to ableism and building cross-movement solidarity with disabled leaders of color.
Keri has spearheaded impactful projects like the ‘Beyond Diversity’ initiative, a seven-month program that equips leaders with tools to advance organizational culture and policies. Her consulting work includes collaborations with major entities like Goldenvoice and the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, for whom she designed the ‘Accessible+ Job shadowing program,’ a career development program for disabled professionals of color working in the live events industry.
Her career highlights include recruiting approximately 4,000 professionals for over 100 organizations and Fortune 500 companies and designing programs that have helped over 1,000 professionals secure competitive employment and build influential networks.
Keri’s work has garnered attention from major publications and media outlets such as Teen Vogue, the New York Times, People Magazine, Time Magazine, PBS NewsHour, Madamenoire, and the Diet Coke campaign #Unlabeled.
Victor Pineda (Artificial Intelligence Panel)
Dr. Victor Santiago Pineda is an international disability rights advocate, urban planner, and filmmaker. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley and as a lecturer and Director of the Inclusive Cities Lab at UC Berkeley. As founder of World Enabled, Dr. Pineda has led global initiatives advancing disability-inclusive urban development and smart city innovation.
He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization and Co-Chair of the UN-Habitat Partner Constituency Group on Persons with Disabilities. With a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from UCLA, his work spans policy, research, and media to promote inclusive design and social impact worldwide.
Keely Cat-Wells (Awards Luncheon)
Since becoming Disabled in her teens, Keely has worked to advance disability rights. She is the CEO of Making Space, a talent and learning platform that equips Disabled professionals with resources and opportunities to build meaningful careers. Under her leadership, Making Space partnered with NBCUniversal to place the first-ever Disabled hosts on NBC Sports’ Paralympics broadcast for Paris 2024. Other partners include Indeed, Netflix, and Visa. Keely also co-founded Making Space Media with Sophie Morgan, a division producing film and TV content centering Disabled voices, securing a first-look deal with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine.
Notably, their recent documentary “Fight To Fly” exposed the inequalities that Disabled travelers face, triggering policy reform and establishing a Working Group to advise the UK Government.
Previously, Keely founded C Talent, a talent agency that increased disability representation in media and built a roster with a reach of over 50 million.
Acquired in 2022, C Talent became the largest acquisition of a company specializing in Disabled talent.
Keely is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, a Diana Award recipient, and has served on the advisory board of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation. She currently sits on the Los Angeles City Games Advisory Committee and holds the distinction of being the youngest-ever Presidential Leadership Scholar. Additionally, she is a Storyteller in Residence at the Clinton Global Initiative, a White House Mental Health Youth Forum Leader, and one of two Gloria Steinem fellows. Learn more at keelycatwells.com and making-space.com.
Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brown (Closing Plenary)
Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brown is an internationally recognized advocate, community organizer, community builder, and scholar-activist whose work addresses interpersonal, corporate, and state violence targeting disabled people at intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, language, and nation. They were the 2016 recipient of NCIL’s Diana Viets Award. Ly Xīnzhèn is director of public policy at National Disability Institute, where their work advances financial freedom and economic justice for disabled people via law and policy. Formerly, Ly Xīnzhèn was policy counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology and an associate at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Tech Law and Policy, where they led the only policy and advocacy project in the United States focused on disability rights, algorithmic harm, and technology justice for several years. Most recently, they co-authored a research and policy report on labor, disability rights, and emerging tech in the workplace for National Disability Institute and New Disabled South.
Ly Xīnzhèn is also Assistant Teaching Professor of Disability Studies at Georgetown University, founding Executive Director of The Autistic People of Color Fund, and is creating Disability Justice Wisdom Tarot. They serve as past president and current treasurer of the Disability Rights Bar Association, Disability Justice Committee representative to the National Lawyers Guild board, and a Commissioner on the Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs. Disability Justice and abolition are their political homes as an organizer; as a feminist critical legal studies scholar, they work in critical race and disability theory and in science and technology studies. They will be very pleased if you ask them about Ethiopian food.
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