Theme: Connections

something that joins or connects two or more things
the act of connecting two or more things or the state of being connected
a situation in which two or more things have the same cause, origin, goal, etc.

Imperial Theater
749 Broad Street
Augusta, Georgia, 30901
United States

Ali Llewellyn

Trained as a classicist and theologian, Ali Llewellyn studied the human and the divine. Years as an educator and world traveler fueled her passion for community and collaboration. Now engaged in technology strategy at NASA, she explores how the unknown is vital in teaching us who we are.

Amanda Dojack

Amanda is...Purple haired. Inquisitive. Passionate. Enigmatic. Theatrical. Coffee drinker. She believes great things never came from comfort zones.

Celeste Headlee

Celeste hosts "On Second Thought" on NPR from Atlanta and is a professional opera singer.

Chris McKinney

Dr. Chris McKinney is passionate about the key role that innovation transformed into products and services can play in the lives of people and loves to share that enthusiasm and vision. He believes that our job is not to forecast the future but, rather, to create it!

David Bowers

David Bowers, owner of Coffee Geek (USA), is a small business advocate and entrepreneur who has devoted his life to Inter-religious and intercultural mediation around the world. In mediating various disagreements he has noticed that opposing sides often argue the same point, simply using different vocabulary.

Deke Copenhaver

Deke Copenhaver currently serves as President of Copenhaver Consulting LLC. Deke served as Mayor of Augusta, Georgia from 2005 through 2014, which instilled in him a firm belief that cities can be used as living classrooms to create transformational change at the grassroots level.

Elwood Robinson

Dr. Elwood Robinson is the thirteenth chancellor of Winston-Salem State University. He has over 30 years of higher education experience working at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions. He received his bachelor's and master’s degrees from HBCUs.

Fayth Parks

Fayth Parks is a licensed psychologist and associate professor at Georgia Southern University. She has over 25 years experience studying disparities in rural education, rural health care access, and cultural competency training. In 2009, she was a David B. Larson Fellow in Health and Spirituality at the Library of Congress.

Harry Judd

Harry is a teenager who desires to see his generation empowered by their parents. He challenges parents to instill values that cultivate convictions and help children discover their unique identity.

Heidi Rae Cooley

Heidi Rae Cooley is an associate professor of media arts in the school of visual art and design and the film and media studies program at the University of South Carolina. Her recently published monograph, Finding Augusta: Habits of Mobility and Governance in the Digital Era (University of New England Press, 2014) has received the Anne Friedberg Innovative Scholarship Award from the Society for Film and Media Studies, an international academic organization. The book and its accompanying mobile application, Augusta App, feature Scott Nixon’s The Augustas compilation film, which was named to the National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress in 2012.

Jeff Foley

Jeff Foley is an author, coach, speaker, and professional leadership consultant.

Jim Rawson

Jim Rawson is the P.L., J. Luther and Ada Warren Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiology and Imaging at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University. His primary research interest is health policy, process improvement and innovative educational techniques.

John Rigg

John is a professional musician, who became a physician in his 40s.

Lucas Shaffer

Lucas is a small-town Georgia-born Social Entrepreneur specializing in technology and community organization.

Samir Khleif

Dr. Khleif is Director of the State of Georgia Cancer Center, Georgia Regents University Cancer Center and the Cancer Service Line. He previously served as Chief of the Cancer Vaccine Section at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland. During his tenure at the NCI, Dr. Khleif was asked by the US government to develop and lead the King Hussein Cancer Centre in Amman, Jordan and served as its director.

Steven Uhles

Steven Uhles is a professional writer, critic and creative consultant with 20 years experience. As a working journalist, marketing/media director and copy writer, he has an all-access pass to the creative process and the public response to it. He currently lives in Augusta, GA with his wife, two children and a dog he named after Hunter Thompson.

Turner Simkins

Turner Simkins is president of Blue-Beech, LLC, an entrepreneurial real estate development firm, and NewFire Media, a digital advertising agency. He, his wife, Tara, and partners Stephen and Erin Chance, lead the Press On Fund, investing in less toxic therapies and cures for childhood cancer. He resides in North Augusta, South Carolina.