Theme: THE little THINGS

Many of life’s big moments are the result of countless smaller moments – some orchestrated, some required, some happenstance, but all important because without the little moments, the big ones might have never happened. This year we reflect on and celebrate life’s smaller moments and elevate them to their (maybe) rightfully lofty status in our personal and professional lives.

Club Box at Nova Southeastern University
3301 College Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 33314
United States

Aline Silva

Marketing Professional, Business Development Specialist

Aline Silva is a Business Development Specialist and handles Special Events/ Communications/ Marketing for the College of Engineering and Computing at NSU. Born and raised in Brazil, she came to the USA at the age of 17 and studied Management and International Business as undergraduate, followed by a MBA in Marketing. Silva is passionate about forging new relationships (domestically and internationally), content marketing, data analysis and research, learning different cultures, traveling, coaching, learning new management techniques, writing short essays, blogging, social media, gastronomy and a triathlete in training. She first became aware of the need for foster parents in Florida after connecting with a former coworker on Facebook that she had not been in touch with for at least 15 years! The more she looked into it, the more she was convinced she needed to do something about it.

Ariba Hashmi

Osteopathic Medical Student, writer

Ariba Hashmi is a second year student in the Osteopathic Medicine program at NSU. She was born in Karachi, Pakistan and immigrated to Canada in 1996. She now lives in Florida with her family. Ariba graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2015, studying Biomedical Science and Creative writing. While pursuing creative writing, she adapted some of her personal experiences and stories into children’s cartoon books which she hopes to someday publish.

Ashwin Kalyandurg

Medical Student, Entertainer, Handwalking World Champion

Ashwin Kalyandurg is a fourth year medical student at Dr. Kirin C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine and 2014 FAU Alumnus. Although most of his time is devoted to becoming a physician, Ashwin enjoys trying to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks. He is the World Record Champion of Handwalking. To this date, Ashwin has handwalked five 5Ks and hopscotched over a mile on his hands for different charities. On April 5th, 2019, Ashwin hopes to walk the entire route of the 26.2 mile Boston Marathon on his hands to try to raise 700 million dollars for Veteran Amputees. Using handwalking as a catalyst, Ashwin is going to change the world.

Bryan Deptula

Leadership Expert

Dr. Bryan J. Deptula is an Assistant Professor of Leadership at Nova Southeastern University and co-founder of BKD Leaders; a training firm that transforms today’s worker into tomorrow’s leader. As an executive, he became fascinated with discovering the best ways to develop leaders that make organizations grow. Recognizing his life’s mission was to help others become leaders, he left industry behind to get an M.B.A. in management and a Ph.D. in leadership. He capitalizes on years of industry experience, his own research, and knowledge of leadership to close the gap on leading millennials and executives’ critical, creative, and strategic thinking. Deptula believes that the most important people in our lives are those who see within us that which we cannot see ourselves, for these people give us the courage and confidence to live into the best version of ourselves that we can be.

Devika Carr

Inspiration leader and creative thinker in law, art, and prose

Devika Lynn Carr is a multi-faceted woman practicing the art of being inspired while struggling to fulfill professional passions simultaneously. With an educational foundation in sociology, Devika understood happiness as society’s requisite for success which led to unreasonably believing sadness derived from being single, career-less, and without a blueprint for any next achievement was textbook failure. Her journey filled with little moments of inspiration and even smaller expectations has caused advancements in love, work, and gratitude. And after a near decade of transcending roles as a thankful wife, honest mother, passionate criminal defense law firm owner, limitless self-taught painter, and creative story-teller using prose to demystify stereotypes, it is possible she has discovered her life’s purpose is simply to show others why inspiration is more fulfilling than happiness.

Jareau Almeyda

Online Business & Digital Marketing Professional, Doctoral Student

After surviving the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City, Jareau Almeyda went on to become an enterprise level online-business professional with focus on business-to-business digital marketing. He has helped numerous global billion dollar organizations strategize, implement, and manage online business and online marketing efforts. He completed his BA in information systems at Pace University in New York City, an Executive MBA with postgraduate work in international business at Florida International University, and is currently working on his 3rd year of doctoral studies in information systems at Nova Southeastern University. His research interest is in gender diversity in the computer science talent pipeline.

John Rizvi

Registered Patent Attorney, Adjunct Professor of Patent Law, & Author

John Rizvi is a Registered and Board Certified Patent Attorney, Adjunct Professor of Intellectual Property Law, best-selling author, and featured speaker on topics of interest to inventors and entrepreneurs. His books about patents include Escaping the Gray and Think and Grow Rich for Inventors and have won critical acclaim including an endorsement from Kevin Harrington, one of the original sharks on the hit TV show, Shark Tank. Rizvi perfected his craft at one of the most prestigious and revered patent law firms in the world - a firm that counts Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford among its distinguished list of famous inventor clients. He grew tired of corporate patent work and formed his own law firm 17 years ago so that he could work directly with inventors and entrepreneurs in protecting their ideas.

Siddhesh Kudtarkar

medical student

Siddhesh Kudtarkar is a medical student at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Kudtarkar enjoys books on philosophy, with specific interests in metaphysics. He likes to longboard and play chess in his free time. Throughout his time in medical school, he has had to memorize a multitude of abstract and random facts about the different parts and functions of the human body. This experience has galvanized Kudtarkar to speak about memory and how it relates to how we interact with the people around us.

Taylor Bertolini

NSU Undergraduate Student, Love Letter Ninja

Taylor Bertolini is an NSU Junior pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and a minor in Public Health with a certificate in leadership. Taylor has founded and become the fearless leader of Campus Cursive at NSU. Campus Cursive is an affiliate of More Love Letters, a global organization using the power behind social media to write and mail letters to strangers in need all around the world. She grew up Tamarac, FL raised by her devoted mother, who left love notes in lunch boxes and medicine cabinets, among other places; this is the origin from which Taylor believes her love for personalized notes stems. She strongly believes in the philosophy that all the little things in our lives add up, come together, and become something much bigger than ourselves.