As we adjust to a rapidly changing world under COVID-19, many organizations are looking for new ways to bring audiences together while staying apart. We are happy to facilitate virtual events to inspire, inform, and connect your communities, from finding the right speaker to advising on technology. If you’re interested in learning more, contact us and we would be happy to provide suggestions for planning your next webinar, livestream, or keynote.
Speakers on Connecting and Coping During the Pandemic
These speakers have crafted lecture topics that specifically address the unique concerns arising during the coronavirus pandemic, from adjusting to working from home to coping with isolation and loss, designed especially for virtual events.
Priya Parker
How to Be Together Apart
As the world shifts to physical distancing during the coronavirus pandemic, the practical questions about gatherings (“Should we postpone or switch to a virtual event?) are quickly transforming into spiritual ones: “Is this needed? Who is it for? And who gets to decide?” In her innovative New York Times op-ed, “How We Gather Digitally Now,” Priya Parker writes, “This heavy time could be leavened by the new rituals it created, the unlikely intimacies it fostered and the ways in which it revealed that convening people is a special privilege that ought never to be taken for granted.” Through virtual conversations with audiences, Parker shares how to invent creative, meaningful ways of being apart to provide comfort, create rituals, and foster togetherness during unpredictable times.
Eve Rodsky
Fair Play Your Way to Work-Life Integration
Working from home has become all of our new normal, and now more than ever, our homes (and the relationships within them) have become our most important organization. Whether you’re living alone, with roommates or balancing work with homeschooling kids, figuring out how to work & live together 24/7 requires new conversations and systems. Join The New York Times-bestselling author of Fair Play, Eve Rodsky as she shares her sanity-saving methods to create balance in these novel times. Learn more about this event
Jayson Lusk
Effects of COVID-19 on Food and Agriculture: What can we do better next time?
The COVID-19 pandemic will have long-lasting implications for the way we eat, grow, and buy food. At the onset of the pandemic, restaurants were shuttered, grocery store shelves were wiped clean, food processing plants were forced to close to prevent the spread of illness, and farmers were left dumping excess production. The exposures of these vulnerabilities in the supply chain is already leading to a re-evaluation of the food sector and revealing just how much we’ve taken for granted. In this talk, food and agricultural economist Jayson Lusk explains how exactly food gets from farm to table, whether we have enough to eat, and reveals how the food system is vulnerable to current and future pandemics, while discussing strategies to help reduce risk and increase resiliency. He explains the consumer attitudes and supply chain factors that led to stock shortages and highlights the economic impacts of the pandemic, asking: How might we do better next time?
Mike Massimino
An Astronaut’s Guide to Sheltering in Place
As a former astronaut, Mike Massimino has plenty of experience being isolated in space for long periods of time. Now, in a time where physical distancing is the way of the world, Massimino lends audiences his most helpful tips for maintaining their well-being while sheltering in place. From advice on how to stay mindful with exercise and meaningful hobbies to reaching out to one’s network of friends and family, Massimino is here to give us all the necessary tools to get through this time in positive, powerful ways.
Diane Shader Smith
Navigating through Respiratory Illness
Many of the infection protocols and trajectories of COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus are identical for those with cystic fibrosis. Diane Shader Smith is prepared to discuss this connection, the important insights her daughter, Mallory, shared in Salt in My Soul, and how her family’s experience in trying to protect Mallory—both physically and emotionally—can be replicated throughout the world by everyday citizens. Diane Shader Smith is available for virtual events and for future in-person events.
Dr. Matt McCarthy
Superbugs
A compelling speaker, Dr. Matt McCarthy talks to audiences about the knowledge we have gained about superbugs as well as what we still have to learn, the ethical lapses in medical research that occur when politics and profit remain a priority, and what we as a society can learn from global superbug outbreaks.
Virtual Events from PRHSB Speakers
These recent virtual events have allowed audiences to engage with speakers’ unique perspectives from the safety of their own homes.
Priya Parker at The Wing
Priya Parker joined The Wing, a network of work and community spaces designed for women of all definitions, for a virtual conversation around the art of gathering remotely and how you can create meaningful experiences and connections from the comfort of wherever you call home.
Amanda Little at the Creative Nonfiction Foundation
“Science as Story,” is a series of free public events intended to help bridge the communication gap between scientists, researchers, healthcare professionals and the general public by showcasing and inspiring the use of nonfiction narrative. Amanda Little joined the Creative Nonfiction Foundation via webstream to share how she uses narrative in order to accessibly convey complicated research and science.
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi at the Central Conference of American Rabbis
Dr. Ibram Kendi delivered a talk on “Rethinking Race and Moving Toward Justice” for the Central Conference of American Rabbis, which focuses a significant part of their convention on issues of social justice and rabbinic leadership in creating a just world.
Dr. Matt McCarthy at Warburg Pincus, LLC
Bestselling author and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital physician Dr. Matt McCarthy has been offering weekly briefings on his expertise on the novel coronavirus, epidemics, and medical ethics to Warburg Pincus LLC, a New York-based private equity firm.