W. Kamau Bell is a socio-political comedian who is the host and executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning CNN docu-series United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell. This year, he made his Netflix debut with a new stand-up comedy special. Kamau has hosted three critically acclaimed podcasts: Kamau Right Now!, Politically Re-Active, and Denzel Washington is The Greatest Actor of All Time Period. Kamau is on the advisory board of Hollaback! and DonorsChoose and is the ACLU Celebrity Ambassador for Racial Justice.

Kamau has been nominated for multiple NAACP Image Awards and a GLAAD award, and he was featured on Conde Nast's 'Daring 25' list for 2016. Kamau's writing has been featured in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Hollywood Reporter, CNN.com, Salon, The LA Review of Books, The Establishment.

Richard A. Carranza is Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, the largest school system in the nation. He is responsible for educating 1.1 million students in over 1,800 schools.

During Carranza's nearly 30 years in education, he has served in virtually every role. Prior to New York City, he was the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, the largest school district in Texas, and the seventh largest in the United States. Before that, he served the San Francisco Unified School District, first as deputy superintendent and then as superintendent. Before moving to San Francisco, Carranza was the Northwest Region superintendent for the Clark County School District in Las Vegas. He began his career as a high school, bilingual social studies and music teacher, and then as a principal, both in Tucson, Arizona.

A son of a sheet metal worker and a hairdresser and a grandson of Mexican immigrants Carranza credits his public school education for putting him on a path to college and a successful career. He believes that a great education changes lives, and is excited to help the next generation of New Yorkers achieve their dreams. As Chancellor, he is building on the City's Equity and Excellence for All agenda, which supports students academically, socially, and emotionally from early childhood through twelfth grade. He is also championing initiatives to help educators strengthen their practice and to empower more parents to become engaged in their children's education.

Carranza is the past chairman of the Board of Directors for the Council of the Great City Schools, where he served as a national spokesperson on significant issues facing urban school districts. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, the American Association of School Administrators Executive Committee, and the K to College Advisory Board.

Education Week profiled Carranza as a national 2015 Leader to Learn From.(Open external link) He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in secondary education from the University of Arizona and a Master of Education with distinction in educational leadership from Northern Arizona University. He completed his doctoral coursework in educational leadership through Northern Arizona University and Nova Southeastern University.

Carranza is a fluent Spanish-speaker and an accomplished mariachi musician. He is married to Monique and has two daughters.

Anil Dash is an entrepreneur, activist and writer recognized as one of the most prominent voices advocating for a more humane, inclusive and ethical technology industry. He is the CEO of Fog Creek Software, the independent New York City tech company that incubated landmark startups like Trello and Stack Overflow, and created Glitch, the friendly new community that helps anyone make the app of their dreams.

Angela Filo leads Yellow Chair Foundation, which she co-founded with her husband David Filo in 2000. Yellow Chair Foundation funds organizations working on social justice issues including educational equity, civil liberties, climate change, investigative journalism, U.S. maternal health, and global women's movements,.

Chair Foundation has been a dedicated funder of DonorsChoose since its early ambition to become a national organization serving all U.S. public schools.

For nearly a decade, Angela taught journalism and photography at Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto, California. Angela serves on the Board of Trustees of Stanford University and on the advisory board for the Stanford Graduate School of Education. She is also a board member of ProPublica and is an advisory board member of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She currently co-chairs the American Civil Liberties Union's centennial campaign. Angela has a BA degree from Stanford University and a master's of journalism from UC Berkeley.

John B. King Jr. is the president and CEO of The Education Trust, a national nonprofit organization that seeks to identify and close opportunity and achievement gaps, from preschool through college. King served in President Barack Obama's cabinet as the 10th U.S. Secretary of Education. In tapping him to lead the U.S. Department of Education, President Obama called King "an exceptionally talented educator," citing his commitment to "preparing every child for success" and his lifelong dedication to education as a teacher, principal, and leader of schools and school systems.

Before becoming education secretary, King carried out the duties of the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education, overseeing all policies and programs related to P-12 education, English learners, special education, and innovation. In this role, King also oversaw the agency's operations. King joined the department following his tenure as the first African American and Puerto Rican to serve as New York State Education Commissioner.

King began his career in education as a high school social studies teacher in Puerto Rico and Boston, Mass., and as a middle school principal.

King's life story is an extraordinary testament to the transformative power of education. Both of King's parents were career New York City public school educators, whose example serves as an enduring inspiration. Both of King's parents passed away from illness by the time he was 12 years old. He credits New York City public school teachers particularly educators at P.S. 276 in Canarsie and Mark Twain Junior High School in Coney Island for saving his life by providing him with rich and engaging educational experiences and by giving him hope for the future.

King holds a Bachelor of Arts in government from Harvard University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, as well as a Master of Arts in the teaching of social studies and a doctorate in education from Teachers College at Columbia University. King serves as a visiting professor at the University of Maryland's College of Education and is a member of several boards, including those for The Century Foundation, The Robin Hood Foundation, Teach Plus, and the American Museum of Natural History. He also serves on several advisory boards, including Former First Lady Michelle Obama's Reach Higher Initiative, the Rework America Task Force, the GOOD+ Foundation's Fatherhood Leadership Council, the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement at the University of California, and the National Center for Learning Disabilities.

King lives in Silver Spring, Md., with his wife (a former kindergarten and first-grade teacher) and his two daughters, who attend local public schools.You can follow King on Twitter via @JohnBKing.

John Legend is a critically acclaimed, multi-platinum singer-songwriter. He has garnered 10 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award, among others. Legend is the first African-American man to earn an EGOT and one of only 15 people in the prestigious EGOT club. He has released six albums over the course of his career: "Get Lifted" (2004), "Once Again" (2006), "Evolver" (2008), "Love in the Future" (2013), "Darkness and Light" (2016) and "A Legendary Christmas" (2018), which was followed by his "A Legendary Christmas Tour.

Beyond his music career, Legend is a principal partner in Get Lifted Film Co., a film and television production company based in Los Angeles. As a philanthropist, Legend initiated the #FREEAMERICA campaign in 2015 to change the national conversation surrounding our country's criminal justice policies and to end mass incarceration.

Maria Castañón Moats is a Vice Chair and PwC's Assurance Leader for the US and Mexico. In this capacity, she serves as a member of both the U.S. Leadership Team and the Global Assurance Executive Leadership Team. Maria's professional experience spans accounting, financial reporting, investigations, and M&A.

Prior to her current role, Maria served as the Regional Assurance Leader for PwC's East Region, after serving a 5- year term as PwC US' Chief Diversity Officer where she led the strategy and execution of the firm's diversity and inclusion efforts. Maria has a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at El Paso, is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting and was named number three on Fortune's inaugural 50 Most Powerful Latina's List in 2018.

Nina Shaw is a founding partner of Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein & Lezcano. Her practice is in the television, motion picture, and live stage area. A native New Yorker, Nina was born and raised in Harlem and The Bronx, educated in the New York City public school system and is a graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School. Among her clients are successful and award winning actors, writers, producers and directors as well as entrepreneurs and entertainment executives. She began her legal career in the Entertainment Department of the law firm of O'Melveny & Myers. Nina is a Variety Dealmaker Impact honoree and has been named repeatedly to The Hollywood Reporter's "Women in Entertainment Power 100" list. She is a recipient of the WIF Crystal Award, and in 2013 was named Entertainment Lawyer of the Year by the Beverly Hills Bar Association. Most recently, she was honored by Essence Magazine with its 2016 Black Women in Hollywood Power Award, and also in 2016 Nina was profiled in the New York Times: "She's the Hollywood Power Behind Those Seeking a Voice."

Nina has a long-standing commitment to the education of children and in particular is an advocate for the education of girls and women. She is currently Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Independent School Alliance for Minority Affairs. Additionally, Nina is among the founding organizers of Time's Up.

Lorna Simpson was born in 1960 in Brooklyn, New York, and received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. When Lorna Simpson emerged from the graduate program in 1985, she was already considered a pioneer of conceptual photography. Her initial body of work alone helped to incite a significant shift in the view of photographic art's transience and malleability.

Lorna Simpson first became well-known in the mid-1980s for her large-scale photograph-and-text works that confront and challenge narrow, conventional views of gender, identity, culture, history, and memory. In the mid-1990s, she began creating large multi-panel photographs printed on felt that depict the sites of public - yet unseen - sexual encounters. Over time she turned to film and video works in which individuals engage in enigmatic conversations that seem to address the mysteries of both identity and desire. In Simpson's latest works, characteristic ambivalence is presented with hazy ink washes to present isolated figures amidst nebulous spaces - a return to and departure from her earlier unidentified figures in a deepened exploration of contemporary culture.

Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Miami Art Museum; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. She has participated in such important international exhibitions such as the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany, and the 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy. She has been the subject of numerous articles, catalogue essays, and a monograph published by Phaidon Press. Most recently, in 2016, Simpson's new body of works were exhibited at Salon 94, New York and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas.