Together, we can move mountains.
by Siria Contreras
Yesterday, we concluded our 2020 Q1 Nourish Foundation planning. A rare moment that found all four of us—Olivia, Jaya, Susana, and myself, in the same room. No small feat as it is oftentimes challenging enough to get us all in the same zip code.
We reflected upon the accomplishments of the past year and strategized what growth and level of impact we envisioned for the next year. 2019 was very much about continuing to nurture and water the seeds that we’d planted in 2019, while maintaining, testing and optimizing the methodology that we apply to the areas of food insecurity, nutrition, and workforce development. 2020 will be a year of applying our refined strategies and broadening our reach as well as launching our first workforce development cohort of sorts, and sharing more of our expertise with Austin, Los Angeles, and beyond. We will also be adding additional board members as well as partners in advisory roles as we look to expand specific offerings.
One of my favorite parts of our in-person sessions are the unique perspectives that we all bring together in order to ideate and cultivate the best solutions for the issues our organization currently tackles, while we all intersect in the areas of Tech/Innovation, Food, and Equal Human Rights our backgrounds (as our bios will clue you in) are quite diverse.
The past year, as you will find from the below, has been a busy one for each of us as we all continue to manage this organization as well as continue to develop both professionally and as humans. We all share a deep interest and responsibility in making this world a better place.
Olivia, as our resident Chef has continued to innovate in the culinary arts by designing meal solutions for Top Executives and Corporations leveraging the latest kitchen gadgets and appliances. It’s no secret that she is also a tech enthusiast who has also been working on innovating solutions for the hospitality world leveraging programming, 2019 also saw her providing support to our friend and colleague Jereka Thomas-Hockaday who recently broke ground on her Central Texas Allied Health Institute in Austin. Olivia has also been helping to evolve and grow the Ana Lark Center, which serves as the homebase of our Nourish Foundation.
Jaya has continued her work in the Biotechnologies sector. She is a pioneer and champion of furthering immune-driven medicine via her work at the Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation, where together working with drug developers, clinicians and academic researchers, we are applying these insights to develop products that will transform the way diseases -- such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, and infectious diseases -- are diagnosed and treated. Jaya is also one of our go-tos when it comes to dining in Austin as this foodie won’t steer you wrong with her recommendations.
Susana has also been pulling double-duty continuing her role as CTO of Macromoltek. You’ve heard us talk about the great work that Macromoltek is doing in the world. They are a computational drug discovery company dedicated to the advancement of antibody drug development, through IP partnerships—meaning that they are working on improving exponentially the go-to-market timelines of much-needed antibody-based drugs (typically used to treat auto-immune diseases and cancer) by significantly speeding up the discovery and testing stages leveraging their approach which marries the traditional (existing medical research and experience) with the new (their proprietary software paired with machine learning) all of which bridges the gap between computational insight and pharmaceutical advancement.
As for me, aside from my work in Entertainment having just recently agreed to take on Marketing for Live Nation’s House of Blues Music Forward Foundation (more on that next month), I continue to focus my efforts around People and Planet. Via Consciously Studio we will be launching a new national Gen Z targeted 2020 Voter Registration campaign focused on what they and we care about—the issues and not the parties. We also will continue to share other partnerships and initiatives focused on the preservation of our natural resources as well as those that address the Climate Crisis. My work also continues with Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls Los Angeles, as well as many other projects that I’ll share more about soon on the Consciously Studio outlets, but for now suffice it to say that I’ve had a busy 2019 as I continue to try to scale down big problems that plague our world to a size that makes it easier to provide solutions by working with expert and trusted thought partners.
What this year has truly taught each of us is the importance of continuing to work together and especially to work with those who have different backgrounds than us as these different perspectives make all of the difference. This is a day in age where all of our backgrounds not only enhance approaches to solutions, but also create a larger ripple across industries as we all exchange invaluable insights and expertise that can be applied in ways that haven’t always been possible or sustainable.
See you all in 2020!