Chelsea Elliott

Founder and Executive Director
half Helen Foundation

Chelsea learned the importance of health screenings when she was just four years old. After failing a vision screening at her daycare, Chelsea found out she was permanently blind in her left eye. Two years later, a failed hearing screening at her elementary school revealed that Chelsea was deaf in her right ear. In fourth grade, Chelsea learned about Helen Keller and surmised “I’m half-blind and half-deaf; I’m Half Helen”—a name that would come to characterize her life’s work.

Chelsea received her bachelor’s in Communication from St. Edward’s University with honors. When she graduated in 2013, Chelsea used her graduation money to found half Helen Foundation (hH), a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve children’s vision and hearing through innovative screenings, research, and advocacy. She is committed to providing high-quality, preventive health screenings in schools. As of December 2016, hH screened over 27,000 children in central Texas and Hawaii!

Besides Hawaii, seven states still do not require vision or hearing screenings in schools, and none require the use of a photoscreening device. Chelsea is determined to change current laws so they allow the use of advanced photoscreening technology. In 2015, the CNN Heroes Program recognized Chelsea for her pioneering work in new eye screening methods.

Sam Killermann

Director of Creativity
hues

Sam Killermann is a multi-disciplinary artist who puts his gifts to work to achieve global justice as the Director of Creativity for hues. Sam is also the person behind It’s Pronounced Metrosexual, the comedy show performed at colleges and universities, as well as the online resource, which has educated millions of readers on themes of social justice, gender, and sexuality.

Sam’s work (that he uncopyrighted in 2013) has been downloaded by hundreds of millions of people around the world who utilize it to bolster their educational and advocacy efforts toward equity. His version of the Genderbread Person, a model for understanding and teaching gender and sexual diversity, has been translated into over a dozen languages.

In 2014, Sam designed an all-gender restroom sign that he gifted to the commons, which is now being implemented on three continents, is featured in the White House, and is becoming the standard for dozens of communities around the U.S. and world.

Sam is the author of A Guide to Gender, which is an exploration of gender from a social justice perspective, with humor and comics sprinkled in. The book opened as the #1 bestseller in gender on Amazon, and as a reflection of Sam’s commitment to access as a core social justice value, he’s given away over 10,000 copies of the book. He gave a well-received TEDxTalk that has over 200,000 views called “Understanding the Complexities of Gender,” where he distilled the themes of the book into a few minutes of fun, energetic, and easily-digestible speech.

Sam is the co-creator of TheSafeZoneProject.com, a free online resource for LGBTQ and Ally training materials. The open source curriculum they published is being used by over ten thousand educators in at least 100 countries.

Outside of his key initiatives, Sam is a frequent keynote speaker, serves on the Board of Directors for Healthy Teen Network, is the comedy half of S.E.X., head elf at Socially Just Cards, and is always dreaming up new social good projects. When he’s not on the road, he likes to spend at least a few hours a day bicycling around sunny Austin, TX, where he counts himself lucky to live.