This wide-ranging conversation brings together leaders from business, human rights advocacy, and the science of wellbeing to explore how compassion can fuel service, leadership, and meaningful global change. They discuss how compassion can be trained, how it sustains courage in the face of suffering, and why ethical responsibility and an open heart matter in an increasingly polarized and lonely world. With practical tools and powerful stories from philanthropy, activism, and psychological research, the session offers an inspiring invitation to view everyday life as a place to cultivate a more just and humane society.

This keynote offers a science-based framework for understanding and managing emotions with the same intentionality we bring to work and leadership, showing how feelings function as information that can guide growth rather than obstacles to eliminate. Through practical tools such as analytical reflection, journaling, and contemplative practice, it highlights how we can transform suffering into wisdom and cultivate warmheartedness as a foundation for genuine flourishing.

This keynote highlights groundbreaking scientific evidence showing that every person possesses an innate spiritual capacity that, when strengthened, powerfully protects mental health and supports resilience, creativity, and connection. Drawing on decades of research, it illustrates how cultivating spiritual awareness through practices like meditation, reflection, and ethical action can reduce depression and despair, deepen meaning, and foster flourishing across generations.

This keynote highlights the urgent need for a global movement rooted in warmheartedness, ethical clarity, and shared responsibility, drawing on decades of spiritual leadership and public service. It underscores the transformative impact of compassion-based programs and invites people across all sectors to help build a more caring, cooperative, and peaceful future.

This opening reflection traces the deep history of a decades-long collaboration dedicated to advancing a global culture of compassion, honoring the mentors and partners who helped shape the movement. It underscores the urgent need for connection in a polarized world and introduces the digital platforms, programs, and global community designed to cultivate compassion as a trainable skill capable of transforming individuals, institutions, and society.

This address reflects on how compassion and a spirit of service can guide leadership, philanthropy, and organizational purpose, framing wealth and opportunity as responsibilities to uplift society. Through personal stories and large-scale examples of educational and healthcare transformation, it invites audiences to view business and daily life as powerful avenues for building a more just, humane, and interconnected world grounded in collective compassion.

This welcome highlights Emory’s commitment to educating both the heart and the mind, celebrating the global impact of compassion-based programs and introducing the 2025–2026 “Year of Compassion.” It offers both gratitude and a call to action, inviting the community to deepen its engagement with compassion as a practical skill that strengthens individuals, institutions, and society.

COMING SOON:

This keynote makes a powerful case that compassion is both a moral foundation and a strategic asset for modern leadership, showing how qualities like supportiveness, accountability, and psychological safety all stem from compassionate awareness and emotional intelligence. Drawing on research and real-world examples, it highlights how compassion boosts engagement, strengthens performance, and can be intentionally cultivated across schools, organizations, and communities to shape a more ethical and effective future.

COMING SOON:

This panel highlights how compassion can become a core leadership competency across business, public systems, and global health, emphasizing the roles of emotional intelligence, self-compassion, and psychological safety in creating resilient and humane organizations. Through examples ranging from hospital transformation in India to global health emergencies and leadership education, the discussion shows that lasting impact comes from integrating inner development with shared practice, lived example, and cultures where caring for others is the norm.

This panel explores how universities can shift from pressure-filled environments to true greenhouses for flourishing by treating attention, emotion regulation, meaning, and ethical discernment as essential, teachable skills. Through insights on character, connection, and compassionate leadership, the conversation highlights how rebuilding relationships and shared purpose can help students, faculty, and staff cultivate wellbeing, resilience, and a more humane campus culture.

This panel explores how compassion and spiritual awareness can transform modern healthcare, highlighting approaches that support both patient healing and clinician wellbeing. Through guided practice, real-world clinical examples, and emerging research, the discussion shows how compassion training can deepen presence, sustain resilience, and help build more humane medical systems.

This presentation highlights how a schoolwide commitment to social, emotional, and ethical learning has transformed student wellbeing, strengthened resilience, and reshaped community culture. Through strategic planning, faculty training, and integrated practices across all divisions, it shows how compassion-based education can empower young people to navigate the world with wisdom, agency, and humanity.

This impact statement illustrates how a compassion-based approach to social, emotional, and ethical learning is transforming public education across India, beginning with the self-development of adults and extending to large-scale systems change. Through statewide adoption, professional development, and policy integration, it shows how millions of children are gaining emotional safety, resilience, and opportunity as SEE Learning becomes embedded in classrooms and institutions nationwide.

This impact statement highlights a nationwide movement to embed compassion training across sectors in Mongolia, illustrating how a once-quiet initiative grew into a national model for education, leadership development, and social responsibility. Through powerful stories and data—from large-scale school adoption to transformative personal journeys—it shows how compassion can reshape systems, uplift communities, and inspire global collaboration.

This impact statement shows how compassion-based social, emotional, and ethical learning has become a vital source of stability and resilience for students and educators living through war, scaling from a small pilot to a nationally supported movement with measurable benefits for equity and wellbeing. It highlights how integrating emotional support with academic recovery strengthens learning and invites the global community to stand with Ukraine as it continues cultivating connection, courage, and hope amid profound adversity.

This reflection traces a remarkable transformation in Tibetan monastic education, showing how science evolved from a subject viewed with caution to a fully integrated part of the curriculum that now empowers monks and nuns to engage in meaningful research. It highlights how the meeting of ancient wisdom and modern science is sparking new inquiry, global collaboration, and a shared pursuit of understanding for the benefit of humanity.

This presentation highlights how compassion-based learning is transforming classrooms and communities across Brazil, supported by a three-pillar model that nurtures teacher wellbeing, self-compassion, and resilient learning environments. Through vivid stories and heartfelt testimonials, it shows how simple, embodied practices can reshape school culture and contribute to a growing movement to cultivate a “compassion forest” grounded in hope, connection, and shared humanity.

This presentation highlights a “scaling deep” approach to compassion-based education in India, showing how institutional redesign, facilitator training, and family engagement are helping embed social, emotional, and ethical learning across entire school ecosystems. With measurable gains in empathy, reduced conflict, and shared ownership of wellbeing, the model demonstrates how systemic, community-rooted implementation can transform classrooms and was nationally recognized as one of the country’s leading life-skills education initiatives.

This impact story shows how compassion-based training became a stabilizing and transformative force for adolescents in residential psychiatric care, shifting the entire program culture toward safety, resilience, and emotional wellbeing. With strong outcomes and powerful youth reflections, it demonstrates how CBCT can help young people develop self-compassion, improve emotional regulation, and build healthier relationships during moments of profound distress.

This presentation highlights how a partnership with teacher-training colleges is embedding social, emotional, and ethical learning into the preparation of thousands of future educators, ensuring long-term, locally led sustainability. Early stories show deep personal and professional transformation, illustrating how this approach is already strengthening classrooms, nurturing wellbeing, and planting seeds of compassion that will shape Mexican schools for years to come.

This impact story shows how compassion-based practices are reshaping classrooms and family life in Taiwan, with parents, teachers, and entire schools embracing social, emotional, and ethical learning as a foundation for wellbeing. Through schoolwide integration, parent engagement, and partnerships that support sustained implementation, it highlights striking transformations in student behavior, classroom climate, and community culture grounded in compassion and emotional awareness.

This presentation highlights how compassion-based practices are taking root in Vietnam’s early childhood and school systems, with children, parents, and teachers using SEE Learning and CBCT to navigate conflict, regulate emotions, and recognize shared humanity. Through school partnerships and new early-years initiatives, it shows how these programs are becoming catalysts for a broader cultural shift grounded in compassion, connection, and collective wellbeing.

This presentation highlights an integrated approach to compassion-based education and clinical practice, embedding CBCT within SEE Learning facilitator training to strengthen self-awareness, emotional connection, and school culture across Germany and Switzerland. Through transformative shifts in classrooms, teacher-education programs, and clinical research, it shows how combining these two frameworks fosters healthier relationships, deeper personal growth, and more compassionate learning environments.