Solutions-Driven Insights From the SOCAP26 Brief & Bold Lightning Talks
During SOCAP26’s “Brief & Bold Lightning Talks,” eight leaders took the stage to share how their organizations are uniquely and impactfully confronting some of the most pressing challenges of our time. This annual session features short, TED-style talks focused on what collaborative, solutions-oriented work looks like in practice.
This year’s presentations spanned topics as diverse as quantum computing on Chicago’s South Side, regenerative farms in the Mid-Atlantic, construction sites in Cairo, and the stories that shape what society believes is possible.
Reflecting SOCAP26’s emphasis on practical innovation, these examples highlight models that are both scalable and grounded in the real economy. The leaders demonstrate how blended capital, open standards, procurement, and storytelling can open doors for small businesses, farmers, local builders, and people facing barriers to work.
Watch the presentations below for practical models, hard-won lessons, and ideas to bring into your own work.
Mwita Chacha & Aria Swarr, Mwendo | Funding Visual Stories That Start Movements
“A story’s job isn’t just to inform; it’s to transform. ‘We help 10,000 children’ is a number too big to feel. But a character with a goal and an obstacle… that’s how humans actually learn. Together, experientially on a journey, not just statistically.” — Aria Swarr
Mwita Chacha, Founder of Mwendo, is a filmmaker passionate about sharing the beauty, struggles, and everyday life of often-overlooked cultures. Drawing inspiration from his diverse background and travels, he uses a raw docu-style approach to create authentic commercials and films. His work has helped raise millions of dollars for empowerment programs around the globe, brought awareness to the impact of climate change on Native Alaskans, highlighted the tragedy of the Holocaust and its denial, and inspired people to create change through visionary causes.
Aria Swarr is a producer, director, and writer passionate about crafting stories that speak to life’s realities with insight and imagination. She grew up between the Middle East and the U.S. and has had the privilege of leading creative teams for clients and organizations internationally. Her documentary films have received awards and screened at top-tier festivals.
Felipe Estefan, Curiosity Capital | Telling the Stories That Shape What’s Possible
“We need to tell stories that are not of limitation but of abundance, that are not just of suffering but that are also about joy, stories that confirm what I know to be true, and that is that we all have the right to exist exactly as who we are, wherever we come from. … If we want a better future, we need better stories.”
Felipe Estefan is the Founder and CEO of Curiosity Capital, an initiative focused on investing in impactful storytelling and unlocking narrative power for all. Through his work at Curiosity Capital, Felipe leads a blended capital impact fund seeking to provide flexible, working capital to production companies at the intersection of social impact and commerciality. Prior to founding Curiosity Capital, Felipe was a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, as well as Vice President for Narrative Change & Latin America at Luminate, a global philanthropic investment firm. Felipe has also served as executive producer on films such as The Territory, Apocalypse in the Tropics, and State of Silence.
Lucas Haywood, ONESTRUCTION | Leveraging Technology to Level the Playing Field
“AI can be a leapfrog technology. AI now has the ability to take care of a lot of these fundamentals, and it can allow a firm to lower the barrier in learning before they can get to the next level of construction that they need to achieve to be competitive in the market. This isn’t necessarily about automating jobs. In construction, the bottleneck is capacity…”
Lucas Haywood is passionate about leveraging technology to close the digital skills and productivity gap between top industry players and those in rural and developing regions, believing a more level playing field fosters greater competition and, in turn, better and more enduring societal outcomes. In 2025, he joined ONESTRUCTION Inc. as VP, Global Strategy, leading the company’s global expansion and international partnership initiatives. Lucas was instrumental in ONESTRUCTION signing an MOU with the Center of Data for Public Good (Indian Institute of Science) focused on collaborating to transform urban data systems in India and across global markets.
Brad Henderson, P33 | Building the Future of Quantum Computing on Chicago’s South Side
“What makes this project unique, as well in the technology space, is this is not one big company enforcing its will. This is actually a public-led project. The anchor institution is the land grant institution of the state of Illinois, University of Illinois, and nearly every one of the major institutions in Chicago and Illinois is a part of this project from the very beginning.”
As the founding CEO of P33, Brad Henderson is leading the nonprofit organization to drive global technology leadership for Chicago and inclusive economic growth for all. He has more than two decades of professional experience and a deep understanding of how to unlock economic opportunities that benefit businesses and individuals to P33’s efforts. Previously, Brad was senior partner and managing director in the Chicago office of Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He is an active leader in the Chicago community, serving on the board of trustees for the Chicago History Museum, the Association House in Humboldt Park and Interfaith Youth Core. He also serves on the board of ACCION US Network and Impact Engine. He was a BCG Bruce Henderson Institute Fellow and is a member of the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders program.
Maria Kim, Redefine Alliance | Breaking Barriers to Employment
“My invitation to you all is: May we all say ‘yes’ to one or to many of the 10 million people sitting on the sidelines of the economy, waiting to make their way in.”
Maria Kim is the president and CEO of Redefine Alliance, which invests in businesses that reveal and reinforce the talent of people breaking through barriers to employment. Prior to Redefine Alliance, Maria served as CEO of Cara Collective, a nationally recognized employment social enterprise helping people experiencing homelessness and poverty get back to hope, jobs, and opportunity.
Maria serves on the board of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the advisory boards of CASE Center of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Procure Impact, First Women’s Bank, and the Leadership Society Initiative. Her previous service includes the U.S. Small Business Association’s Investment Capital Advisory Committee and the California Office of the Small Business Advocate Entrepreneurship and Economic Mobility Task Force. She is a 2008 Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow, a 2012 American Marshall Memorial Fellow, a 2018 Vital Voices Global Ambassador, and a 2020 Presidential Leadership Scholar.
Marshall Lindsey, Half Step | Democratizing Capital to Fund Small Businesses
“What would the world be like if the people who need to get in rooms to get access to the capital to make their dreams come true actually had the opportunity to do so?”
Marshall Lindsey’s financial services experience has passionately motivated his desire to help credit-worthy enterprises expand their capital sources to support growth. He currently is an advisor to U.S. State agencies, national nonprofits, funds, and corporations servicing the Development Finance Institution community on integrating transaction structures that help borrowers efficiently achieve their financing goals. This work typically includes creatively utilizing various forms of credit enhancement.
He is the co-founder of Half Step, a social impact asset management platform supported by The Field Foundation of Illinois, and the founder of HazelHerman LLC, a consulting practice advising on strategic finance, leadership alignment, and systems clarity. Earlier in his career, Marshall held roles at Regiment Securities, ARUP, and BP, and led consulting projects across North America, Africa, and Latin America. His doctoral research at Northwestern University explored the impact of climate change on sustainable cities — a focus that continues to inform his work today.
Tom McDougall, 4P Foods | Building a Regenerative Food System From the Ground Up
“Our food system is working exactly as it was designed. It’s a system that’s built on tools of extraction, and oppression, and theft.… No one is coming to save us. That’s the bad news. The good news is that no one is coming to save us, so we get to build it ourselves.”
Tom McDougall is the Founder and CEO of 4P Foods, a Public Benefit Corporation launched in 2014 which operates a food hub network based in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. 4P works with over 130 small farmers, ranchers, and food producers; aggregating, storing, and distributing their food into multiple different channels, including schools, hospitals, restaurants, and a network of Food-is-Medicine partnerships.
As an advocate for equitable and regenerative food, Tom works at a systems level to pull together public policy, funding, institutions, farmers, community-based organizations, and a network of others to build a more regenerative food system in his home region. In 2019, he helped co-found the Eastern Food Hub Collaborative, a network of mission-aligned food hubs up and down the Eastern Seaboard, for the purpose of regional collaboration and a more cohesive, decentralized food supply chain.
