Life is Beautiful Festival Announces Learning Program with Range of Notable Speakers
The learning program will feature speakers from a variety of backgrounds including: UFC fighters, the cast of MTV’s “The Buried Life,” Tony Hsieh, Glee’s Harry Shum Jr., co-founder of P90X Tony Horton, members of Cirque du Soleil and many more
Life is Beautiful Festival unveils its learning programming for the inaugural event taking place Saturday, October 26 and Sunday, October 27, 2013. Surmounted by its speaker series, the Learning program will consist of speeches by individuals who will share their life stories with festival attendees including their triumphs, obstacles and lessons learned on the road to success. Also featured in the Learning activation is a family-centric station with entertainment and events geared towards children, called Kids are Beautiful.
“Our Learning Program, and its cornerstone speaker series, allows for critically acclaimed and diverse speakers to share their path to success and what the real obstacles/barriers to entry were,” says festival co-founder Rehan Choudhry. “Each speech answers the question: Why is your life beautiful & how did you come to realize it?”
Current speakers include:
- UFC fighters Forrest Griffin, Miesha Tate and Pat Barry
- Creators and Stars of the hit MTV reality documentary series “The Buried Life” which asks the question “What do you want to do before you die?”
- Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and author of bestseller “Delivering Happiness”
- Harry Shum Jr., actor and dancer on Fox’s hit show, Glee
- Tony Horton, celebrity trainer and American fitness guru best known for the P90X at home boot camp
- A panel featuring members of Cirque du Soleil, the unchallenged world leader in circus arts
- Aarón Sanchéz, Chef/Partner Alegre & Mestizo Leawood, Co-Star of Food Network’s Chopped and Fox Life’s Motochefs
- Matt Mullenweg, Co-founder of WordPress, the most popular publishing platform on the web.
- Rehan Choudhry, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Life is Beautiful Festival
- Jason Lester, Nike ultra-endurance athlete, ESPY award winner and Founder and Chairman of EP1C Enterprises, Inc., M3CCA, LLC. and The NEVER STOP Foundation
- Quddus is best known from his hosting MTV’s iconic show Total Request Live, ABC’s singing competition show Duets and he is the Founder of The Q Side Entertainment
- Jason Pollock, activist, writer, and maker of the films The Youngest Candidate and Undroppable
- Jim Kwik, CEO of Kwik Learning and expert on memory improvement and speed reading
- Daniel Kraft, M.D., Physician-scientist, inventor and chair of the FutureMed program at Singularity University
- Dr. Sean Stephenson, Self-help Author of “Time to Stand” and acclaimed Motivational Speaker
- Paull Young, Director of Digital of charity:water
- Will Travis, leader of multiple top agencies including ATTIK and Sid Lee, and consultant for the world’s top creative talent
- Steve Brown, Intel’s Chief Evangelist and Futurist responsible for building and sharing a clear, compelling vision for the future of computing
- Brad Sugars, leader in establishing the business coaching industry with ActionCOACH
- David Daniel Hudson, American singer better known by his stage name Hudson
- Marcia Wieder, Founder & CEO of Dream University, and ambassador for making dreams real
- Scott Flansburg, Dubbed “The Human Calculator” and entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for his unprecedented speed of mental calculation
- Miki Agarwal, author of “Do Cool Sh*t” which details her unorthodox, creative and clever approach to raising capital, learning about the restaurant world and creating buzz
- Maneesh K. Goyal & David Munczinski, co-founders of Live in the Grey, an online resource and community aiming to inspire individuals to blend their personal passions with their professional lives
- Jamie Wheal, Executive Director at Flow Genome Project
- Courtnee LeClaire Westendorf, Head of Marketing & Communications, Intel Media. Former marketing executive at Disney and Apple.
- Tim Chang, Managing Director of Mayfield Fund and experienced global executive known for his thought leadership in gamification
- Rajil Kapoor entrepreneur, Internet industry pioneer, former Managing Director at Mayfield, co-founder/CEO of Snapfish, creator of cofounder.co and now CEO/cofounder of disruptive mobile fitness service fitmob
- David Uslan, Writer, Producer, and Vice President of Business Development for Graphicly
- Lars Schmidt, Senior Director of talent acquisition and innovation at NPR
- Michael Karnjanaprakorn, CEO & Co-Founder of Skillshare
- Prerna Gupta, Chief Product Officer at Smule, and expert on music creation apps
- Dr. Cristina de Jesus, President and Chief Academic Officer of Green Dot Public Schools
- Chris Culos, Drummer from the band O.A.R.
- Rudy Lopez-Negrete, Manager of Music and Content Development at Lopez Negrete Communications
- Jia Jiang, Founder of Entresting.com and writer of blog “100 days of rejection”
*Additional speakers may be announced at a later date.
In addition to the listed speakers, a kid’s activation will be part of the Learning programming. Super Sprowtz and Founder’s Farm will introduce the first-ever Kids Are Beautiful Corner, incorporating the Life is Beautiful Festival’s core pillars of Music, Food, Art and Learning. The main stage will incorporate exciting interactive puppet shows with dancing, singing, game shows and musical guests. The “Miki Mushroom Chef’s Corner” will have engaging cooking classes and demonstrations with celebrity guest chefs and the “Gita Garlic” and “Oliver Onion” Arts Station will allow children to use their imagination and create their own super hero capes and masks. After creation, the kids will participate in a runway performance to show off their flair combining art, fashion and food in a meaningful way. In addition, the Kids Are Beautiful Corner will have a “Sammy Spinach” Yoga retreat, storytelling with “Erica Eggplant”, a corn and hay maze with “Suzy Sweetpea”, an active area with “Brian Broccoli” and much more!
Life is Beautiful Festival’s Learning Series’ curators include Kwik Learning, Live in the Grey, Digital Royalty and Cofounder.co. Life is Learning is being co-produced by CatalystCreativ, creators of Catalyst Week, a monthly speaker series in Downtown Las Vegas that seeks to inspire and educate the community.
For full details of the Life is Beautiful Festival’s learning, art, music & food programming please visit: www.lifeisbeautifulfestival.com
Life is Beautiful Festival expects to attract tens of thousands of people to Downtown Las Vegas Sponsors of the inaugural Festival include Wirtz Beverage Nevada, Heineken USA, Esquire Magazine, Las Vegas Review Journal, Travel + Leisure, Sub-Zero Wolf, Westar Kitchen & Bath, Las Vegas Events, Cirque du Soleil, Zappos.com, Red Bull, El Cortez Hotel & Casino, the D Las Vegas, Toyota, Silicon Valley Bank, Whole Foods Market, Downtown Grand Las Vegas, Le Creuset, Airstream 2 Go, Chef Works, Ploom, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino and Flamingo Las Vegas.*Sponsors listed are current as of release date.
Life is Beautiful Festival is being developed by Aurelian Marketing Group in partnership with Another Planet Entertainment, MAKTUB Marketing and Downtown Project. Visit www.lifeisbeautifulfestival.com and sign up to receive information updates via email. Connect with the Life is Beautiful team socially at Facebook.com/LIBFestival and Twitter.com/LifeIsBeautiful.
ABOUT AURELIAN MARKETING GROUP
Aurelian Marketing Group is a brand experience company made up of a group highly experienced brand strategists, creative directors and expert producers with a deep track record in creating and implementing meaningful and impactful branded entertainment and events. Its CEO, Rehan Choudhry is the former Director of Entertainment for The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas and was previously the Regional Director of Entertainment for Caesars Entertainment Atlantic City. He was recognized by event trade publication, BizBash as an Event Innovator for his work at The Cosmopolitan in 2011. www.aurelianmg.com
ABOUT ANOTHER PLANET ENTERTAINMENT
Since its inception in 2003, Another Planet Entertainment has produced and promoted events with artists as diverse as Radiohead, Dave Matthews Band, Neil Young, Daft Punk, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Metallica, Paul McCartney and Kanye West. In its first year of operation, Another Planet was selected by a vote of its concert industry peers as “Promoter of the Year” in the United States by Pollstar Magazine. Another Planet is the exclusive promoter of several venues in Northern California also produces two major yearly festivals in San Francisco Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival (beginning in 2008) and Treasure Island Music Festival (beginning in 2007). www.apeconcerts.com.
ABOUT MAKTUB MARKETING
MAKTUB Marketing is directed by Joey Vanas. Vanas is the managing partner of First Friday Las Vegas and the Executive Director of the First Friday Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting local and civic art. Vanas has overseen the growth of the First Friday event to 20,000+ people while creating positive media attention and awareness for the Downtown Vegas Arts scene in markets across the country and around the world.
ABOUT DOWNTOWN PROJECT
Downtown Project is a group of passionate people committed to helping to transform Downtown Las Vegas into the most community-focused large city in the world. The organization has allocated $350 million to aid in the revitalization of Downtown Las Vegas through investments in real estate, residential development, education, small business, and tech startups. With a goal of reaching residential density of 100 people per acre, coupled with ground level activities, Downtown Project aims to accelerate community and co-learning through the serendipitous interactions of the people of Downtown Las Vegas. www.downtownproject.com
