Blue Sky Leaders

How CIIS honors the Earth through curriculum, retreats, events, and practices that root learning in the living world.

In a divided world, two Blue Sky Leaders explore how deep listening, jazz, and integral education create connection and shared leadership.

Chris Heuer reflects on his conversation with CIIS’ Bruce Alderman about the Blue Sky Leaders program, exploring how slowing down may be the key to thriving in the age of AI.

At Human + Tech Week in San Francisco, Bruce Alderman of the Blue Sky Leaders program revealed how human wisdom and presence redefine leadership in the AI era.

Ginny Whitelaw brings decades of experience to the Blue Sky Leaders Certificate, helping leaders move beyond ego and into deep connection and purpose.

A look inside a Blue Sky Leaders program weekend workshop, led by Greg Thomas of the Jazz Leadership Project.

We live in times of uncertainty, with climate change and AI racing ahead. Blue Sky Leaders Facilitator Ginny Whitelaw discusses why leaders must balance AI's potential with nature's wisdom for a thriving future.

The Blue Sky Leaders program equips leaders with wisdom and skills to navigate the global metacrisis, fostering transformative leadership for a sustainable, compassionate future.

Blue Sky Leaders Facilitator Ginny Whitelaw explores why, as AI advances, leaders must balance its intellect with human wisdom.

Blue Sky Leaders Associate Director Bruce Alderman on how conscious leadership integrates awareness, adaptability, and values to foster growth and holistic success.

Watch CIIS Professor Emeritus Brian Thomas Swimme's Keynote Speech during the 2023 Leadership Conference of Religious Women in Dallas Texas.

Read about former Major League Baseball player Bruce Bochte’s special friendship with CIIS Professor Emeritus Dr. Brian Thomas Swimme

Experienced mindfulness teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo provides accessible advice on navigating difficult times of transition by drawing on Buddhist teachings on impermanence to help us establish equanimity and resilience.

In this episode, CIIS Integrative Health Studies Professor Megan Lipsett talks with Kaira Jewel about her teaching and her latest book, We Were Made for These Times, which offers teaching on meditation and a step-by-step process to nurture deeper freedom and stability in daily life.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 28th, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Author Cheryl Strayed talks to author and Interdisciplinary Arts & Writing MFA Professor Carolyn Cooke about her writing style, her work as Dear Sugar, and her best-selling book, Wild.

This episode was recorded during an event on April 13, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. A transcript is available below.

Read more about CIIS' consciousness accelerator to bring together integral education scholars with luminaries from tech, finance, and the arts.

Over the past 17 years, queer autistic author and educator Nick Walker has played a key role in the emergence of the neurodiversity paradigm—a framework for scholarship, practice, and social justice work where treating human neurocognitive variations such as autism, dyslexia, and ADHD as medical disorders is understood to be a form of systemic oppression along the same lines as the pathologizing of homosexuality in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this episode, Dr. Walker is joined by writer Dan Glenn in an uplifting conversation exploring her newest book, Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities. They also discuss the edges and intersections of neurodiversity, gender, Queer Theory, embodiment, creativity, somatic psychology, and the human capacity for transformation.

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during a live online event on February 16th, 2022. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, authors Sean Kelly, Sam Mickey, and Adam Robbert are joined by public radio journalist and Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness graduate Kat Snow in a conversation about ecology as a connective science and its impact on our society.

This episode was recorded during an event on June 14, 2017 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In her latest book, Hivemind: The New Science of Tribalism in Our Divided World, psychologist and emotion regulation specialist Dr. Sarah Rose Cavanagh leaves no stone unturned in her quest to understand how social technology is reshaping the way we socialize.

In this episode, Dr. Cavanagh is joined by CIIS Professor Zara Zimbardo for a conversation on how communities can sync up around shared ideas, how this hive mentality is contributing to today's polarized times, and how to make sense of the dissonance around us.

This episode was recorded during an event on February 13, 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

The rise and transformation of information warfare is perhaps one of the most significant global trends of the last few years. The result is a circus atmosphere of constant lies, shock humor, absurdity, and fear-mongering designed to disorient us and undermine our sense of truth.

In this episode, digital intelligence expert Nick Monaco talks with award-winning author and disinformation expert Peter Pomerantsev about what he has learned working behind enemy lines exploring multinational information wars.

This episode was recorded during an event on November 7, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

As artificial intelligence evolves, so too does human culture. In this conversation, futurist Nicole Sallak Anderson and UC Berkeley professor Edward Lee discuss meeting machines and how technology is changing the humans creating it.

This episode was recorded during an event on August 29, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

Join author Rob Reid in conversation with author and editor Annaka Harris as they examine the idea of consciousness—taking us through evolving definitions, philosophies, and scientific findings that probe our limited understanding of this age-old mystery.

This episode was recorded during an event on August 1, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

Artificial intelligence research scientist Julie Carpenter, and human sexuality researcher Brianna Booth explore the future of human-robot sexual interaction, considering the subject from both robot and human perspectives.

This episode was recorded during an event on January 24, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, author Adrienne Mayor is joined by Interdisciplinary Arts Professor Carolyn Cooke to explore how some of today's most advanced innovations in robotics and artificial intelligence were foreshadowed in ancient myth.

This episode was recorded during an event on November 14, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, clinical neuropsychologist Mario Martinez is joined by Natalie Metz to discuss his research on aging and longevity.

This episode was recorded during an event on October 26, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, author Steven Johnson and Interdisciplinary Arts professor Carolyn Cooke consider how to make decisions - drawing lessons from cognitive science, social psychology, military strategy, and great works of literature.

This episode was recorded during an event on September 12, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, geologist and cosmochemist Natalie Starkey is joined in conversation by Joshua Fields to explore her work studying the composition and behavior of comets.

This episode was recorded during an event on June 28, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, we go inside Wikipedia, whose lofty goal is to share the sum of all human knowledge with everyone on earth.

The head of Wikipedia’s library, Jake Orlowitz, is in conversation with CIIS philosophy scholar Dr. Matt Segall about how Wikipedia keeps it’s vast and complicated platform running.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 9, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

This conversation, about the intersection of artificial intelligence and art, was part of our Technology and Consciousness Series.

Jerry Kaplan, a computer scientist and AI expert talks with Kal Spelletich, an artist who works with robotics about how humans might leverage this emerging technology creatively.

This episode was recorded during an event on April 7, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, Carolyn Cooke, author and Interdisciplinary Arts & Writing MFA Professor, discusses reading and writing as important acts of consciousness. Her talk explores how reading is related to deep thinking and how in a challenging world, reading itself can be a direct route to becoming a kinder, nicer, more interesting person. This talk is part of our Big Ideas at CIIS series.

This episode was recorded during an event on April 13, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

The authors of Algorithms to Live By, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths, are joined in conversation by Joseph Subbiondo to explore how computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives. This conversation is part of our Technology and Consciousness Series.

This episode was recorded during an event on April 27, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, author and professor Brian Swimme asks why we study the universe. His talk explores how we build our civilizations upon our understanding of the cosmos, and how that understanding is constantly changing.

This episode was recorded during an event on April 20, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

One of the leading thinkers in the emergent field of neurodiversity, CIIS faculty member Nick Walker, discusses the benefits of a more neurodiverse world. This talk was part of the Big Ideas at CIIS series.

This episode was recorded during an event on October 13, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Artificial Intelligence engineer Laura Montoya is joined by TechCrunch diversity reporter, Megan Rose Dickey to explore the role of gender in Artificial Intelligence and how it impacts society. This conversation was part of our series on Technology and Consciousness.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on April 18, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, psychologist and professor Alinne Barrera joins psychiatrist and UCSF Clinical Informatics fellow Steven Chan to explore how recent advances in technology and artificial intelligence are changing the way we seek and provide mental health care.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 12, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Author and Professor of Religious Studies Dr. Christopher Bache discusses his twenty year long regimen of psychedelic exploration and therapy with CIIS Professor Sean Kelly.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on December 9, 2016.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Karla Suomala, a researcher and former Professor of Religion and Mikey Siegel, a robotics engineer turned consciousness hacker, discuss the intersections of technology and spirituality.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on January 18, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Author and researcher David Levy joins CIIS Professor Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo to explore how we might move between the "fast world" of tech and the "slow world" of contemplation.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 8, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, robotics engineer turned consciousness hacker Mikey Siegel is joined in conversation by Alexander Reben, an artist and roboticist. The two discuss the ethical implications of recent developments in artificial intelligence and technology.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on August 24, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, Artificial Intelligence scientist and buddhist teacher Nikki Mirghafori and computer scientist Steve Omohundro discuss how the concept of karma can guide us as we push forward towards creating non-human intelligence.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on January 25, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, historian and author Leslie Berlin is joined in conversation by hacker and inventor Mitch Altman to explore how hippies and hackers built the largest center for innovation in the history of the planet - and why it can’t be replicated elsewhere.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on January 31, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Chelsea Manning is joined by CIIS professor Carolyn Cooke to explore the ethical questions presented by artificial intelligence, and to discuss transgender identity and activism.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on May 9, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.