Created in collaboration with the NAACP's Hollywood Bureau, this conversation invites storytellers to look past the cloud and toward the people and places powering our digital lives. With every prompt and pixel, AI draws on real resources—land, water, energy—leaving its mark on communities too often kept out of the frame. This webinar centers on those human stories, asking storytellers to reckon with the environmental costs of innovation and imagine a future where technology, justice, and narrative responsibility move together.
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM PT / 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM ET
Participants
Abré Conner, Esq., Director of the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice, NAACP
Abré Conner, Esq. is the Director of the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at the NAACP, where she leads strategy and cross‑organizational collaboration to dismantle environmental racism. She has held senior civil rights and environmental justice roles across the country, including with the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, the ACLU of Northern California, the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, and she previously served in the Obama Administration. A graduate of the University of Florida and American University Washington College of Law, she has been honored by the National Bar Association and featured in The New York Times, Essence, Forbes, and TIME.
Kendrick Sampson
Kendrick Sampson is an actor, producer, and storyteller who uses his craft to shift culture and illuminate the power of socially rooted narratives. Raised in the vibrant artistic communities of Houston and Missouri City, he brings that foundation into acclaimed roles such as Nathan on Insecure, Ethan in Something from Tiffany's, and the surrealist satire I Am a Virgo, and most recently embodied Quincy Jones in the Michael biopic. Through BLD PWR, the social impact organization he co-founded, Kendrick works to organize Hollywood and champion healing justice, liberation, and the protection of marginalized storytellers. His work reflects a commitment to using storytelling as a force for collective transformation and cultural reimagining.