What connections did you see between the interdisciplinary nature of this Global Challenges discussion and a global challenge you seek to address? What interdisciplinary approaches might you take in your education and/or your personal actions to make that issue real and personal for you? When faced with global issues such as global climate change, it is easy to look at the facts, listen to the scientific story, and expect action. However, to incite real action and legislation one must consider all of the stories intertwined with the issue. When there are real threats to the lives of Native women or imminent threats of water contamination, the people affected do not have the capacity to care about climate trends. They have pressing life or death issues on their minds. Knowing that humanity must work together to achieve progress on global challenges yet keeping in mind that each human has a different struggle and carries unique knowledge, how do we go about change? Will it ever be possible to inspire camaraderie in a species so “deeply divided”? This past Saturday, I attended the TEDx conference at Seattle Center. The second speaker, Celeste Headlee, spoke about the issues with how humans have come to interact with each other with a focus on the post-election closed-mindedness. Miscommunication and lack of communication lead to ignorance and set the stage for major conflict, and is a global challenge that everyone can contribute to solving simply by becoming mindful conversationalists. In a previous talk, Headlee urged listeners to “go out, talk to people, listen to people, and most importantly, be prepared to be amazed”. When we listen to those we disagree with, we hear the stories that shape the realities of humanity. The power of these communications was clearly evident for the Global Challenges speaker Hanson Hosein. He knows that social media can be an amazing platform to share these stories and begin to connect the masses. Like Headlee, he also knows that this requires us to break free of our bubbles and consider new opinions to set the stage for spreading knowledge and making compromises in the future. Hanson Hosein realizes that we are making our world “poorer, meaner, and hotter”. It is clear that humanity has major issues, and it is confusing to reflect on our lack of progress on these challenges. I have tremendous hope that by changing the way we listen to each other through open mindedness, curiosity, and honesty we can begin to understand each other and be able to work together for a better tomorrow. It will require an interdisciplinary mindset, one that won’t be afraid to venture between knowledges familiar and unknown. However, in the end, it will make us richer in thought, kinder, and globally healthier.