Social entrepreneur Jane Chen to deliver E.N. Thompson lecture

Jane Chen, entrepreneur, inventor and speaker, will present “How Design Thinking Saves Lives — Lessons on Innovation, Leadership and Resilience” at 7 p.m. March 28 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.

The talk is the final event of the 2022-23 E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues. Tickets, which are free, can be reserved through the Lied Center here, by calling 402-472-4747 or by visiting the Lied’s box office, 301 N. 12th St. The forum is general admission, with seating on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and tickets will remain available at the box office until the event begins.

Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Embrace Global, which developed a ground-breaking infant incubator. The Embrace incubator costs about 1% of a traditional incubator and has saved over 350,000 babies. Embrace has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, Newsweek, the Guardian and ABC’s “20/20.”

Chen is a TED speaker and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. She was selected for Forbes’ Impact 30, the Economist Innovation Award, Fast Company Innovation Award, and Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the World Economic Forum. She received her Master of Business Administration from Stanford University, her Master in Public Administration from Harvard University and her Bachelor of Arts from Pomona College. She is an avid surfer and meditator and wrote a personal blog about life lessons learned through surfing and entrepreneurship. She has also served as a board director of the Center for Humane Technology.

This year’s Thompson Forum series, “Creativity to Solve Global Challenges,” focuses on elevating people and ideas addressing global concerns with vision and innovation. The E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues is a cooperative project of the Cooper Foundation, Lied Center and the university. It was established in 1988 with the purpose of bringing a diversity of viewpoints on international and public policy issues to the university and people of Nebraska to promote understanding and encourage discussion.

The talk will be livestreamed. The video will not be available on the web but will be rebroadcast via local media outlets. For more information and the link to livestream, click here.