Alex Sheen is the founder of because I said I would, a social movement and nonprofit dedicated to bettering humanity through promises made and kept. Sparked by the loss of his father, Alex and his organization send “promise cards” to anyone anywhere in the world at no cost. Alex is someone who truly honors commitment. He once walked over 240 miles across the entire state of Ohio in 10 days to fulfill a promise. In just two years, because I said I would has sent over 12.3  million promise cards to over 153 different countries. The promises written on these cards have made headlines around the world. Alex is a five time TedxTalk speaker and his charitable work has been featured on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer, CNN, The Today Show, NPR, The Los Angeles Times and many other programs.

Adora is a writer, speaker, and advocate for causes including feminism, youth empowerment, and literacy. She began advocating for youth voice at a young age, speaking at education conferences about why we need to give students greater autonomy in their schooling. In 2010, she delivered the speech “What Adults Can Learn from Kids” at TED. The speech has received more than 6 million views on TED.com alone, and been translated into more than 58 different languages. Between 2010-2013 she organized a team of students to produce a TEDx event for youth, TEDxRedmond. In 2014 Pacific Standard Magazine called Adora one of the “30 Top Thinkers Under 30” and “an activist for feminism, liberal politics, and youth-oriented causes…pretty far up the road to becoming intellectual royalty.” Over the past few years, she has spoken to tens of thousands of people around the world, including 20,000 youth in Seattle at the social good event WE Day and student leaders from over a dozen countries at the Hugh O’Brien (HOBY) Youth Leadership Congress in Chicago. Since graduating from UC Berkeley, she has been working in non-profit communications. In February 2020, Quarto published her book Speak Up! Speeches by young people to empower and inspire.