THEME 2025

This year’s theme, Our Place in the Future, carries a double meaning. It speaks to our responsibility to create a kinder, more exciting, and regenerative future and to leave a legacy as future ancestors that we’d be proud of. At the same time, it recognizes our commitments to the places we live, work, and travel and asks us to imagine how our actions today might leave those places better than we found them.

Deep conversations happen over shared meals, in round table discussions, panels, workshops and over joint experiences such as volunteer work, quilt making, food preparation or a community music project.

Panels and Workshops

Workshops Information & Session Breakdown

Track 1 - Weaving our legacy

Legacy is not a static inheritance – it’s a living, evolving fabric shaped by the stories we tell, the choices we make, and the futures we imagine. This track invites entrepreneurs, creatives, investors, and community leaders to explore legacy as an active, collective process – one that weaves together voice, vision, and values across generations, disciplines, and geographies.

 Through sessions on intentional impact, the power of narrative, and future-focused design, we’ll examine how we can shift mindsets, embrace complexity, and engage with diverse perspectives to co-create meaningful, systems-level change. Whether activating capital with purpose, crafting stories that resonate, or imagining bold new possibilities, participants will be challenged to think systemically and act with intention – connecting the threads of past, present, and future to shape a legacy that is inclusive, regenerative, and enduring.

Sessions

  • This session invites family offices, impact investors, and philanthropists to explore how capital, purpose, and legacy can be aligned in ways that reflect values across generations. Rather than prescribing solutions, we’ll offer perspectives that expand existing approaches to investment and giving – grounding them in relationships, community, and regenerative intent.

    Designed as a space for connection, insight, and the weaving of networks, this session offers a deeper understanding of how legacy can become a dynamic, values-driven practice.

    Short Description: Designed as a space for connection, insight, and the weaving of networks, this session offers a deeper understanding of how legacy can become a dynamic, values-driven practice.

  • This session will explore the power of narrative as a tool for connection, identity, and impact. Drawing on the perspectives of playwrights, documentarians, brand strategists, and poets, we’ll examine the many ways stories can be shaped and shared – whether for personal growth, business, or creative expression.

    Participants will be guided through process of envisioning and articulating their own narratives, discovering how to communicate value and meaning in ways that resonate. Together, we’ll ask: How do you tell the story of who you are? How do you listen to the stories of others? And how can story become a bridge between vision and action?

    Shorter Description: How do we shape and share the stories that define who we are? How can narrative bridge the space between vision and action – between personal identity and collective change? How might storytelling become a vehicle for connection, value, and transformation across disciplines and communities?

  • This session will explore how reimagining our relationship to time can unlock new ways of thinking about the future, inviting us to move beyond reactive problem-solving and toward intentional, regenerative design.

    Featuring voices from across disciplines – archivists, futurists, regenerative investors, ecological designers, and more – we’ll engage with creative prompts that challenge conventional assumptions and expand our capacity to anticipate, adapt to, and shape the transformations ahead.

    Short Description: How can reimagining our relationship to time open new pathways for design, adaptation, and regeneration? How do we hold complexity while still moving forward with intention? What becomes possible when we expand our futures thinking beyond crisis response and into creative, systemic transformation?

Track 2 - Place and Possibility

How do we shape place and how does place shape us? This track explores the interconnected dynamics of movement, space, and design, inviting us to reflect on how we travel, settle, build, and belong.

 From regenerative travel to housing justice and climate-resilient infrastructure, we’ll examine how movement and design both reflect and remake the world around us. What does it mean to show up as stewards, to create spaces that center care and access, and to design places – physical, social, and cultural – where communities can thrive? In this track, we’ll explore the power of placemaking as both a personal and collective act: grounded in story, responsive to constraint, and alive with possibility.

Sessions

  • While much of our work looks to the future – building for the next generation, restoring ecosystems, reimagining systems – there is an urgent, human reality we often overlook: caring for our older generations.

    How do we care for those who paved the way while continuing to build what comes next? What systems do we need – in housing, health, transportation, and community life – to support aging with dignity? How might intergenerational responsibility shape a more compassionate, grounded vision of legacy and care? In the face of so many long-term challenges, we’ll ground in the immediacy of now: in the people, needs, and relationships that can’t be put off.

    Short Description: How do we honor and care for those who came before us while building for the future? What systems do we need – in housing, health, and community life – to support aging with dignity? How might intergenerational responsibility shape a more compassionate, grounded vision of legacy and care?

  • Long before it became a trend, food has been understood as medicine – a source of healing, connection, and survival. Rooted in food sovereignty and cultural practice, this conversation invites us to remember that nourishment is not only physical – it’s spiritual, political, and deeply relational.

    What does it mean to treat food not just as sustenance, but as healing? How can ancestral knowledge and food sovereignty restore balance in our bodies, communities, and ecosystems? How might reclaiming food as medicine be a powerful act of cultural memory, resistance, and renewal?

    Short Description: What does it mean to treat food not just as sustenance, but as healing? How can ancestral knowledge and food sovereignty restore balance in our bodies, communities, and ecosystems? How might reclaiming food as medicine be a powerful act of cultural memory, resistance, and renewal?

  • Care can take many forms but few are as immediate, sensory, and universal as the act of sharing a meal. This session brings together chefs and culinary storytellers who see food not only as craft, but as care. We’ll explore how preparing and serving food becomes a way of tending to memory, place, identity, and relationship. How can meals hold space for healing and belonging? How do chefs care for their communities, their ingredients, and themselves through their work? And how might food-centered experiences foster connection across cultures, generations, and geographies in a time of increasing disconnection?

    Short Description: This session explores food as an act of care – how meals nourish not just bodies, but memory, identity, and connection across communities and generations.

Track 3 - Taking Care

How do we take care of ourselves, of one another, and of the world we share? This track explores care as both a personal practice and a collective responsibility, touching every aspect of life: from how we nourish our bodies and support our mental and spiritual health, to how we show up for our elders, our children, our neighbors, and our communities.

 In a time of disconnection and systemic strain, care becomes a powerful form of resistance and regeneration. We’ll explore how nourishment becomes resistance, how community holds grief and joy, and how we build ecosystems of care that are accessible, integrated, and enduring. What does it look like to create futures rooted in care – not as an afterthought, but as the foundation of a livable future?

Sessions

  • Starting with the home but expanding outward, we’ll consider how architecture, building systems, and urban design can support circular, zero-waste futures – not just for individuals, but for communities and entire cities. We’ll look at how our spaces can become systems of regeneration where energy is produced, food is grown, and waste is transformed into resource.

     

    In places where space is limited and systems are strained, how do we design for abundance? What happens when we treat waste as a resource, or rethink infrastructure as culture-shaping? How might rethinking the built environment reshape how we live, what we value, and how we care for each other and the planet?

    Short description: How do we redefine “home” as more than a structure – as a system for sustainability and care? How can design help our spaces generate energy, grow food, and turn waste into resource? How might rethinking the built environment reshape how we live, what we value, and how we care for each other and the planet?

  • This session explores housing as a foundation for thriving communities – not just a roof over our heads, but a reflection of our values, priorities, and shared future. From Hawai’i to cities around the world, we’ll examine the systems, policies, and land use decisions that shape what’s possible and for whom.

    Grounded in place-based examples and informed by lived experience, this conversation invites us to reimagine housing not just as a product of the market, but as a collective responsibility and opportunity for regeneration.

    We’ll tackle questions such as: How do we build dignified, affordable, and climate-resilient homes in ways that honor both people and place? How do we reconcile competing pressures like limited land, rising costs, cultural preservation, and environmental sustainability?

    Short Description: How do we build dignified, affordable, and climate-resilient homes in ways that honor both people and place? How do we reconcile competing pressures like limited land, rising costs, cultural preservation, and environmental sustainability?

  • Water shapes everything: from what we grow to who holds power. Who controls it, who protects it, and who decides how it flows? We’ll explore how water is diverted, distributed, and contested and how communities are working to restore balance through stewardship, advocacy, and innovation. 

     

    Whether through the lens of farming, land use, and more we’ll reflect on how water connects us and what it reveals about care, control, and long-term resilience. How can communities reclaim stewardship and create more equitable, resilient relationships with this most vital resource?

    Short Description: How does water shape our landscapes, our systems, and our sense of justice? Who controls it, who protects it, and who decides how it flows? How can communities reclaim stewardship and create more equitable, resilient relationships with this most vital resource?

Track 4 - Culture in Motion

From fashion and art to travel, hospitality, and culinary storytelling, this track will examine how culture is produced, shared, and embodied – not only in museums or markets, but in hotel lobbies, dining rooms, textiles, and tours.

We’ll hear from those shaping culture at the intersection of craft and commerce: artists, chefs, designers, hoteliers, and creative entrepreneurs who turn aesthetics into atmosphere, and storytelling into strategy. We’ll ask: What does it mean to build industries that reflect heritage, invite belonging, and offer beauty without extraction? How do we ensure that cultural experiences are not simply consumed, but honored and co-created? It’s a space to reimagine the future of culture-driven industry: rooted, responsive, and alive with possibility.

Sessions

  • Fashion doesn’t just reflect culture – it helps shape it. From supply chains to storytelling, what we wear can signal who we are, where we belong, and what we value. This session brings together fashion leaders and brand strategists to explore how cultural narratives are embedded in clothing, and what it means to build ethical, inclusive fashion businesses in a globalized market.

    Who gets to define what’s desirable? How do brands balance visibility with responsibility? And what does it take to create offerings that honor culture without commodifying it?

    Short Description: How do we build inclusive fashion systems that honor culture without commodifying it? This session explores identity, ethics, and belonging in the fashion industry.

  • As climate change, cultural commodification, and shifting traveler values reshape the tourism and hospitality landscape, a new model is emerging – one rooted in reciprocity rather than extraction. This session brings together hotel founders, cultural stewards, and regenerative travel practitioners to explore how hosting can be a force for healing, not harm.

    What does true hospitality look like when it honors the land and its people? How do we move beyond surface-level “authenticity” toward experiences that are respectful, rooted, and co-created with community? And what does it take to build systems of welcome that are not only sustainable, but culturally and ecologically regenerative?

    Short Description: What does it mean to host with integrity? This session explores how tourism and hospitality can move beyond performance toward practices that honor culture, land, and community — creating experiences that are reciprocal, regenerative, and real.

  • From ritual rhythms to site-specific improvisation, music has the power to transform space and perception. This session brings together artists whose practices span composition, soundscape design, and live performance to explore how music creates mood, meaning, and sensory connection. Whether scoring for ceremony, nature, or installation, we’ll consider how sound shapes experience and how we might listen more closely to what a place is asking for.

    Short Description: How does music shape our experience of space, memory, and meaning? How can sound deepen our connection to place, attune us to the present, and invite collective presence? How we might compose not just for audiences, but for environments, rituals, and transformation?

  • From immersive environments to acts of remembrance, artists are crafting experiences that carry memory, evoke belonging, and root us in place. This session brings together multidisciplinary creatives who use ritual, storytelling, and spatial design to surface what’s been overlooked or erased, inviting new relationships between people, land, and history.

    We’ll explore: How can art deepen participation and help us feel more connected to place, to one another, to the past and future? What does it mean to design experiences that both move people and root them? And how might creative work act as resistance, remembrance, and renewal?

    Short Description: How can art help us feel more rooted in place, in memory, and in each other? This session explores how artists use experience, ritual, and storytelling to shape meaning and spark connection.

Activities Track 5: Making Space

In this track, we explore the power of communal spaces and everyday creative practice – not just as sources of joy, rest, and beauty, but as vital grounds for connection, conversation, and cultural continuity. These spaces offer more than respite – they become places where memory lives, where stories are shared, and where the rhythms of community can be felt.

Through tactile, sensory activities – blending spices, shelling cacao, stitching quilts, braiding lei, walking the land – we invite participants into practices that nourish presence and relationship. These gatherings may look simple, but they hold power: they create space for reflection, for knowledge to be passed on, and for voices that may be left out of dominant discourse to shape the conversation.

Often, these are the places where culture is not only preserved, but lived – where celebration, care, and everyday creativity form the connective tissue of community life. Together, we’ll explore how tending to these spaces can help us build not only more joyful experiences, but more grounded, generous, and alive futures.

Activities

  • Join Rebecca Sullivan of Coculture Lab and Aaron Fenwick of Whip Wines for an exploration of taste as storytelling. Through thoughtful pairings of wine and indigenous spices and fruits, we’ll celebrate the complexity of flavor, the richness of cultural knowledge, and the deep roots of place. This session invites us to slow down, savor, and consider where our ingredients come from and the stories they carry.

  • In this hands-on session with Lydgate Farms, we’ll explore the journey of cacao from pod to preparation, grounding in the rhythms of cultivation, care, and craft. As we shell cacao and learn about its transformation into chocolate, we’ll reflect on the labor, land, and relationships embedded in each seed. Together, we’ll consider cacao not just as an ingredient, but as a vessel of story, culture, and connection – linking us to place, people, and the hands that make nourishment possible.

  • A guided exploration of the landscape as teacher and provider. Through hands-on engagement with local plants, we’ll uncover how the land nourishes both body and spirit, and how tending to place, community, and self through a place-based ethic can deepen our sense of belonging and care.

  • A sensory exploration of taste, memory, and meaning. As we blend spices and share stories, we’ll explore how ingredients carry history and shape futures, and how the rituals of cooking can offer warmth, identity, and connection across time and place.

  • Item descrUsing the ancient practice of pickling, this session explores preservation as both a practical act and a symbolic lens for future-making. Together, we’ll reflect on the flavors, memories, and values we carry forward with us, and how small acts of intention today can nourish us tomorrow.iption

  • In this participatory session, we’ll explore the universal language of music as a tool for connection, culture, and co-creation. Through hands-on workshops introducing global rhythms, songs, and practices, we’ll celebrate both diversity and shared humanity. As we make music together, we’ll reflect on how collective sound anchors us in place, time, and memory while helping us imagine new futures in harmony. No experience required – just an open heart and a willingness to listen, learn, and sing.

  • An invitation to gather, stitch, and reflect on the threads that bind us to community, culture, and one another. This tactile practice honors the quiet power of shared stories, care, and collective memory, weaving together the fabric of belonging as histories pass from hand to hand.

  • Rooted in tradition, the rhythms of the land, and the spirit of aloha, this session offers a meditative act of creation, centering the practice of making as a gesture of care. Using native plants, we’ll reflect on how hospitality, reciprocity, and belonging take shape when diverse elements are brought together with intention.

  • Connect to the Power of the beautiful rescue horses on the Common Ground Campus and experience their presence in an awe-inspiring feeling of authentic connection. Feel the quiet transfer for their natural power, spirit and heart through guided breathing exercises next to or on those gentle giants. Their gentle sights and sounds mark the flow of power and energy with nature, attuning us to the "aina", the land. The experience mixes meditation, forest bathing and breath work to align body, mind and "mana" (spirit).

  • Quickly becoming a favorite for visitors and locals alike and as written about in Cosmopolitan, Forbes, and AFAR. Common Ground’s Farm and Food Experience offers a showcase of what grows on Kauai in our regenerative food forest: A collection of exotic and delicious foods brought to Hawai`i from all corners of the globe. Coffee, pineapple, tree tomato, kava, mamak’i, heart of palm, papaya, bananas, and more! More importantly it demonstrates a model for how food can be grown in harmony with nature, planted in concert so as to minimize the need for imported fertilizers and pesticides. We discuss why Hawai’i shouldn’t need to import 85+% of its food and what a robust local food system can do for communities everywhere.

Common Ground Summit - 2025 Schedule Outline

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