Dela Wilson – Founder, Axle Impact Studios
Dela Wilson is a strategist, author, and founder of Axle Impact Studios. Dela's company connects expertise and people across countries and industries. Dela's keynote focused on "The Power of Collective Dialogue."
Dela illustrated an encounter with an Italian artist - Theo Imani after traveling to Verona, Italy. She met Italian artists who built a community to ensure their voices were shared. Theo shared about wanting to share stories. First, he examined himself personally, instead of how the world viewed him. He was then awakened by the growth he discovered.
During the keynote, Dela conducted an interactive activity to bring more voices into the room. Two participants shared their experiences. Both reflected on their experiences of love, hatred, generational legacy, joy, and anger that impact their writer/illustrator journey. Dela used this activity to show how the next generation does it. People can achieve when they are affirmed and shown positivity, amid complexity.
Stories are the most genuine of human design. Dela echoes that the stories of marginalized people have been here for centuries. There is a shift in collective consciousnesses to finally care about these stories. The dialogue of the publishing market is shifting because the industry is paying attention.
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Graphic Recording by Julia Bakay
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Dela highlighted another author whose voice has been heard through her not-for-profit company, Young Author's Publishing. Leah Hernandez empowers young people to share their own stories, publishes them, and secures royalties to foster financial freedom.
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Leah Hernandez
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Here are a few questions that Dela offers as reflection questions over next few months:
What is our collective dialogue on who gets what and why?
What is your personal dialogue on your responsibility for who gets what and why?
How do these dialogues align with the future vision you have for children's book publishing worldwide?
Deloris “Dela” Wilson is
the founder of Axle Impact Studios, where she seeks to decolonize
development efforts through the redirection of capital, cultural
influence, and opportunity. She has worked across eight countries to
maximize corporate impact, seed public innovation in post-colonial
states, design support for inclusive entrepreneurship, and implement
equitable strategies for organizational leadership. Her strategies have
been applied across technology start-ups designing for social change,
emerging and established non-profits creating sustainable funding
models, and non-governmental organizations that seek to contemporize
impact through international markets, changing cultural norms and
increased expectations of constituencies. Dela is a sought-after advisor
on strategic and operational design, narrative strategy, inclusive
product development, and leadership development with a unique lens that
bridges operational structures with empathy–understanding that the
personal is professional and helping businesses navigate impactful approaches to social change. Follow her journey at dwilson.co.
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