Book this speaker: Kevan Gilbert

About This Speaker: Kevan Gilbert

Kevan Gilbert is a sought-after facilitator, thought leader, and educator known for his ability to create inclusive spaces that empower individuals and organizations to transform through active listening. With extensive experience in improv, performance, and storytelling, he combines entertainment with maturity and professionalism, making him relatable to audiences of all ages.

Kevan’s journey as an accomplished writer and digital creator began in the twilight of the late 1990s (making him literally ancient), when he uploaded his first original song parody to the internet. He has since dedicated himself to helping organizations worldwide adapt to change with heart, humor, and a human-centered approach. Kevan Gilbert runs a YouTube channel featuring original, kid-focused video entertainment and created the podcast, “The Pianimal” and “Change is in the Making.”

Recognizing the importance of co-creation, Kevan Gilbert founded Co.school, a Canadian small business based in Kelowna and Vancouver, BC, aimed at harnessing the power of co-creation to foster meaningful change. As a practicing facilitator and educator at Co.school, he has inspired change at organizations such as the Vancouver Foundation, Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation, and Vancity Credit Union.

A father of four children with diverse learning needs and an uncle to a dozen others, he is a strong advocate for neurodiversity and supporting families with diverse needs including autism and ADHD. He also shares his experiences as someone who embraces his own ADHD diagnosis, which inspires his ongoing creativity—writing songs, creating videos, and raising chickens with his wife, Kendra, on their farm outside Kelowna, BC.

At the heart of Kevan’s work is a strong sense that when people can contribute their authentic self and story, we become healthier and more whole. With his blend of expertise, creativity, and personal insight, Kevan Gilbert is an engaging speaker ready to inspire and transform.

Speaking Topics: Kevan Gilbert

Empathy for the Digital Age

Co-creating a future that works for all: We are currently in the midst of a transition between eras, some say is as large as the shift from the agrarian age to the industrial age. When an age is changing, who do you become? Change brings out our many faces: Optimists. Cynics. Haters. Sleepwalkers. Some don’t notice. Some resist. Others bring hope. What about you? Who do you become, when the world around you is shifting? This talk explores the changes ahead, and what it looks like to bring empathy, ethics and energy towards co-creating a future that works for all.

This talk moves listeners to become co-creators of a more empathetic and connected world during an era of massive change. Kevan helps people move from cynicism to curiosity, from false hope to authentic readiness.

The Lost Art of Listening

Tools for coming back together after the pandemic: The season of “staying home,” for many people, brought about a time of deep, personal growth. People cast aside their busy routines and made space to respect their own opinions, preferences and needs, and, in some cases, undertake massive transformational inner journeys. As we come back together in person, we are much more “individuated” than we used to be. Yet we may have forgotten how to listen: to hear the perspectives of others, without judgment; to hold contradictory views, without lashing out; to be in a collective space and meet each other in the middle. This talk aims to offer practical tools for listening, a space to acknowledge what’s changed, and a hope for finding our ways together across what divides us.

Audience members will leave this talk with practical tools to try in conversational practice at home and at work, a compassionate curiosity towards “the other,” and a renewed vision for how to see their role in communities.

The Hump of Wonder

Getting over the hype of AI, and into the real world: Will AI change everything? Sure, mostly. How should we catch up? Well, it depends. But starry-eyed, razzle-dazzle tech demos aren’t helping anyone, and neither are fear-driven, apocalyptic prophecies. The future needs nuance. This talk helps listeners get over the “hump of wonder” about AI, acknowledging the magic of it all, before quickly sliding down the waterslide of disillusionment, where the real work begins: of building community, stewarding the land, and preserving the human heart of the future we get to co-create.

Listeners arrive at the talk with uncertainty, cynicism and possibly trepidation, and expecting to become…more certain, trusting and calm about AI! Well, they’ll need to have that bubble burst. That’s the “hump of wonder” – the part where you think gaining knowledge and understanding will change you. Get over it. Who needs trepidation? Let’s take you to terror. Cynicism? Nope, let’s get you to outright jaded-ness. Uncertainty? I think you need a wake-up call: nobody is certain. From a place of realizing just how significant these changes are, with candid humour and truth, you’ll leave ready to choose wise, responsible action, pursuing human-centeredness, and approaching AI adoption with realism.

That’ll Never Word (and other safe excuses)

What does it take to make a change in your organization? The kind that changes a system? Through storytelling, experiences, dialogue, and role-play, Kevan guides the audience through an experimental workshop about creativity and change.

Role-play and scenarios through key blockers:
• We don’t know what we want: The self-awareness problem
• We don’t know how to listen - or talk: The communication problem
• We can’t generate new ideas: The boringness problem
• We don’t believe it will work: The resistance problem
• We each want our own thing and can’t agree: The connection problem

In Wildness

A participatory show about saving the world (or not).

“As the threat of climate change looms, and polarization tears our communities apart, what will it take to help us adapt to the future? No seriously – if you know the answer, please tell me. This is a workshop where we’re going to try to figure it out. I’ve got a few stories, some questions, some awkward activities, and with your creativity, I think we can make some progress.

My name is Kevan — I’ve been facilitating conversations about “change” with organizations for a long time now, but they have started to all sound the same. Same boring excuses, same boring ideas, same boring people in boring rooms in boring clothes doing boring work. And yet, the world outside is electrically alive with desperate needs and incredible possibilities. What does it take to wake up and be part of co-creating something…different?”

What should the audience expect? It’s like seeing a TED talk, mixed with improv and audience participation.

So it’s a comedy? Only if you think the end of the world is funny.

So it’s serious? Only if you want it to be.

What if I don’t like it? That’s a genuine risk. Hate mail can be directed here.

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