BEL honored in the lead up to Oscars at Lumen Awards

This month, in the lead up to the Oscars, our founding CEO Steven Olikara was honored with a Lumen Award, recognizing leaders at the intersection of storytelling and changemaking! He received the Common Ground Lumen Award, presented by the Builders Movement’s Kristin Moss, for his work combating toxic polarization and working to help Americans of all stripes to better see each other. It’s an exciting milestone for our movement, further establishing BEL’s bridge-building mission as a core cause in the entertainment industry.  

From his early work founding Future Caucus, to his work as a Fellow for Builders and as a Senior Fellow for the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, to his tenure as CEO of Bridge Entertainment Labs, Steven has worked tirelessly to combat the division-industrial complex and to help knit the American community back together.

The Lumen Awards focuses on recognizing changemakers in the entertainment industry for their work both on- and off-screen. As Forbes puts it:

“Unlike traditional awards that focus mainly on what happens on screen, Lumen looks at the full picture. It honors filmmakers whose work helps us see urgent issues differently, but it also recognizes the people actually working on those issues in the real world.”

At the award ceremony, Steven talked about:

– The importance of walking in our purpose even when it’s difficult.

– How storytelling can turn isolated bridge-building moments into a powerful cultural movement.

– How American democracy enabled a storytelling industry to emerge, and how this storytelling community now has the responsibility to re-create our democracy during its 250th anniversary.

Watch the moment  below:

This Lumen Award was preceded by a video highlighting Steven’s journey as a bridge-builder:

Other attendees honored at the event included Kate Beecroft (writer and director, East of Wall), Lydia Storie and Ai-jen Poo (founders, Give Not Take Media), Liz Sargent (writer & director, Take Me Home), Rachel Feldman (writer and director, Lilly), and Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry (CEO, Roddenberry Entertainment, son of Star Trek creator Eugene Roddenberry).