Pierce Freelon is a musician, professor, and artivist with a passion for creativity and community. He is front man of the genre-bending The Beast, hailed as a "natural, engaging blend of jazz and hip hop," by Jazz Times Magazine. He has taught music, African American studies and political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central University, and has performed, lectured and collaborated internationally.

Along with producer/DJ Apple Juice Kid (Stephen Levitin), Pierce Freelon founded ARTVSM. ARTVSM merges the worlds of art and activism, the latest ARTVSM project built a sustainable music studio, called a Beat Making Lab, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. ARTVSM is in the process of developing an open source beat making software for implementation in similar Beat Making Labs across Africa and the global south. The goal is to design the software for flexible, international use, in a way that encourages collaboration and builds community.

Inspirational, Activists, Social Justice, Social Entrepreneurship, Mashable, Mashable social good summit, Social Media,