Toscana (Main Hall)
May 28, Wednesday
18:45 – 19:00
Budapest (CEST)
LIVE STREAM

Memorial Event

IEC Conference: 2025

A Tribute to Elza Maalouf

Elza Maalouf (1965 – 2024)  was an attorney, author, visionary and humanist. It was at an Integral Leadership program in the early 2000’s that Elza learned about Spiral Dynamics and the work of Don Beck. Intrigued by Don and Spiral, Elza recognized she could offer a perspective arising from her experience growing up with the trauma of civil war-torn Lebanon and ethnocentric rivalries. She worked side-by-side with Don Beck in the early 2000’s and together they forged a vision for Palestine based upon Spiral Dynamics values systems and conflict resolution principles. Maalouf and Beck co-founded Human Emergence-Middle East, with Board members Beck, Jean Houston, Said Dawlabani, and Fadwa Al-Homaizi. She and her husband Said Dawlabani  influenced business, politics, economics, and leadership. Elza was a spiritual person at her core.  She was an example of “living the change you want to see”. Those who knew her, knew her big heart, her beauty, her optimism, and her unique intelligence. An interview of Elza by Russ Wolckmann was published in Integral Leadership in Review in June 2013, providing an overview of her work and leadership up to that time. Her life is an example of personal evolution and creating profound hope and change for a better world. She was truly loved and admired by those who knew her spirit, generosity, and brilliance. Elza was a survivor, a visionary, who used her talents for the greater good.

United States

Christine Baser Habib, R.N., Ph.D. applies Integral Theory in her practice as a clinical psychologist. She specializes in working with people who have chronic illness and complex grief.  An interest in the female psyche has led her to explore the Spiral stages of women’s influence, women’s development and leadership, and how women voice their AQAL experiences. Christine has been active in San Diego Integral, providing hospitality and presentations on Integral topics.  She also meets regularly with other Integrally-informed women on Women’s Matters, hosted by The Wisdom Factory.

Lebanon / United States

Said Elias Dawlabani is a human evolution theorist and a leading authority on the application of stage development to large scale change. He is a writer and public speaker specializing in the Gravesian approach to psychosocial development and the evolution of societal systems. Named one of the world’s boldest thought leaders in 2019.

He is the author of three books. His first MEMEnomics, The Next-Generation Economic System (2013), brought recognition of his stage development model as a specialty in the field of cultural economics. His work has been translated to over 20 languages including Korean, Mandarin, German and Russian. He has given keynote speeches on sustainable and regenerative economics in many parts of the world.

His second book, The Light of Ishtar (2021) is a personal memoir that chronicles his journey in life with his wife and soulmate Elza Maalouf through myth and psycho-spirituality. Since 2018 he has turned his attention to the application of stage development to climate change and the economics of the Anthropocene, which are the subject of his third book: Second Sapiens, the Rise of the Planetary Mind and the Future of Humanity (fall 2024). Evolutionary thinkers who read the book consider it a visionary road map that inspires hope and action. Others have called it a manifesto for the future.

Dawlabani is the founder of The MEMEnomics Group, an advisory that is dedicated to speaking Gaian truth to economic power by uncovering the values of a regenerative future driven by a mandate for de-growth. He was a close associate of renowned geopolitical advisor, the late Don E. Beck, PhD. Beck was Graves’ successor and one of the architects behind South Africa’s transition from Apartheid and the author of Spiral Dynamics, the most authoritative theory on stage development and change. Before teaming up with Beck, Dawlabani had a prominent career in the real estate and home building industries.

In 2005, Dawlabani cofounded The Center for Human Emergence Middle East, with Beck and Maalouf. The center is a think tank that frames sociopolitical and economic issues of the region through the prism of cultural stage development. He’s a past lecturer on the topic of transformational leadership at the Adizes Graduate School in Santa Barbara, and the University of Virginia.

Dawlabani is a contributor to several online platforms, and to the Integral Leadership Review, Kosmos Journal and other publications. His research is cited by several academic publications including the National Bureau of Economic Research.

His work is featured in the Leader to Leader Quarterly Journal, Newsweek, The Christian Science Monitor, and on NPR, PRN, and Voice of America.

United States

Craig Hamilton is a spiritual trailblazer whose innovative approach to transformation is bringing enlightenment down to earth and unlocking the codes to our highest human potential.

With more than 18,000 graduates to date, his in-depth online courses have transformed the lives of seekers in over 85 countries worldwide. These courses offer practical spiritual tools and training that are in step with our times and informed by an integral understanding of the human condition.

In this unique training ground, Craig brings together core insights and approaches based on decades of on-the-ground research at the leading edge of spiritual practice and inquiry. He has personally logged over 17,000 hours of meditation, including multiple intensive retreats, the longest of which was six months in duration.

He is a founding member of Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute, creator of The Practice of Direct Awakening, and host of the Meditation Changes Everything podcast featuring talks and guided meditations.

United States

Marco V Morelli is a poet, writer, editor, and publisher by vocation; a founder of Cosmos Cooperative, Metapsychosis journal, and the Infinite Conversations forum; and the author of I AM THE SINGULARITY, a book of visionary poetry due out from Untimely Books in late 2025. Born in New York City to immigrant parents from El Salvador and Italy, he completed his undergraduate studies at Binghamton University with a double major in Philosophy and Comparative Literature. He worked with Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute from 2003-2007, co-authoring the book Integral Life Practice. Through Cosmos Cooperative, he has created a dynamic hub for writers, artists, scholars, and community builders dedicated to “the goodness, truth, and beauty of the world” through transformative projects that integrate theory and practice, spirituality and creativity, individual development and collective action.