Russ Ewell, Neighbor

Russ Ewell currently serves as a senior pastor at the Bay Area Christian Church in Palo Alto, California. He immerses himself and heads a wide range of activities that engage both his career values, morals, passions and personal life and work to promote his mission statement of promoting inclusivity and empathy on a variety of fronts.

He is the CEO and Founder of Digital Scribbler, a company which uses technology to help overcome human limits, and is the founder of E-Sports, a company which provides free inclusive sports programming for children with special needs. Both of these companies are fueled by a mission statement close to home, as Russ Ewell’s two children are both special needs and have encouraged his activism and passion for inclusivity.

He also is the co-founder of the Spiritual Resource Ministry, an inclusive program where children with special needs can participate in children’s ministry. This program uses technology and other assistive tools to aid the children’s development. Currently, he is also the president and co-founder of Hope Technology Group, a technology and education lab founded in 1996 for parents of children with special needs. The goal of this program is to foster achievement through innovation, technology, and community to facilitate students’ success.

He has built his breadth of experience through his extensive institutional education in tandem with his participation in conferences and seminars. He graduated from Boston University in 1982 with a degree in Economics and the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a Bachelor of Arts in Religion. His dissertation examined black religion in America. He continued his formal education from 2014-2015, where he took graduate level classes at Harvard University. However, his informal education never ended and will continue to fuel how he navigates his life.

He continues to use this education as a foundation to carry out his mission of inclusivity and universal empathy and has traveled all over the world to speak publicly at symposiums and reach a wide range of people with his mission. He has spoken both close to home, at the Bay Area Autism Consortium in 2015, and all the way across the world, at events in London, England (1987), Johanessburg, South Africa (1986), Hong Kong, China, (1991), and more. Refer to his resume for his full list of appearances.