Raleigh native and UNC graduate Ken Felder is something of an enigma. His piercing intellect and reasoning have served him well in science and business. In just three years he achieved every software start-up's dream: he sold his company One Tree Software to Microsoft for millions, after humble beginnings in his own living room. He became a Microsoft project manager for Visual SourceSafe, the programmer's tool he created at One Tree, then moved to one of Microsoft's most innovative research groups—the Natural Language Group. But Felder is also a lifetime spiritual seeker, and so must grapple with questions of meaning, of faith, of matters that can't be neatly measured on a scale or plotted in a graph for a quarterly report.

In his witty, interactive lecture, Felder speaks candidly of the intersections of business and daily life with the spiritual. He addresses questions such as: What do you do with the nagging questions about God, or your life's purpose? How do you use logic, reason, and scientific principles in your spiritual life, while still believing in the value of faith? How can intellectual and philosophic discussion lead to real-life changes?

Both businessmen and students are impressed with Felder, who gave this lecture at UNC last year to a jam-packed auditorium. "Simply put, Kenny Felder is a genius. He has the uncanny ability to logically connect seemingly unrelated ideas and make them comprehensible to anyone," says Jay Hall, Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Elsinore Technologies. Jim Ray, UNC '01, reflects, "I always thought that having intense, late-night conversations about God made me a deep person. This lecture proved to me that there's actually something you can do to gain understanding. It's obvious that Kenny Felder has done more than just talk about these things."

At the forefront of the national interest in spirituality, the Self Knowledge Symposium's Collisions with the Infinite series features powerful speakers who tackle the question of meaning head on, telling stories audiences won't soon forget. And so far, audiences have been impressed: "Wow, I was blown away…I feel like this has been a life-altering moment….[The SKS is] building upon a foundation I've been working on for years. How exciting to find others with such similar views," says Alyssa Henley, Duke Medical Center.

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The Self Knowledge Symposium Foundation (SKSF) is an educational nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging people to consciously develop their own personal, moral and spiritual values and to live according to them. The SKSF creates experiential learning programs and social contexts within which people can explore the deeper questions in life, developing intellectual understanding and personal character in a quest for the life worth living. The Self Knowledge Symposium Foundation advises the SKS campus groups, sponsors a non-student discussion group, and co-sponsors meetings, lectures, retreats and The Symposium spiritual journal. For more information, visit www.selfknowledge.org.