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HHS Global Entrepreneurship Week
The Impactful Innovations & Entrepreneurship in Health & Human Services Committee proudly hosts this 2025 Global Entrepreneurship Week panel in partnership with Sacramento State’s Carlsen Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship plays a vital role in advancing health and human services. By fostering creativity and leadership, it encourages professionals to approach challenges with fresh ideas, develop sustainable solutions, and create meaningful change in their communities.
While this panel highlights innovation in health and human services, the insights apply far beyond the field. Students from all majors, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members are invited to learn how entrepreneurial thinking can spark new opportunities in any area of study or career path.
Panel Information
Date: Wednesday, November 19
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (PST)
Location: Online (Zoom)
Format: Panel discussion with experts across health and human services
Join us for a dynamic session where Health and Human Services professionals share how they transformed their experience and ideas into successful ventures that make a difference in their communities.
Zoom Information
Join the Event: HHS Global Entrepreneurship Week Zoom Link
Meeting Format: Panel Presentation facilitated by Dr. Scott Thompson, PT, EdD, Physical Therapy Department Chair
If you have accessibility needs, please contact the HHS Dean’s Office by Monday, Nov. 17 for accommodations.
Speaker Information
Ben Bagge, PT, DPT
Pro Kinetix Physical Therapy & Performance
Dr. Ben Bagge, PT, DPT, CSCS received his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa and a Bachelors Degree in Kinesiology from the University of Northern Iowa.
He is the founder of Pro-Kinetix Physical Therapy, a cash-based service with locations in Oakland, Des Moines, and San Diego.
Ben’s specialty is helping athletes and active individuals find ways to allow them to continue to workout while rehabbing from injury. Ben also enjoys helping his clients bulletproof their body from injury by improving their overall mobility and completing biomechanical assessments of their desired lifts (squats, deadlifts, power cleans, snatches, etc…). Ben has also been an instructor in a variety of different settings, from local consulting with CrossFit gyms/athletes, youth athlete clubs, and professional sport organizations.
In Ben’s free time he enjoys strength training, playing pick-up basketball, and reading.
Joyce Mikal-Flynn, Ed.D., FNP, MSN
Professor, School of Nursing, Sacramento State; Founder, MetaHab
Dr. Joyce Mikal-Flynn, Professor in the School of Nursing at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS), received her Doctor of Education from St. Mary’s College and Masters of Science in Nursing at CSUS focusing on trauma-informed care with an emphasis on building resilience and posttraumatic growth (PTG). She developed the word, Metahabilitation, to describe a more optimistic and productive outcome in the aftermath of trauma. Her research provided a strengths-based clinical pathway guiding individuals toward PTG. Her post-doctoral research focused on how traumatic experiences build resilience and bring forth PTG in secondary and vicarious trauma survivors and communities, along with the course she created at CSUS, Traumatology: An Introduction to Posttraumatic Growth; she continues researching, lecturing, and directly applying Metahabilitation in various rehabilitation and recovery settings. Her publications include Turning Tragedy Into Triumph; Metahabilitation, A Contemporary Model of Rehabilitation (2012), and a second book, Anatomy of a Survivor: Building Resilience Grit and Growth After Trauma, published in April 2021.
Stephen Waters, CEO
First Step Communities
After a lengthy career in the private sector, Mr. Watters returned to CSUS and completed a master’s degree in Socio-Cultural Anthropology in 2012. He began teaching anthropology at Los Rios Community College District that year and in 2015 founded a nonprofit First Step Housing, dba First Step Communities (FSC). FSC has matured into an influential provider of homeless shelters and services programs in the Sacramento Region. FSC employs a number of CSUS graduates in various key positions.
Previously, Mr. Watters has been actively involved in efforts to create a model homeless transitional community with medical services and other appropriate training programs, diverse services, and collaborative partner agencies since 2009. He served as a volunteer, board member and later, executive director, of Safe Ground Sacramento for several years and then founded FSC, bringing together diverse advisory and executive boards to work closely with public and elected, city and county officials.
First Step Communities
First Step Communities provides emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness, offering a place to live in safety and dignity while receiving the services needed to take their first step toward self-sufficiency and permanent housing. We exclusively operate low-barrier shelters, ensuring minimal entry requirements so that everyone has access to support and resources on their path to stability. Our programs are designed to be accessible to all, with a focus on removing barriers, building connections, and increasing access to mental health and healthcare services. Today, First Step Communities operates four shelter programs—North A Street, The Grove, Roseville Road Campus, and Stockton Blvd Safe Stay—as well as an outreach and emergency weather respite program, serving over 400 individuals in Sacramento each night.
Carlsen Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
The Carlsen Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship leads Sacramento State’s campus-wide celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week, featuring workshops, panels, and networking opportunities that inspire innovative thinking and collaboration.
Explore all GEW events on the Carlsen Center website
Contact Information
For more information contact:
Dr. Abhijeet Shirsat, Committee Chair
College of Health & Human Services Dean's Office
916-275-7255