AbouT one

ONE - Organization of Networks for Empathy is a global platform that enables multidisciplinary, multisector, and multicultural collaborations to deepen our understanding of empathy, and to develop strategies, scholarship, and empathy-building experiences that consider the wellbeing of the Whole —all of humanity, our kin that we share our world with, and our planet. ONE utilizes Designing for Empathy® as an intellectual framework, which offers a non-dualistic perspective on empathy within the context of the Oneness Mindset, inspired by the Sufi philosophy of The Oneness of Being. ONE’s journey began with the Empathy-Building Through Museums Initiative in 2014, and produced seven Empathy Summits, first of which was hosted by HH The 14th Dalai Lama in 2018, in Dharamshala; and, two reference books:  Fostering Empathy Through Museums (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) and Designing for Empathy: Perspectives on the Museum Experience (American Alliance of Museums, 2019), both edited by Elif M. Gokcigdem, PhD. A third volume in the series: "An Empathy-Building Toolkit for Museums" will be published by the American Alliance of Museums and Bloomsbury in 2026. In 2021, Dr. Gokcigdem founded: Elif M. Gokcigdem, LLC (d.b.a ONE - Organization of Networks for Empathy), a consulting firm based in Virginia, USA, that offers empathy-based capacity-building solutions customized for groups, organizations, and systems, while inspiring a global community of empathy-builders to gather for exploration, collaboration, and innovation. Contact: info@oneempathynetwork.com

Elif M. Gökçiğdem, PhD is a pioneer in imagining and positioning museums as incubators for empathy-building. She designs social-contemplative encounters that nurture meaning-making and unlock the vast, often hidden human potential to perceive and experience an ever-widening sense of relatedness and belonging. After coining the term empathy-building through museums in 2006, Elif went on to create the Designing for Empathy® framework and set up ONE - Organization of Networks for Empathy (oneempathynetwork.com), a global collaborative platform and consultancy. Elif has also curated and chaired the Annual Designing for Empathy Summit & Workshops since an inaugural event in 2018, hosted by His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama in Dharamshala. An Empathy-Building Toolkit for Museums (American Alliance of Museums & Bloomsbury, 2026) is Elif’s third book, following Fostering Empathy Through Museums (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) and Designing for Empathy: Perspectives on the Museum Experience (American Alliance of Museums, 2019). Elif, who grew up in Istanbul, holds a doctorate in Art History and has woven a fascination with Sufi mysticism into her academic research, college teaching, museum work, and experience design. Her underlying motivation is to nurture spaces where humanity can come in touch with the infinite capacity for expansiveness made possible through heart-to-heart connections. Contact: info@oneempathynetwork.com | @ElifGokcigdem | @one.empathy.network

Short Bio:

Elif M. Gökçiğdem, PhD is a pioneer in positioning museums as empathy-building incubators. She designs encounters that nurture meaning-making and unlock human potential to experience an ever-widening sense of relatedness and belonging. After coining the term empathy-building through museums in 2006, Elif created the Designing for Empathy® Framework, Summit, and Workshops, published three books and set up ONEempathynetwork.com.