Ryan Veltmeyer is a professional musician and youth community developer. Before co-founding Youth Art Connection with Ann Denny in 2012, Ryan worked with the Halifax Public Libraries, the HeartWood Centre for Community Youth Development, Arts Express and other organizations to engage youth in leading in their lives and in their community. As Co-founder of Youth Art Connection, Ryan has been able to bring his two great passions together of art and community youth development. Always taking action and innovating to use the power of youth and the arts to address social and economic issues, Ryan has also spoken at various conference and events and participated in national and regional leadership programs including 21 Inc and the Banff Centre for the Arts’ ‘Getting to Maybe’ program for system entrepreneurs. Ryan believes that art, creative activism and the open-mindedness of youth is key to finding new solutions to complex problems.