World Happiness Fest · Case 2026
Duke Happiness Fest — leading with heart on campus
The inaugural Duke Happiness Fest created a setting for exploring happiness through ideas, relationships, and practice — a university festival that makes room for the whole person.
When
October 3, 2026
Where
Duke Wellness Center, Durham, NC
Edition
Inaugural festival
Featured talk
Lead with Heart — Luis Miguel Gallardo
The case
A festival that makes room for the whole person
The breadth of the Duke program matters. A life well-lived, the science of happiness and Different Roots, Shared Joy sat side by side — a conversation about meaning, evidence, and the cultural experiences through which people understand a good life.
People arrive with different histories, needs, and ways of learning. A community makes belonging more possible when it offers several ways to engage and takes those differences seriously. Happiness becomes a shared inquiry to which many kinds of knowledge can contribute.
The program
Many doors into a meaningful life
Ideas
A life well-lived, the science of happiness, and Different Roots, Shared Joy — meaning, evidence and culture in one conversation.
Happiness Circles
Meditation, yoga, and story and purpose. The Art of Noticing invited attention to small delights in the Meditation Garden.
Participation
Student posters, mandala-making and Live for Life activities offered further ways to take part.
Body and the arts
Resilient nature, better questions, community service, writing, play, Tai Chi and Qigong, a sound bath, mindful eating, and a resilience conversation and piano performance.
Featured talk
Lead with Heart: Building New Paradigms for Human Happiness
What becomes possible for others because of the way I lead?
Luis Miguel Gallardo's contribution brought together three connected frameworks: Happytalism, Fundamental Peace, and ROUSER — connecting personal well-being to collective responsibility, and inner life to shared conditions.
Happytalism
Orienting societies, economies and institutions toward freedom, consciousness and happiness for all.
Fundamental Peace
Freedom, consciousness and happiness, explored within ourselves, between people, and among communities.
ROUSER
The inner instrument of leadership that turns these values into everyday practice.
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