Evert Bopp is a self-described "low-flying Dutchman" who has made Ireland his home. After 15 years in commerce- and revenue-driven fields in the tech industry, Evert founded Disaster Tech Lab in 2010 to provide rapid response communication networks for use in disaster relief and humanitarian aid work globally by responding organisations, as well as affected communities.
Christy Stickney is an international development consultant with over 20 years of experience designing, evaluating and documenting innovative, market-based development initiatives. She has developed particular expertise in housing micro finance, and worked as regional Director of Housing Finance at Habitat for Humanity International, overseeing the design and implementation of innovative projects in shelter finance and construction throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. She has published ov...
Nesreen Barakat has more than 20 years of experience in the area of economic and social development, working with government, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector in Jordan. Recently, she served as a Minister of Social Development, Minister of Public Sector Development and General Director of the National Aid Fund. Prior to that, she was a Council Member at the Greater Amman Municipality, Economic Advisor to the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) and a D...
Timo Lüge is a Communications and Advocacy Consultant working mainly for UN agencies, NGOs and the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. He has been working in the humanitarian sector for seven years and worked as a journalist for nearly ten years prior to that. During emergency response operations, Timo works mainly on public information and media relations. When in Europe or the US, he focuses on how digital technology can be better used to support emergency management and humanitarian relief opera...
Kyle Schutter is the Founder and Managing Director of Takamoto Biogas . Trained as an engineer at Brown University, Kyle researched biogas in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana and the USA before in 2011 he founded a company that constructed individual biogas systems for small-scale farmers in rural Kenya. After two years of operations, Kyle invented the Takamoto Pay-As-You-Go Biogas business model and technology to enable more people to access renewable energy without a large up-front capital investm...
David Shorr has spent most of his career as an analyst working with leading think tanks, philanthropies and advocacy groups across a broad range of foreign policy issues, and is currently working to wind down the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation ’s nuclear security program. Before he was engaged on that project, he spent 14 years with the Iowa-based Stanley Foundation , developing constructive new approaches to the world's compelling challenges, including the evolution of the G-20, climate...
Malini Patel is the Senior Director for Middle East and North Africa and Acting Senior Director for Economic Empowerment at Vital Voices Global Partnership . She is responsible for vision and leadership; day-to-day program and financial management; program design, quality and integrity; new business development; and internal and external relations. With 20 years of international development experience, Ms. Patel has led teams globally in Europe, the Caucasus, Africa, Middle East, Latin America a...
Erin Bourgois is Project Manager of Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity (CASC) , a non-profit based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia that provides medical, legal, and psychosocial support to survivors of acid attacks, as well as working to eliminate acid violence through raising awareness, research, education and advocating for strict regulatory action at the national level. Previously, she served as Programmes Manager for Acid Survivors Trust International in the U.K., and worked as Senior Financial Manage...
Jonah Ayodele Obajeun is Chief Curator of Tolerance Academy , a Nigerian non-profit youth membership-based organization that he founded in 2010 with the aim of establishing peace-building and democratic systems that empower young people to make responsible decisions concerning their development. In addition to his efforts with Tolerance Academy, Obajeun works as a Customer Service Operations Manager for the Nigeria operations of a multinational consumer goods company, and is a multi-award winnin...
Farzeen Ferdous Alam is the Founding President of OGGRO, a development organization based in Bangladesh. He started OGGRO while in high school and subsequently dropped out and continued his studies privately in order to dedicate time to OGGRO during its infancy. His risk paid off when OGGRO won the prestigious Youth Solidarity Fund award of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAoC) in 2009. The following year he was honored by MTV Staying Alive Foundation UK for “outstanding achieveme...
Kathleen Cronan is Executive Director of Earthlinks , a Denver, Colorado non-profit organization that provides a paid-work program offering low-income and homeless people an opportunity to learn skills and create eco-friendly products, which are sold to support the program. She has extensive experience working with Denver’s nonprofit community, both as a volunteer and in various leadership roles, and in addition, has practiced law for more than 30 years in the Denver area....
Nida'a Nasser is Youth Leadership Project Coordinator at Baladna—the Association of Arab Youth , and research assistant at Mada al-Carmel - Arab Center for Applied Social Research . She was awarded a degree in Social Work from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2008, and an M.A. in Research of Conflicts and Struggles at the College of Social Sciences. Nida'a has worked as a project coordinator in a number of civil society organizations, including the Society of Public Advocacy in Jerusalem, t...
Development consultant Jason Wares splits his time between the non-profit and for-profit worlds as Managing Director of North Carolina’s Community Nutrition Partnership , devoted to increasing access to fresh, local, affordable food, and Managing Director of Safe Water , a company that provides sanitation and disinfection solutions in a wide range of industries. Wares has development experience on five continents as a strategic and financial management consultant for organizations including the ...
Francine Pickup is Strategic Planning Advisor, Asia-Pacific, for the UNDP . She has 15 years of experience in humanitarian and development organizations in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. In her current role, she developed the regional priorities in the UNDP Strategic Plan 2014-17, and leads the planning, monitoring, reporting and communication of results and performance achieved by the UNDP’s Asia-Pacific bureau. She worked as Head of the Research and Analysis Unit of OCHA in the occu...
Mansoor Abbasi is the Executive Director and co-founder of The Intercivil Society - a not-for-profit company that works to reduce poverty, protect the environment and improve community relationships. The Intercivil Society creates opportunities to help people improve their own situations, whether economic, social or environmental. Mansoor is experienced in training, group facilitation and dispute resolution – both community and workplace – with specific expertise in facilitating “difficult” conv...
Ian Philp is the Director of The Clean Energy Institute, a Canadian public-private partnership that aims connect high potential energy technologies with international market opportunities and to establish a flagship position in the global clean energy economy. Previously, Ian worked with a boutique investment bank focused on energy efficiency investments, and as an international trade lawyer defending Canada’s renewable FIT program. Ian was also a UN legal and constitutional advisor to the Iraqi...
Richard Catherall is Executive Director of Cyprus-based Katarsis Ventures, which works primarily in transition states and post-conflict zones to help make social change happen by enabling big money to connect with big, undiscovered ideas. Catherall also has a U.K. focus, through Radical Capital, which aims to shape the UK social investment market. Catherall says, "I am investing and actively involved in nurturing the conditions for innovation, supporting leadership through enterprise and encoura...
Charles McJilton is the CEO and founder of Second Harvest Japan, and came to Japan for the first time in 1984 with the U.S. military. He returned in 1991 to conduct research at Sophia University as part of his undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota. During that time he lived in San'ya, a low-income area that many Japanese would not recognize as a part of Tokyo, or Japan, and in an effort to better understand the challenges facing the area’s residents, many of whom live below the po...
BeCause Global Consulting CEO Nadine Hack has advised leaders of Fortune 500 companies, heads of state, and other organizations globally on clarifying and achieving their goals. She has served as a non-executive director on for- and not-for-profit boards, including as chair, vice chair and committee chair for governance and nominating. She was the first woman to serve as Executive-in-Residence at IMD Business School and continues to work in executive education programs providing guidance to seni...
Tibor Vörös has over 15 years of experience both in academic and corporate environments. He has worked in various management areas (knowledge management, decision making, business intelligence, information systems) as practitioner, but he also researched these topics and evaluated corresponding frameworks from the theory point of view. Vörös holds an MSc in Maths, Physics and Information Technology and is a Senior Lecturer at Central European University Business School. His research work ranges ...
Sue Miller is Director of Programming and Training for Peace Corps Georgia , and oversees the development and delivery of training programs for Peace Corps volunteers in Georgia, as well as bearing responsibility for programmatic direction, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, site development, and strategic partnerships for the three Peace Corps projects in Georgia: English Education, Organizational Development, and Peace Corps Response. Prior to assuming her current position, she worked ...
Phil Bright is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Specialist at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community – a technical assistance organization covering the island nations of the South Pacific. Phil’s work focuses on supporting census activities and includes capacity building, planning, implementing and analyzing census data. Prior to joining SPC he was a Research Assistant at Curtin University of Technology.
Sigrid Gruener is a program manager at the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation who focuses on peace building, security and development. Prior to joining the Foundation, she worked as a practitioner, trainer and researcher in the field of development, peace building and conflict transformation for International Solutions Group, Relief International, and Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution. Sigrid earned a master's in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School o...
In 2005, American writer and editor Ken Budd's father collapsed and died after a heart attack. After that shock, with his 40th birthday looming, Ken had a few questions about his own life that suddenly seemed more urgently in need of answers. Over the next couple of years, he traveled the world, volunteering with a wide range of organizations, and wrote a book that covers his adventures as a ‘voluntourist' in six countries, travels he made with and without his wife Julie, in pursuit of the answe...
Fresh out of university, Tim Ludford volunteered in Nigeria with poverty-focused British development organization VSO. On his return, he got a job selling mobile phones, but his volunteering experience had made him realize development was a career, and that it was possible to get paid for helping people. He put out a few feelers, and landed a job in London with JICA, Japan's overseas aid development organization. Ludford works now as an independent humanitarian aid and development consultant, ha...
Michael Klein is the Director of the Washington. D.C.-based International Solutions Group, a humanitarian aid and development-focused management consulting firm that specializes in program performance, private sector development, capacity building and information technology development.
Barbara Pierce Bush is the daughter of former President George W. Bush and co-founder in 2009 of Global Health Corps , which provides opportunities for young professionals from diverse backgrounds to work on the front lines of the fight for global health equity. Global Health Corps pairs its fellows with organizations that require new thinking and innovative solutions, and works right now in Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia....
During a 35-year-long career, oilman Rod MacAlister has mostly worked in Africa, managing businesses, but also keeping an eye on and supporting the communities in which he was working. He served as president of the U.S. African Development Fund for several years, and with primatologist Jane Goodall, built an orphanage and sanctuary for chimpanzees in the Congo that is the largest in Africa. Other projects he has spearheaded include building toilets for rural schools in Gabon, and establishing a ...
Claire Hajaj is an independent political analyst and writer who over the course of her career has produced recommendations for G20 responses to the Arab Spring, the UN’s first integrated strategy for Iraq, and advised the UN on a five-year plan for development and peace consolidation in Kosovo. She has also worked as a journalist, and a public affairs consultant.
