We are very pleased to announce the following keynote speakers
for Bioneers by the Bay 2009. Please check back for updates.
Will
Allen
Is an urban farmer who is transforming the cultivation, production,
and delivery of healthy foods to underserved, urban populations.
In 1995, while assisting neighborhood children with a gardening
project, Allen began developing the farming methods and educational
programs that are now the hallmark of the non-profit organization
Growing Power, which he directs and co-founded. Guiding all
is his efforts is the recognition that the unhealthy diets
of low-income, urban populations, and such related health
problems as obesity and diabetes, largely are attributable
to limited access to safe and affordable fresh fruits and
vegetables. Rather than embracing the “back to the land”
approach promoted by many within the sustainable agriculture
movement, Allen’s holistic farming model incorporates
both cultivating foodstuffs and designing food distribution
networks in an urban setting. The internships and workshops
hosted by Growing Power engage teenagers and young adults,
often minorities and immigrants, in producing healthy foods
for their communities and provide intensive, hands-on training
to those interested in establishing similar farming initiatives
in other urban settings. Through these and other programs
still in development, Allen is experimenting with new and
creative ways to improve the diet and health of the urban
poor.
Will Allen received a B.A. (1971) from the University of Miami.
After a brief career in professional basketball and a number
of years in corporate marketing at Procter and Gamble, he
returned to his roots as a farmer. He has served as the founder
and CEO of Growing Power, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, since 1995
and has taught workshops to aspiring urban farmers across
the United States and abroad.
www.growingpower.org
Robin
Chase
Is founder and CEO of GoLoco,
an online ridesharing community. She also founded and leads
Meadow Networks, a consulting firm that advises city, state,
and federal government agencies about wireless applications
in the transportation sector, and impacts on innovation and
economic development. Robin is also founder and former CEO
of Zipcar,
the largest carsharing company in the world
She served on the Massachusetts Governor’s Transportation
transition team, and the Boston Mayor’s Wireless Task
Force. She is on the Board of the World Resources Institute.
Robin lectures widely, has been frequently featured in the
major media, and has received many awards in the areas of
innovation, design, and environment, including Time 100 Most
Influential People in the World. Robin graduated from Wellesley
College and MIT's Sloan School of Management, and was a Harvard
University Loeb Fellow.
www.goloco.org
Paul
Epstein, M.D., M.P.H.
Paul is a physician trained in tropical public health,
and worked in medical and teaching capacities in Africa, Asia
and Latin America. He has worked with the IPCC, the NAS, NOAA
and NASA to assess the health impacts of climate change.
Dr. Epstein coordinated Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological
and Economic Dimensions, with Swiss Re and the UNDP, assessing
the risks and opportunities from climate change, and prepared
the report Healthy Solutions for the Low Carbon Economy: Guidelines
for Investors, Insurers and Policy Makers, examining energy
options through the environmental health lens, with support
from the Wells Fargo Foundation and the Global Roundtable
on Climate Change.
Paul received recognition for his contributions to the work
of the IPCC, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
Chge.med.harvard.edu
Paul
Hawken
Is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and author.
Starting at age 20, he dedicated his life to sustainability
and changing the relationship between business and the environment.
His practice has included starting and running ecological
businesses, writing and teaching about the impact of commerce
on living systems and consulting with governments and corporations
on economic development, industrial ecology and environmental
policy. He is author and co-author of dozens of articles,
op-eds and papers, as well as six books including The
Ecology of Commerce (1993) and Blessed
Unrest (2007). Paul heads the Natural
Capital Institute a research organization located in Sausalito,
California. The Natural Capital Institute has created a hub
for global civil society, WiserEarth.
It is a collaboratively written, free content, open source
networking platform that links NGOs, funders, businesses,
government, social entrepreneurs, students, organizers, academics,
activists, scientists and citizens.
www.paulhawken.com
Winona
LaDuke
Is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi
Band Anishinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth Reservations,
and is the mother of three children. As Program Director of
the Honor the Earth Fund, she works on a national level to
advocate, raise public support and create funding for frontline
native environmental groups. She also works as Founding Director
for White Earth Land Recovery Project. In 1994, Winona was
nominated by Time magazine as one of America's fifty most
promising leaders under forty years of age. She has been awarded
the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, the Black, Indian, Hispanic
and Asian Community Service Award in 1997, the Ann Bancroft
Award for Women's Leadership Fellowship and the Reebok Human
Rights Award, with which she began the White Earth Land Recovery
Project. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, Winona
has written extensively on Native American and Environmental
issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and
serves, as co-chair of the Indigenous Women's Network, a North
American and Pacific indigenous women's organization.
www.honorearth.org
nativeharvest.com
Nipun
Mehta
Is the founder of CharityFocus, a fully volunteer driven organization
started in 1999 to inspire the young IT professionals to provide
free web based solutions for nonprofit organizations worldwide.
Having served thousands of nonprofits, without any overhead,
CharityFocus has now become an incubator of "gift-economy"
projects ranging from web services to a film production company
to a print magazine to a restaurant. With a membership base
of 250,000, they attract millions of global viewers to its
websites.
www.charityfocus.org
Dr.
Elisabet Sahtouris
Is an American/Greek evolution biologist, futurist, author
and speaker, living in Spain. With a post-doc at the American
Museum of Natural History, she taught at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Massachusetts,
contributed to the NOVA-Horizon TV series, is a fellow of
the World Business Academy and a member of the World Wisdom
Council. Her venues include The World Bank, UN, Boeing, Siemens,
Hewlett-Packard, S. African Rand Bank, Caux Round Table, Tokyo
International Forum, Australian, New Zealand and Netherlands
Governments, Sao Paulo business schools and State of the World
Forums. Author of EarthDance: Living Systems
in Evolution; A Walk Through Time: From Stardust to Us and
Biology Revisioned with Willis Harman.
www.sahtouris.com
Dr.
Vandana Shiva
Is trained as a Physicist and did her Ph.D. on the subject
“Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory”
from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. She later
shifted to inter-disciplinary research in science, technology
and environmental policy, which she carried out at the Indian
Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management
in Bangalore, India. Dr. Shiva is one of the world’s
most renowned environmentalist. Time Magazine identified Dr.
Shiva as an environmental “hero” in 2003 and Asia
Week has called her one of the five most powerful communicators
of Asia. Dr. Shiva has pioneered the organic movement in India
and established Navdanya, the country’s biggest network
of seed keepers and organic producers. Dr. Shiva has authored
many books including Soil Not Oil, Earth
Democracy, Stolen Harvest, Staying Alive, Water Wars and Biopiracy.
Among her many awards are the Alternative Nobel Prize (Right
Livelihood Award, 1993), Order of the Golden Ark, Global 500
Award of UN and Earth Day International Award, Lennon Ono
grant for peace award by Yoko Ono and Honourable Mayor of
Reykjavik. Dr. Shiva also serves on the boards of many organizations
including World Future Council, International Forum on Globalization
and Slow Food International.
www.navdanya.org
Woody
Tasch
Is Chairman and President of Slow Money, a 501(c)3 organization
formed in 2008 to catalyze the flow of investment capital
to small food enterprises and to promote new principles of
fiduciary responsibility to support sustainable agriculture
and the emergence of a restorative economy. For ten years,
through 2008, Tasch was Chairman of Investors' Circle, a network
of angel investors, family offices, and social purpose funds
and foundations that has invested $133 million in 200 early
stage sustainability-promoting ventures and venture funds,
since 1992. During much of the 1990s, Woody was Treasurer
of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, where, as part of an
innovative mission-related venture capital investing program,
a substantial investment was made in Stonyfield Farm, now
the world’s largest maker of organic yogurt. Woody has
worked as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, board member
and consultant with such organizations as Prince Ventures
(a healthcare venture fund), Healthdata International, CERES
(the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies),
National Mentor, Greenway, the Nantucket Education Trust,
the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Northwest Area Foundation,
CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center)
and The Farmers Diner. Woody's involvement in food dates back
to 1979, when he developed a case study program at The International
Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (home of Norman Borlaug's
dwarf wheat and the "green revolution"); he co-authored
Food Production and Public Policy in Developing
Countries (Praeger Special Studies). He has been Founding
Chairman of several NGOs: the Community Development Venture
Capital Alliance (supporting over 100 small-scale venture
funds that target economically disadvantaged regions), Sustainable
Nantucket (environmentally responsible growth management on
Nantucket Island) and the Nantucket Education Trust (affordable
housing for teachers).
www.slowmoneyalliance.org
