Peter Laugharn

Executive Director, Firelight Foundation

Peter Laugharn has been the Executive Director of Firelight Foundation since July 2008. Previously, Peter served as Executive Director of the Netherlands-based Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF), a private foundation that funds and shares knowledge about work in early childhood development and children’s rights. Peter worked for more than 11 years in a variety of roles for Save the Children USA, with much of his extensive experience focused on Africa. As Save the Children’s Deputy Director in Mali, Peter helped develop the “Village Schools” model, which promoted access to basic education, girls schooling, and community participation. He was later Save the Children’s West Africa Area Director and then Education Adviser for Africa, providing technical assistance for programs in 10 countries. Currently a member of the Council on Foundations International Committee, Peter is also co-chair of the Inter-Agency Task Team on Children and HIV and AIDS.

http://firelightfoundation.org/

Carmel Jud

Founder & Executive Director, Rising International

Carmel Jud is Rising International’s Founder & Executive Director. In 2002, Carmel gave up the successful business she’d founded and built for 20 years and launched Rising International, the first non-profit to use the home party business model to contribute to solving poverty. Rising International sells crafts made by the world’s poorest people – women. In addition, Rising trains under-employed women in the U.S. to run their own Rising Home Party businesses. Today Rising works with women in 27 countries, focusing on areas of the world where it’s the hardest to be alive as woman. Carmel has been featured in the press both locally and internationally including as Huffington Post’s Greatest Person of the Day. She is also a proud recent recipient of the 2012 Woman of the World award.

http://www.risinginternational.org/

Howard Martin

Howard Martin is one of the original leaders who helped Doc Childre found HeartMath. In 1999 he co-authored The HeartMath Solution published by HarperSanFrancisco and he has been with HeartMath’s world-wide training and consulting team since its inception in 1991. In 2000 he authored The HeartMath Method, an audio learning program published by Nightingale Conant. He is also the producer of two award-winning musical recordings including Doc Childre’s Heart Zones which spent 50 consecutive weeks on Billboard Magazine’s music charts. Howard speaks internationally on developing new intelligence needed to navigate life during changing times.

David Merrill

co-founder and president of Sifteo

David Merrill is co-founder and president of Sifteo, a company based in San Francisco building the future of play. Sifteo’s first product is a tabletop user interface system made of wireless graphical tiles that enables unique intelligent play applications. David is a graduate of the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab. His work explores how human interactions with computers can leave the limitations of the desktop interface behind, through the development of physical-digital tools that operate comfortably in our real-world environments. He has lectured in computer science at Stanford University and led music controller design workshops at the MIT Media Lab. David holds a MS in Computer Science and BS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, and a MS and Ph.D. from the MIT Media Lab.

Terrie Williams

Director of the Marine Mammal Physiology Program

Terrie Williams, PhD is a Co-Founder of the Center of Ocean Health and Director of the Marine Mammal Physiology Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has spent her life studying how big animals survive on our changing planet, from Alaskan killer whales to African cheetahs. Her research expeditions have taken her to the wildest places on earth. During these expeditions she has witnessed marked human impacts on wild animals. In response she directed the rescue of oiled sea otters following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill and has been recording the effects of climate change on Arctic and Antarctica marine mammals. Her most recent work involves working with the most endangered marine mammal in U.S. waters, the Hawaiian monk seal. By creating a new research facility that promotes integrative learning between humans and animals she hopes to revive the human-animal bond that is essential for our future survival.

Gonan & Johan Premfors

Gonan and Johan are the main drivers behind the coaching and human consciousness movement on the Arabian Peninsula. Both are faculty members of the Coaches Training Institute (San Rafael, Ca.) They are the founders of Parentology, a relationship philosophy and series of workshops, currently delivered on four continents. Johan and Gonan have worked with thousands of people including business leaders, families, professional athletes, and governments. Gonan is from Istanbul, Turkey but has lived in Dubai since 1988 where she enjoyed a long career in finance before embarking on the human development path in 2005 by bringing the Coaches Training Institute and professional coaching to the Arabian Peninsula. Johan is from Stockholm, Sweden but grew up in Pakistan, Kenya and Turkey. He is a former private banker turned telecommunications entrepreneur and later professional coach. They live in Dubai with their teenage daughter.

Annie Morhauser

founder of Annieglass

Ann Morhauser is the founder of Annieglass, a highly successful line of glass tableware sold through the finest luxury stores and resorts in the nation. Handcrafting her products in Northern California since 1983, Ann developed her company throughout the years to become one of the largest and most successful American glass studios. Ann’s work is in the collections of such noted museums as the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Luce Foundation Center for American Art in Washington DC; the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, Scotland; and the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York. She is an active fundraiser for hunger, children’s health, and art education. She mentors young women in business.

Rachel Pike

Rachel Pike works at venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, where she invests in clean technology and mobile companies. Prior to joining DFJ, Rachel completed her Ph.D. in atmospheric chemistry at the University of Cambridge. During her time there, Rachel served as President of the Gates Scholars community, worked on a field campaign in Malaysia, and gave a short TED University talk on the scale of scientific research behind climate headlines. Previously, Rachel earned a B.A. in chemistry and a minor in African studies at Northwestern University. As an undergraduate, Rachel co-founded Fusion dance company, which has since become the largest dance company on campus. She also spent a year in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she gained experience working on a Bus Rapid Transit planning project as an assistant consultant.

Tess Dunn

Tess Dunn’s voice has been described as passionate, real and “gorgeously raspy.” Dubbed in the media as “the young and the fearless,” this sixteen-year-old singer-songwriter from Santa Cruz writes songs that “…delve into deeper and darker spaces than the pop stars of her time.” Diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF), diabetes and epilepsy, Tess faces issues of mortality that infuse her music and lyrics with richness and haunting depth. Pursuing her musical dreams at a dizzying pace, Tess performs throughout the Bay Area (including at the Vans Warped Tour shows at Shoreline Amphitheatre), and has opened for artists including Karla Bonoff, Iris DeMent and Nina Storey and released her first album, “Darling Just Walk,” in 2009. Tess says that living with CF is “…like having a clock ticking over your head, but it has a way of putting things in perspective,” and her music explores issues of love and trust. An affecting advocate for anyone battling life’s challenges, Tess encourages others to shake off self-pity and to live fully. To listen to Tess is to be inspired.