Biographies
Speakers
- James Dakin
James is the founder of Teaching Freedom, a project dedicated to creating respect based education systems for mainstream education, to ultimately transform the way we teach, nurture, respect and serve our children. Having taught or worked in almost every type of school within the UK, James has extensive experience of the issues facing schools, teachers and children throughout society. He sees the potential of education to generate healthy citizenship, communities, ethnic and racial tolerance and an awareness of the importance of child honouring within healthy society and is dedicated to the creation of respect based educational systems around the world.- Top of page
- John Duggan
John Duggan is Chairman of Gazeley, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wal*Mart. He has been responsible for growing Gazeley into a leading European developer of warehouse space. He is also a member of the board of the US China Centre for Sustainability, a member of the US advisory council for the Prince of Wales' Business and the Environment Programme and is Chairman of the Milton Keynes Parks Trust. He has a commitment to demonstrating "how business can help to create a sustainable world".- "Gazeley is committed to ensuring that all our people, our business activities and processes are aligned around its shared vision and values. We have developed a vision, in consultation with our colleagues, based on their values to 'be a global provider of logistics space' with a clear purpose: 'to inspire business to work with nature to create a sustainable world.' "
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- Scilla Elworthy
Dr. Scilla Elworthy founded the Oxford Research Group in 1982 and was Executive Director until December 2003. It is for this work that she was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize in 2003 and nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. She then founded Peace Direct, which grew out of O.R.G.'s conflict prevention work, became an independent NGO with charitable status during 2004, and was named 'Best New Charity' at the Charity Awards 2005.- Top of page
- Prof. Tim Flannery
Tim Flannery is one of Australia's leading thinkers and writers. An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, Tim's books include the definitive ecological histories of Australia (The Future Eaters) and North America (The Eternal Frontier). His pioneering work in New Guinea led Sir David Attenborough to describe him as being 'in the league of the all-time great explorers like Dr. David Livingston'. His new book, The Weather Makers, released this month, prompted the following from a certain Tony Blair: "Almost uniquely, The Weather Makers provides insights not only into the history, science, and politics of climate change, but also the actions people can take now that will make a difference."- Top of page
- Gill Hicks
Gill lost both her legs below the knee, but miraculously not her life, to a bomb in London's Underground on 7 July last year - and then walked down the aisle on prosthetic legs at her wedding five months later.- Taking every chance to change people's perspectives by her own positive attitude, she says: "I'm dedicating my life now to making sense of why I donated my legs. How do I give thanks to those who risked their lives to save me, and who operated on me? How do I live a life that really makes a difference in cause and effect?' (photo: Edmund Clark)
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- Lynne Franks
Lynne started her own public relations firm from her kitchen table at the age of twenty-one. It grew to become one of the best-known public relations agencies in the world, advising and guiding multi-national businesses and non-profit organisations around the globe. After twenty years in PR, Lynne left her agency in 1992 and became an international spokesperson and facilitator on the changes in today's and tomorrow's world - both for the individual as well as the society at large. Seeing the demand for women to create businesses in a new, feminine way, Lynne designed workshops and training programmes that bring her new ideas and methods to life. SEED has become the provider of one of the most internationally recognised women's enterprise training programmes, as well as a global network for women entrepreneurs.- Top of page
- Zulfi Hussain
Zulfi is a much-respected business leader, whose non-profit organisation Global Promise brings businesses together to serve the community, both locally and internationally. It was started in response to the Asian tsunami, and has raised over £2 million for relief there and in Pakistan following the recent earthquake. Here in the UK, Global Promise works creatively to extend social inclusion, particularly among ethnic minorities and disadvantaged groups. Some of the young people Zulfi has worked with will be joining him at Be The Change. Zulfi is also CEO of Global Synergy Solutions, providing training, coaching and other services to businesses, with particular sensitivity to different cultural needs. He has won numerous awards for his personal and professional achievements and his contribution to the equality, diversity and social inclusion agendas.- Top of page
- Lindsay Levin
Lindsay Levin is a successful business woman, entrepreneur and also the Founder of Leaders' Quest, a social enterprise that works as a catalyst for positive change by bringing together international leaders from different sectors on innovative and challenging programmes in India, China, Southern Africa and elsewhere. Their work is focussed on shifting mindsets and breaking down stereotypes; connecting leaders from business with those from charities, government and civil society to build bridges that cross sectors, cultures and often deeply held beliefs.- Top of page
- Christer Lidzélius
Christer is the director of KaosPilot International, with responsibility for the internationalization of the program and the commercial activities in the organization. He is an alumnus of KaosPilot - a new concept in tertiary learning, which he describes as being 'about hope, learning, playful leadership and how to navigate in times of turbulence'. Christer took his MBA at Herriot-Watt University in Scotland. Prior to the current position he has been CEO of a handful of smaller companies in Scandinavia. His expertise lies in the areas of Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Business Development.- Top of page
- Bernard Lietaer
Bernard Lietaer is Research Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Resources of the University of California, Berkeley and was Professor of international finance at the University of Louvain. He has been involved in the world of money systems for more than 25 years, with very wide ranging experience and achievements. Bernard is cofounder of the Access Foundation, an international, educational, non-profit organization dedicated to the betterment of mankind through the understanding and use of complementary monetary innovations.- He co-designed and implemented the convergence mechanism to the single European currency system (the Euro), and served as president of the Electronic Payment System in his native Belgium. For multinational corporations he developed the first models of global currency management and he co-founded and ran one of the largest and most successful currency funds. He has consulted with developing countries on four different continents to help them improve hard currency earnings. His most recent books are The Future of Money (2000),Of Human Wealth (2006) and the new Report to the Club of Rome, Money and Sustainability: the Missing Link (2006)..
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- Peter Merry
Peter Merry is an Evolutionary Change Facilitator. He works primarily in three areas - organisational transformation, societal transformation and training in what he does. Informed by Ken Wilber's Integral approach, Don Beck's Spiral Dynamics Integral, and other evolutionary thinkers and practitioners such as Ervin Laszlo, Margaret Wheatley and Otto Scharmer, he is interested in what it all means when you put it into practice. He is a founding partner of Engage! InterAct, Fellow of the Center for Human Ecology (Scotland) and Co-Director of the Center for Human Emergence (Netherlands). He has lived in the Netherlands for the last seven years and is now part of a major societal transformation process that pulled 900 people together within a few weeks for a kick-off event. His book "Evolutionary Leadership" was published first in Dutch at the end of March this year.- Top of page
- Heskel Nathaniel
Heskel is the founder of 'Breaking the Ice' named after their first epic journey last year in Antartica. This March, ten men and women - Christians, Jews and Muslims from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the former Soviet Union and the USA - will come together in mind, body and spirit to cross the Sahara desert and the territories of five different countries and cultures. They are on a four-week journey from Jerusalem to Tripoli, crossing some of the harshest terrain on the planet. The participants will confront physical and spiritual terrain that has witnessed conflict throughout the centuries. Testing themselves against the challenges of their surroundings and their own conflicting relationships, they can only succeed if they rely on and trust one another. When their journey is over, Heskel will bring 2-3 of the group with him to Be The Change...- Top of page
- Susan Norman
Susan Norman's background was initially in language teaching and she is the published author of more than 40 books on language specifically, and teaching generally. She has always been interested in how learning takes place - both theoretically and practically - and has been an active member of SEAL (Society for Effective Affective Learning) for more than 15 years. Since 2000 she has been its Co-Director, and involved in all aspects of learning and education. Susan presents regularly at international conferences.- Top of page
- Galit Oren
Galit Oren is a resident of Tel Aviv. Galit received a Master's degree in Business Administration from Tel Aviv University, specializing in organizational behavior. She worked as a facilitator at the "Adam Institute for Democracy and Peace" from 1991 to 1996.
Between 1996-2004 Galit worked as a Senior Organizational Consultant and Director of Organizational Development at "Dialogue".- In 1995 her mother was killed on a bus randomly targeted by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv. Since then she is a member of the Bereaved Families Forum for Peace, Reconciliation and Tolerance. An organization of Israeli and Palestinians bereaved families. As an active member in this forum she participates in seminars to the members of the forum, and facilitates encounters about peace and reconciliation with students and adults.
- Galit works today in the Open University in Israel, and teaches a course about international management.
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- Prof. David Orr
David Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College, Ohio. He is best known for his pioneering work on environmental literacy in education, advocating a holistic, cross-disciplinary approach that teaches students to think widely and laterally about the world and their role in and impact on it. A visionary leader, he spearheaded the creation of the Environmental Studies Center at Oberlin, a ground-breaking eco-design now recognised as a milestone building of the 20th century. Professor Orr has received many awards, including three honorary doctorates and a Bioneers award in 2003. He has written over 150 articles and five books on humankind's relationship with the environment.- Top of page
- Martin Rogers
Martin was a finalist for Young Australian of the Year 2006. He's 25, and believes that leadership is about pointing the way towards a better understanding of sustainable practices. A direct example of this was his voluntary work with the Little Bay Water Sustainability project that led to recycled water and better stormwater practices.This gave him a valuable insight into community consultation processes and liaison with peak organisations and key high level stakeholders.While studying for his double degree in engineering and science, Martin took on initiatives that have made positive contributions to his community and beyond, notably his establishment of a community think tank. The Kensington Group focuses on community debate and discussion about a sustainable environment and has already held several forums with international specialists. Martin is also facilitating the South Pacific Environmental Network with the help of UN funding.- Top of page
- Neda Sarmast
Born in Iran in 1969, Neda Sarmast moved to the United States at the age of 9 and has traveled back and forth between the two countries ever since. She lost her best friend in the Iran-Iraq war at the age of 16 to a massive heart attack when an Iraqi aircraft bombed their neighborhood. She was an eye-witness to much of the fighting. During the hostage crisis of 1979, when Americans were held captive by Iranian revolutionaries, and again in 9/11, as a US citizen, Neda was placed in a difficult situation. In America she would find herself defending the Iranians and their point of views and in Iran, she would find herself defending the Americans and their way of life.- With her unique understanding on both sides of the conversation, Neda brings a credible voice and perspective to the current conflict between the US and Iran. Feeling that Iranians and Muslims have not been depicted honestly in the US media, she recently left a prospering music career in New York to become a documentary filmmaker, embracing her passion to promote tolerance and understanding. Her first documentary film, "Nobody's Enemy", was shot in Iran and will be released later this year.
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- Stan Thekaekara
Stan Thekaekara first became involved in social activism through a national student movement in India. He went on to live in a tribal village in Bihar for a number of years. Subsequently he founded a number of grassroots NGOs in various parts of India. In 1986 he and his wife Mari co-founded ACCORD, and have spent the past 20 years mobilising the adivasis of the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu in South India to fight for their social, political and human rights. Adivasis are an indigenous people outside the Hindu caste system and represent about six per cent of the Indian population.He currently works as the Director of JUST CHANGE, which seeks to create a new model of fair trade. He has also worked as a consultant and trainer on community organisation, group dynamics, leadership and other development issues, is the first trustee of Oxfam GB from a developing country and a Visting Fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Said Business School, Oxford University.- Top of page
- Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is a realized yogi and mystic from South India who embodies the universal truths of the great spiritual masters of East and West, transcending all religious divide. His mastery of the mechanisms of life, an outcome of his experience of the yogic science, guides others in exploring the subtler dimensions of life. A visionary, humanitarian, and prominent spiritual leader, Sadhguru has launched several projects to serve as models for rural upliftment, education reform, environmental stewardship, and holistic and healthy living. He has also introduced
renowned initiatives for world peace, outreach programs for life-term prisoners, destitute children, and embattled women.- Top of page
- Stewart Wallis
Stewart's previous career includes seven years at the World Bank, and working as International Director at Oxfam, where he was responsible for 2500 staff in 70 countries and for all Oxfam's policy, research, development and emergency work worldwide. He is now Executive Director of the new economics foundation, an independent organisation that is re-defining economics, putting people and the environment first, rather than market forces and the bottom line. nef works with all sections of society from government to individuals, business to academia, to promote and create change. Stewart will be co-chairing the session on Finance and the Earth at Be The Change this year.- Top of page
- You
- Your participation is essential to ensure we all explore how we can Be The Change. We will provide opportunities for people to share expertise and ideas as well as reflect and share thoughts and feelings at the event:
- WORLD CAFÉ
You are invited to step in and co-create Be The Change's living network of conversations around questions that matter. With the opportunity to meet in smaller dialogue groups, we'll explore some questions we hold - what inspires us? what new insights do we have? how might we intend to take our new learning forward into our life/work? - questions which lie at the heart of our capacity to share knowledge and shape the future together. Noticing the deeper patterns that connect us, insights will be converged and fed back to the whole.
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Workshop Leaders
- Carl Johan Calleman
Carl Johan Calleman has been a student of the Mayan calendar for more than 25 years and has written two books on the subject. He has lectured and given courses on this topic in about twenty countries and is currently considered as a world leading expert in the field. He is currently promoting the Breakthrough Celebration that will start May 27, 2006. In this he collaborates with Sri Bhagavan, Ervin Laszlo and Don Aljeandro Oxlaj, who is the head of the council of elders of the Maya. Carl Johan Calleman has a Ph.D in Physical Biology from the University of Stockholm and was Senior Researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle at its department of Environmental Health during the period 1986-1994. In his scientific career he among other things served as an expert on cancer for the World Health Organization. - Top of page
- Ted Klontz
Ted's workshop, Learning vital skills for making a difference, will provide an opportunity to learn about and practice the most effective model of change known today. Participants will be provided a working knowledge of the specific skills that have been identified as some of the best of those that support personal change, and promoting beneficial change in others.- Ted Klontz is a noted international teacher, coach, speaker, consultant, workshop designer and facilitator, whose professional career spans over forty years. He is president of Onsite Workshops, a therapeutic workshop provider; co-founder of Klontz Coaching providing private change and relationship coaching to individuals, couples and families. He is co-author of The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge, The Living Theater, and numerous research and professional articles.
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Stan Thekaekara
In 1986 Stan and his wife Mari co-founded ACCORD, and have spent the past 20 years mobilising the adivasis of the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu in South India to fight for their social, political and human rights. Adivasis are an indigenous people outside the Hindu caste system and represent about six per cent of the Indian population.He currently works as the Director of JUST CHANGE, which seeks to create a new model of fair trade, and his workshop will look into the prospects for community ownership of trade. One example of this would be the direct trading relationships that Just Change is working to set up with communities here in the UK. (See above for further info on Stan.)
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Concert (Friday night)
- Chloe Goodchild
Chloe's long musical career began with teaching music in schools, and now encompasses performing, recording CDs, running workshops and seminars, and training others to facilitate her singing programs. Chloe embraces singing as a tool for deep listening, communication and mediation, incorporating contemplative and therapeutic listening skills and meditative movement, which leads to greater self-confidence and spontaneous creativity in those who participate.- It was in India that Chloe had a profound and direct encounter with her own true nature, an experience of the 'resonance of Being' prior to conditioning by culture or creed. She calls this the 'naked voice' and has dedicated many years to enabling thousands of others to access their own 'naked voice' or core self.
- Fierce Wisdom is an important musical milestone - bringing Chloe firmly onto the public stage, and with some of the finest contemporary musicians. The album - which combines Rumi, Indian chanting, and jazz - was first performed at Covent Garden for the launch of Peace Direct. Be The Change marks its second London performance.
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Hosts
- Jim Fadiman
Jim is our 'host' - a job the generously shares with the group of us who are steering Be The Change. He's a professor of Psychology, a writer of fiction and a business consultant - and he's been closely involved in many of the key developments in the humanist psychology movement from the 60s on - from succeeding Abraham Maslow to helping form Noetic Sciences and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. For a fascinating insight into Jim's life, have a look at this interview.- Top of page
- Lawrence Bloom
Lawrence has had an innovative, highly respected and successful career in the property business. While in charge of Inter-Continental Hotels' property portfolio, he developed an environmental manual, subsequently endorsed by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales and adopted by all the major 5-star hotel groups worldwide. In 1996, Lawrence decided to take a prolonged sabbatical and began to travel the world extensively, furthering his studies of business and spiritual philosophies and practice. Lawrence's personal focus is on raising awareness of the need for individual, cultural and organizational transformation, based on sharing best practice and breakthrough technology.- Top of page
- Ursula Capell
Ursula's work in the TV and branding industry lead her to seriously question communications and the personal and business integrity behind them. Realising this, she took time out to explore what she really wanted her life to be about - and discovered that others could benefit from this space too. In 2002 she founded The Create Space Company, a facilitation company working with people and business to have space to question their real priorities and work to help their actions achieve that. Ursula is also working with her partner developing eco-housing in Northern Iraq.- Top of page
- Christopher Cooke
Innovator of Social and Organizational Architecture through the application of Integral Elaboration Strategies; Christopher's background as a water engineer, has allowed him to pioneer the application of the knowledge and wisdom present in natural designs in order to co-create habitats that enable emergence for individuals, organizations, regions and countries. Co-creator of Be-the-Change, Christopher works internationally as a trainer, consultant, coach and confidante in the social change processes that impact all aspects of human activities. He continues to be inspired by discovering 'what is truly possible' in the fields of business, medicine, science, economics, ecology, education, politics and personal development.- Top of page
- Tatiana Glad
Tatiana Glad is passionate about hosting meaningful conversations that lead to meaningful action for our Selves and our Planet. A skilled facilitator of learning processes and a consultant for sustainability and social responsibility, Tatiana is a partner of Engage! InterAct, co-founder of Waterlution, and a social entrepreneur. Tatiana's professional and educational background is in entrepreneurship and international business, holding a MSc in Responsibility & Business Practice. She is committed to building life-affirming and
resilient leadership for whole systems change.- Top of page
- Nick Hart-Williams
Currently the full-time 'organiser' of Be The Change, Nick has had a lifetime in media, with particular interest in sustainability and change. He was founder of the Other Cinema; a documentary Commissioning Editor at Channel Four; a documentary film-maker (Greenbucks, Prophets & Loss); and an internet and multi-media entrepreneur.- Top of page
- Colin Morley
Colin was one of the most active members of our core group until his tragic and untimely death in the July 7 London bombing. If you click here you will get a powerful sense of what the loss of Colin has meant to us all. And yes, he's still with us!- Top of page
- Helen Jane Nelson
Helen-Jane focuses on Organizational Transformation and serves leaders in building visionary and values driven organizations. She works with multicultural Leadership Teams on a global basis and specializes in Cultural Transformation and Leadership Development / Executive Coaching. She is a qualified practitioner of key integral methodologies which she applies for whole system change with clients.- Top of page
- Sir John Whitmore
Recently voted Britain's top business coach, John works with major Public and Private sector clients in UK, Scandinavia, Central Europe, Russia and Australia. Best selling author (Coaching for Performance), journalist and lecturer. Founder of The May Lectures in 1974 - and 30 years later co-creator of Be The Change. Introduced the transpersonal into coaching and lectures worldwide on coaching. Co-founder of two coaching consultancies, one here and one in Australia. Ex-professional racing driver, British and European Championships.- Top of page