MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER

MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER:
INCLUSIVE AND SUSTAINABLE GROWTH IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC
ASIA 21 YOUNG LEADERS SUMMIT
Singapore – October 5-7, 2007
Profiles
Sunil Abraham
Sunil Abraham is Director of International Relations for Mahiti Infotech Pvt. Ltd., an India-based organization
that he founded in 1998. The aim of Mahiti (www.mahiti.org) is to reduce the cost and complexity of Information
and Communication Technology for the voluntary sector by using free software. Mr. Abraham was elected an
Ashoka.org fellow in 1999 and a Sarai.net fellow in 2003. He is a sub-board member of the Open Society
Institute’s Information Programme (www.soros.org/initiatives/information) and the HIV Human Development
Resource Network (www.hdrn.org). Between June 2004 and June 2007, Mr. Abraham also managed the
International Open Source Network (www.iosn.net), serving forty-two countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The
IOSN is a Centre of Excellence for Free/Open Source Software promoted by the United Nations Development
Programme’s Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (www.apdip.net).
Inshan Ali Nawaz
Inshan Ali Nawaz is Chief Operations Officer of The First MicroFinanceBank Ltd. (FMFB) of Pakistan. The
FMFB follows a unique model for a bank, being the first private sector microfinance bank formed under Pakistan’s
Microfinance Institutions Ordinance of 2001. Its mission is to reach out to the very poor by providing need-based
financial services. Mr. Ali Nawaz’s work involves managing a branch network of more than fifty branches,
overseeing new product development, improving the quality of development, establishing a training academy and
risk management department, and implementing institutional building measures. Prior to joining FMFB, he
worked for ABN AMRO and the Standard Chartered Bank. He majored in Finance at the Institute of Business
Administration and received an MBA and BBA (with honors) in December 1995. He also currently serves on the
Board of Directors of Tourism Promotion Services, Pakistan, which manages six hotels and properties in Pakistan.
Faiysal Alikhan
Faiysal Alikhan is Commercial Director for DHL Pakistan and the chair of the Commission on
Customs and Trade Regulation of Pakistan’s International Chamber of Commerce. He is also the
founder of the Foundation for Integrated Development Action (www.fida.com.pk), a
nongovernmental organization based in Dera Ismail Khan, N.W.F.P., which focuses on rural
development and sustainable livelihood. Mr. Alikhan is also a board member of the Rural Support
Programmes Network (www.rspn.org) and a member of the ICC-PNC. He graduated from the
University of Kent, Canterbury, U.K., where he double majored in Business Administration and
Politics.
Scott Allan
Scott Allan manages South Asian counterterrorism policy at the U.S. State
Department. Previously he served as a counsel for the Congressional U.S.-China
Economic and Security Review Commission, and the 9/11 Commission. At the 9/11
Commission he focused on extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also worked
as special counsel to former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard
Holbrooke, as a law clerk at the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal, and as a Wall Street
lawyer. Mr. Allan is a graduate of Georgetown University and of Duke University’s law school. He is a member
of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society’s Young Professionals’ Steering Committee (DC). He
enjoys competitive sailing and foreign cuisine.
Niret Alva
Asia 21 Fellow
Niret Alva is the President and Co- Founder of Miditech, an Indian media company. Mr. Alva
has had a long and distinguished career as a reporter, presenter, anchor, and director. He began
his career as a television reporter for PTI-TV in 1988. After four years of the rough and tumble
of reporting Indian politics, he started Miditech with his brother Nikhil Alva in 1992. He is now
one of India’s best-known media professionals, with several national and international awards
to his credit, including Asian Television Awards for best anchor and best infotainment program.
As the creative head of Miditech, he has supervised highly successful shows such as Indian
Idol, Fame Gurukul, Wheels, Hospital, Commando, Top Drive, Style,
and Saara Akash, and has written and produced award-winning documentaries for the international market.
Kashif Amjad
Kashif Amjad is the CEO and Managing Director of Slimtel Pty. Ltd. and is one of the
leading experts in Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) in Australia, if not the
world. He oversees the day-to- day running of Slimtel and has succeeded in growing the
business at a sustainable rate, while providing excellent customer service. Slimtel has been
featured on A Current Affair as one of the cheapest providers and has won Money
magazine’s coveted Best of the Best Award. From 1998 to 2003, Mr. Amjad was at
Simplus Pty. Ltd., a subsidiary of Optus and one of the largest service providers of the
Optus Network. He started as a business analyst and rose quickly to become a Senior
Manager in General Manager Business Development. Prior to this, Mr. Amjad had several management
accounting roles at The Smiths Snackfood Company and Burns, Philp & Co. Mr. Amjad is involved in many
community projects, including a website that helped raise $500,000 for the Pakistan Earthquake Appeal and such
events as Bravehearts, Barnardos, World Vision, and Red Shield Appeal. He takes a strong stand in the community
on social issues such as peace, harmony and interfaith dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Sutapa Amornvivat
Dr. Sutapa Amornvivat is currently Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in
Washington, DC. Prior to joining the IMF, she served as Advisor to the Thai Senate
Committee on the Economy, Commerce and Industry and as Director of the Macroeconomic
Analysis Section at the Fiscal Policy Office of the Thai Ministry of Finance. She lectured at
various universities in Asia, including Hitotsubashi University, the Indian Institute of
Technology, Chulalongkorn University, and Thammasart University. She conducted
research on regional economic policy issues at the World Bank in Washington and the
Harvard Institute for International Development in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. She received an undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and a
Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Rinto Andriono
Rinto Andriono is Director of the Institute for Development and Economic Analysis (IDEA) of Indonesia, where
he puts to use his years of experience in helping residents of poor communities participate in budget processes
and receive the public services they need. His work in poor and rural villages near Yogyakarta has taught him
how to overcome the public’s rampant cynicism and empower the disenfranchised. He does this by showing them
how to demand public accountability from elected officials by participating in the local budgeting processes. Mr.
Andriono and his colleagues are now working to provide those same crucial skills to communities throughout
Indonesia. He has created a School for Budget Advocacy to develop and test tools that inspire grassroots
participation and create budget literacy, using an approach that is appropriate for Indonesian contexts. The School
for Budget Advocacy is part of his larger vision of a national movement to equip citizens to scrutinize budgets
and ensure that public money is spent appropriately, enabling all citizens to fully realize their social, economic
and cultural rights.
Paolo Benigno A. Aquino IV
Paolo Benigno Aquino IV currently President Microventures, Inc. He was previously CEO
of the National Youth Commission, the main youth policy-making arm of the Philippine
government. Nicknamed “Bam,” Mr. Aquino is one of the Philippines’ most dynamic youth
leaders today and is the youngest person to head a government agency. He was initiated into
Philippine politics in 1983 when his uncle, Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., was
assassinated. Mr. Aquino took part in the succeeding protests and was one of the youngest
speakers. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Management Engineering from the
Ateneo de Manila University, serving as valedictorian of his batch
and Student Council president. He was the National Youth Commission’s Commissioner-at -Large for two years
before being appointed to his current position by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2003. His other advocacy
work includes being the spokesperson for Read to Lead and the Children’s Hour, and an ambassador of the
Haribon Foundation. Mr. Aquino also hosted Breakfast, a youth-oriented morning television talk show that aired
over ABS-CBN’s Studio 23.
Anita Arjundas
Anita Arjundas is Chief Operating Officer of Mahindra World City Developers Limited of
India. Her eighteen years of experience in three distinct industries, Fast-Moving Consumer
Goods, Information Technology, and Infrastructure/Real Estate, have helped hone her skills
in the areas of consumer insights, consumer marketing and business-to-business marketing.
New product development, managing large distribution networks, and relationship
management across local and international customer bases have been focal areas throughout
her career. In recent years, in her role as Business Head for the Mahindra World City project
of the Mahindra Group, she has been accountable for business
performance while also spearheading a team of professionals in addressing issues like environmental
sustainability, economic activity generation, and destination and country marketing. Ms. Arjundas has also briefly
taught marketing communications at a post-graduate business school.
Serafin Arviola Jr.
Serafin Arviola was appointed Director of the Philippine Normal University – Center for
Linkages and Extension Services last year, making him the youngest person to hold that
position. He has ten years of experience providing quality leadership in managing diverse
programs and teams, and in collaborating with government, community organizations, civil
society groups, and private citizens. He has also been honored for his work in the peace and
human rights movement, receiving the United Nations Youth Service Award in the field of
Peace and Human Rights Education from Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2004.
He received a three-month fellowship grant for Human Rights Activists
from the New York-based International Center for Tolerance Education this year. Professor Arviola has
represented the Philippines in a number of conferences on peace and human rights. He holds a Master’s of Arts
in Development Policy from the De La Salle University and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Peace and Security
Administration at Bicol University.
Sopon Asawanuchit
Sopon Asawanuchit is a Director at Imprimis Limited., a private investment and advisory
company focusing on providing capital and advisory services to small and medium-sized
operating companies in Southeast Asia. Prior to joining Imprimis, he worked for McKinsey
& Company and for Morgan Stanley’s Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance
departments, where he was extensively involved in the privatization and corporate
restructuring of several Asian state-owned enterprises during the Asian Financial Crisis.
He also served briefly as a special assistant to Thailand’s Vice Minister of Finance,
assisting the minister to evaluate the state enterprise development master plan. He is a
graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned his
B.S. (with high honors) in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and his A.B. (with high distinction) in
Economics while studying under the King’s Scholarship from His Majesty the King of Thailand as the country’s
top student. He also holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an M.P.A. in
International Development from Harvard University.
Michael Auslin
Michael Auslin is a Resident Scholar in Asian Studies at the American Enterprise
Institute, specializing in U.S.-East Asian relations, Japanese foreign relations, and AsiaPacific multilateral organizations. He is the author of Negotiating with Imperialism
(2004) and Japan Society: Celebrating a Century (2007), and a commentator in both
American and Japanese media. Previously he was Associate Professor of History and
Senior Research Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at
Yale University, where he founded the Project on Japan-U.S. Relations. Dr. Auslin is a
World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a
German Marshall Fund Memorial Fellow, a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Fellow of
the U.S.-Japan Leadership Program.
Maziar Bahari
Maziar Bahari is a filmmaker who has been Newsweek magazine’s Iran correspondent
for the past eight years. He started making films and writing during his teen-age years
in Iran, then continued his education at McGill and Concordia universities in Canada,
where he studied political science and film. His documentary films on Iran, Iraq, and
Africa have been shown by broadcasters and film festivals
around the world. He has also worked with international organizations such as UNHCR, UNICEF, and Amnesty
International as a filmmaker and writer. He has been the only filmmaker to travel to Iraq in the past four years.
Lida Baloch
Lida Baloch works as an Adviser and Program Officer to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in
Afghanistan. The main focus of her work is trying to strengthen the protection offered the
country’s women and to provide better opportunities for Afghan women. She has participated
in many conferences and workshops, including the Afghan Civil Society in Berlin in 2004 and
the Global Summit of Women in Germany in 2007. She has also served as a Board Member
for the Afghan Civil Society Forum.
Anna Bantug-Herrera
Anna Bantug -Herrera is Acting Director of the Asia Region at Chemonics International, a leading international
development consulting firm that works with international donors such as USAID and the World Bank. She directs
a multimillion-dollar global microfinance research project and has worked across Asia, including the Philippines
and Bangladesh. Previously, she ran a start-up Singapore-based ecotourism firm promoting destinations in Asia,
such as Nepal and Cambodia. She is an economic development specialist and has worked at the United Nations
in Bangkok and the APEC Secretariat in Singapore. Ms. Bantug-Herrera received an MBA in International
Business from Singapore’s Nanyang Business School and a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and French from
Virginia Polytechnic Institute in the United States.
Suzanne Basalla
Suzanne Basalla currently serves as Senior Country Director for Japan in the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD)
. Previous to assuming that position in 2006, she served for two years as the OSD’s Country Director for Japan.
She also served for thirteen years as an officer in the U.S. Navy, with tours in Asia, the Indian Ocean littoral
region, and Washington, DC. In the summer of 2001, she served as Director, Asian Affairs, National Security
Council. Her education includes: M.A. (Asian Studies) from George Washington University; B.A. (Asian Studies)
from University of Virginia; Naval War College; and Keio University, Japan (Visiting Scholar).
Christian Bennett
Christian Bennett is Group Executive for Government Strategy, Media and Indigenous
Affairs at Santos Ltd., a major Australian oil and gas producer with extensive interests
extending into South and Southeast Asia. He has overseen the revamping of Santos’s
strategies in these areas, and is particularly engaged in supporting Santos’s expanding Asian
and carbon business portfolios, including the world’s largest CO2 geosequestration project.
Prior to joining Santos in 2006, he was a senior Australian diplomat, and most recently
Australia’s High Commissioner to Brunei (2004-2006). He also served in Washington,
D.C., (1997-2000) and Zimbabwe; as an Adviser (North Asia) in the Office
of the Foreign Minister (2001-03); in the Prime Minister’s Department (2000-01); and on Australian delegations
to the United Nations and Geneva. Mr. Bennett volunteers in a mentor program for disadvantaged Aboriginal
youth and is on the board of a public health initiative.
Rika Beppu
Rika Beppu is a Managing Partner at Simmons & Simmons, an international law firm, and advises
clients on corporate law transactions as a solicitor qualified in England and Wales. Between 1996
and 1998, she worked in the firm’s Hong Kong office (and obtained her qualification as a Hong
Kong solicitor in 1997) and subsequently on secondment at a major Tokyo law firm. While in
Tokyo, Ms. Beppu was seconded to the Project Finance Department of The Japan Bank for
International Co-operation (formerly The Japan Export-Import Bank) in
March 1998, where she continued to focus on international transactions. She is a former Secretary of the Executive
Committee of the British Japanese Law Association. After obtaining a B.A. in Foreign Languages and Studies
from Sophia University in Tokyo, she studied English Law at the University of Birmingham and at De Montford
University, prior to passing the England and Wales solicitor’s exams in 1992. Ms. Beppu founded the firm’s
Tokyo office in 2001, and now leads a team of international lawyers.
Gulmina Bilal
Gulmina Bilal is a dynamic young Pakistani woman whose strong interest in political systems and advocacy is
evident in her work as a Project Coordinator for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and in her being twice elected
Central General Secretary of the Liberal Forum Pakistan, a national political advocacy initiative. Her commitment
to political advocacy has led to her involvement in numerous campaigns, both within Pakistan and outside. She
has written a report documenting the experience of women parliamentarians and an impetus report on the need
for reforms in the country’s Election Commission, and prepared a documentary that traced the political
contribution of Pakistani women. Ms. Bilal has spearheaded the development of a cyber political advocacy group
called Individual-land (www.individualland.com), which concentrates on civic and political issues. She writes
regularly for the opinion pages of leading Pakistani English newspapers and serves on the boards of the Center
for Civic Education Pakistan and the Bacha Khan Education Foundation. She is also an international trainer at the
International Academy for Leadership.
James Bradfield Moody
James Bradfield Moody is the General Manager, International Development, at the
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s
national governmental body for scientific research. He also sits on the advisory boards of
the Australian Government’s Bureau of Meteorology and the Bureau of Statistics and is a
board member of the National Australia Day Council and the Brisbane Institute. In 2001 he
was awarded Young Australian of the Year in Science and Technology. He was previously
Executive Secretary of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals Taskforce on Science and
Technology. He was recently named one of Boss magazine’s young
executives of the year and is also a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Dr. Bradfield Moody received
his Ph.D. in Innovation Theory from the Australian National University and was chief systems engineer for the
Australian Satellite FedSat.
Rachel Brunette-Chen
Rachel Brunette-Chen is a career Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of
State. She joined the Foreign Service in 2002 and has completed assignments at the
American Institute in Taiwan and in Washington, D.C. In July 2007, she moved to
China, and currently serves as second secretary in the economic section at the U.S.
Embassy in Beijing. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Ms. Brunette-Chen worked
as a business analyst for Deloitte Consulting in San Francisco. She first developed an
interest in Asia as a Rotary International high school exchange student in Japan from
1993-1994. She holds an M.A. and B.A. with Distinction and
Departmental Honors in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, and has also studied at Tsukuba University,
the Stanford Kyoto Center, the Inter-University Center in Yokohama, and the Catholic University of Peru. Ms.
Brunette-Chen is a U.S.-Japan Leadership Program Fellow and enjoys yoga, reading, spending time outdoors, and
exploring the restaurant scene in Beijing.
Gaurav Burman
Gaurav Burman is a Founding Partner of Promethean Investments. He participates in all of
the company’s investment decisions as a member of its investment committee and also
oversaw the successful launch of Promethean India. He has over ten years of expertise in
private equity, with investment experience in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Mr. Burman
started his career in 1995 in the Business Development Group of Dabur, India, a US $2.5
billion market-capitalized company in which he continues to be involved at the board level.
He joined Kleinwort Benson in 1997 in their private equity group and in 1998 moved to New
York to set up their media and technology private equity group, which he ran until
2005. In 2005 he moved back to London and founded Promethean Investments with two other partners. In addition
to his business interests, Mr. Burman sits on the International Board of Tufts University and is a member of the
Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).
Arnel Paciano Casanova
Arnel Paciano Casanova is General Counsel of the Philippine government’s Bases
Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) . His life story pays tribute to what can be
accomplished through faith in the dignity in labor, service to others, and the unwavering
hope that dreams do come true for those who persevere. Born to an unemployed diabetic
father and seamstress mother, his family of ten lived a dollar a day subsistence. Poverty did
not prevent him from working hard and sending himself and his
siblings to school. He worked different jobs to put himself through law school, serve as a student leader, train as
an urban planner, and earn an MPA from Harvard University. Mr. Casanova also received the Philippine Legion
of Honor for his service in the peace talks.
Joyce Chang
Joyce Chang is the Managing Director and Head of Emerging Markets Strategy and the EM Americas client
business at J.P. Morgan. She is responsible for formulating the firm’s economic and currency forecasts and asset
allocation recommendations for emerging markets. Her team includes 130 professionals based in 12 countries.
Ms. Chang was previously a Managing Director at Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers, and has also worked for
the United States Agency for International Development in the Philippines, Jordan, and India. She has been the
#1 ranked emerging markets strategist by Institutional Investor for ten consecutive years. She is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations and the Inter-American Dialogue and serves on the Board of Directors of Trickle
Up, EMPower and the New York Theater Ballet. In 2005, she was a recipient of a Marshall Memorial Fellowship.
Li Lin Chang
Chang Li Lin is Public Affairs Manager at Singapore’s Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), a
think-tank that seeks to foster good governance in Singapore through strategic policy
research and discussion. She coordinates the external relations and outreach programs of the
Institute. Prior to her current appointment, she was a Research Associate at IPS with
responsibility for coordinating the Institute’s work in the areas of international relations and
international law. She has written on Singapore’s bilateral relations with Malaysia, the
United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, and on U.N. Peacekeeping. Ms. Chang has
a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Kent in Canterbury,
U.K.
Richard Chang
Richard Chang is currently the Chairman of Shine Media (Ticker: SHNDU), a company pursuing opportunities
in China’s Traditional Media and Advertising industry. He is also the Managing Partner of Georgian Pine
Investments LP, a venture capital firm that invests in emerging growth companies in China and Asia. Mr. Chang
is a partner and advisor to Gobi Partners (Only Digital Media Venture Capital Fund in China with Disney, IBM,
NTT Docomo, and McGraw-Hill as strategic investors). Richard is also an advisor to the Chinese Government
through Infotech Pacific Ventures (the Venture Capital Arm of China’s (MII) Ministry of Information Industry).
On the media side, Richard has been an advisor to the Chinese actress Gong Li Mr. Chang co-founded Columbia
Pictures Asia, the first Hollywood film studio to produce Mandarin Language Films (Producers of Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou’s The Road Home(Winner 2000 Silver Bear – Berlin) and Not One
Less(Winner 1999 Golden Lion - Venice)). Mr. Chang is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy
(Western partner of the Council on Foreign Relations) and holds a Master of Arts in Politics, Philosophy and
Economics from Oxford University and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School, University
of Pennsylvania. Born and raised in Toronto, Richard now splits his time between New York and China.
Hing Chao
Hing Chao is Chairman of the Orochen Foundation, a nongovernmental organization
dedicated to preserving and reviving the cultural heritage of indigenous groups in
northern China. Since its inception, he has worked with leading international research
institutes to initiate pioneering projects that document and preserve the endangered
cultures of northeast China. As chairman of the Orochen Foundation, he has been active
in supporting local communities in a variety of ways, including alleviating poverty
through assisting in handicraft development, providing scholarships to indigenous
students, and revitalizing native traditions and festivals. In addition, Mr.
Chao raises awareness of minority cultures and disseminates knowledge of the indigenous groups of northern
China to a wider audience by means of publications and public exhibitions, lectures, and seminars at leading
international universities and institutions, including UCLA, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Hong
Kong History Museum.
Timothy Chen
Timothy Chen is Vice President of VIA Technologies, presiding over U.S. Sales and Marketing
and serving as special assistant to President and CEO Wen-chi Chen. His responsibilities
include VIA’s worldwide business development and strategic partnerships. He began his career
with VIA in 1996 in its Taiwan headquarters, where he managed the sales and marketing
offices in Japan and Korea. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University
of California Berkeley. Mr. Chen is also the CEO of CatchPlay, a digital entertainment
platform company, and Chairman of Dopod, the leading brand of Windows-based smartphones
in China.
Zhimin Chen
Dr. Chen Zhimin is Head of the Department of International Politics, School of International
Relations and Public Affairs and Associate Dean of the Institute of International Studies at
Fudan University in Shanghai. His research interests include international relations theory,
diplomacy studies, Chinese foreign policy and EU studies. Dr. Chen’s publications in Chinese
include Subnational Governments and Foreign Affairs (Beijing: Changzheng Publishing
House, 2001). His English publications include China’s Reforms and International Political
Economy (Routledge, 2007, co-edited with David Zweig). He received the Chevalier dans
L’Ordre des Palmes Academiques from the French Government
in 2006.
Jefferson Lanjie Chen
Jefferson Lanjie Chen, the Co-Founder and former Co-President of TECC (Technology &
Education: Connecting Cultures), currently works as an Analyst for Goldman Sachs
Investment Banking Division in Singapore. Previously he worked for Goldman Sachs Equity
Capital Markets in Hong Kong, after graduating from Tsinghua University with a B.S. in
Computer Engineering. He has been passionate about facilitating US-Asian youth
communication and culture exchange, as well as promoting information technology and
foreign language education in West China’s poverty-stricken areas. He joined the 2003
Goldman Sachs Global Leader Institute in New York and then co-founded the Sino-U.S.
student-run non- profit organization TECC, which was sponsored by a social entrepreneurship seed grant from
Goldman Sachs Foundation. In 2005 he received the Fritz Redlich Alumni Award from the Institute of
International Education (IIE) in recognition of his leadership in accelerating cross-continental youth
collaborations.
Shuaihua Cheng
Dr. Shuaihua Cheng is Programme Officer for Strategic Analysis and China at the
International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), where he is
responsible for strategic advice to the Chief Executive and for that organization’s newly
established China Programme. Before joining ICTSD in 2006, Dr. Cheng was a
Counselor for Trade and Development at the Shanghai Development Research Centre
and Board Secretary of the Shanghai WTO Affairs Consultation Centre. He is a member
of the OECD Advisory Committee of China Investment, an Associate Research Fellow
of the IMD-based Evian Group, a Salzburg Seminar Fellow, a Senior
Fellow of Pudong Academy of Development, on the faculty of the London-based Sustainability, and a guest
lecturer at the China European International Business School. He has written widely on issues related to trade,
sustainable development, and China’s role in the global trading system, for both policy and academic audiences.
His commentary has also been published in leading international newspapers. He was educated at the Fudan
University and the University of Oxford and is a Chinese citizen.
Cheng Han Tan
Professor Tan Cheng Han is the Dean of the National University of Singapore Law School. He
specializes in Business Law and has been a Visiting Professor at Peking University and the
East China University of Political Science and Law. He was appointed to the rank of Senior
Counsel in 2004 and a Specialist Judge in 2006. He has received many other appointments,
including ones as Vice President of the Singapore Academy of Law, member of the Securities
Industry Council, member of the Competition Commission of Singapore, member of the
Military Court of Appeal, Deputy Chairman of the Advisory Council on the Impact of New
Media on Society, Governor of the Asian Law Institute, and SecretaryGeneral of the Asian Society of International Law. He also serves as a director of numerous companies. He was
named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2005 and received the Public Administration
Medal (Silver) during Singapore’s 41st National Day Celebrations in 2006.
Frika Chia Iskandar
Frika Chia Iskandar is a Board Member of the PITA Foundation of Jakarta, Indonesia, and an outspoken advocate
on the subjects of HIV/AIDS and human rights. She has been a spokesperson on HIV/AIDS and related issues
since the year 2000. One of her key messages is that fighting for the rights of others must start by looking within
ourselves. She has spoken at various national and international events, such as the opening ceremony of the 7 th
International Congress of AIDS in Asia Pacific (ICAAP) in Kobe, Japan, and the 16th International AIDS
Conference (IAC) in Toronto, Canada. Mrs. Chia Iskandar has a background in Business and Communication
studies, and a degree in International Relations, but her education is ongoing, as she loves photography and has a
new interest in scuba-diving. She also works as an independent consultant and with the Asia Pacific Network of
People Living with HIV.
Karti Chidambaram
Karti Chidambaram is Founder and Director of Chess Management Services Pvt. Ltd., an
Indian company actively involved in Corporate Governance and Legal Compliance
Management. He holds a Business degree from the University of Texas, Austin, and a Law
degree from Cambridge University, England. His business interests include coffee, textiles,
legal, healthcare and management consulting, logistics, leisure and entertainment. He is a
member of the All India Congress Committee, the chairman of the Tennis Development
and Commonwealth Committee, a trustee of the Palani Temple in Tamil Nadu, and the cofounder of Karuthu, an online social forum advocating free speech. Mr.
Chidambaram was also an invitee to observe the U.S. Presidential Elections in 2004 and a fellow of the
inaugural class of the Aspen India Leadership Initiative.
Jen-Diann Chiou
Dr. Jen-Diann Chiou serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Intumit, Inc.
He is mainly responsible for the strategic planning and business development needed for
the company’s expansion in East Asia and North America. Intumit’s software products
have received awards from government agencies and are widely deployed by leading
companies such as TSMC, UMC, Honhai/Foxconn, Acer, IBM, Allianz, Cathay Financial
Group, Applied Materials, and Jardine Fleming. He is also on the faculty in the Department
of Information Management at National Taiwan University and several other research
institutions. He received a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) in 1998 and owns more than a dozen patents in Taiwan, China, and the United States. He also plays an
active role in his community, helping to shepherd the next generation of technology start-ups by sharing his
experiences with would -be Chinese entrepreneurs at such initiatives as the Epoch Foundation and Young
Entrepreneur Forum. In 2003 and 2005, Dr. Chiou was a delegate to the European Asian Young Leader Forum,
sponsored by the prestigious BMW Foundation of Germany.
H.S. Cho
H. S. Cho is the Senior Vice President at the Corporate Strategy Center of the Hyosung Group.
He is a member of the Management Committee (the supreme decision-making body of the
Hyosung Group) and a member of the Board of Hyosung Group’s several subsidiaries
(overseeing key decision making, strategic planning and operations) . His past experience
includes working as a consultant for Bain & Company of Tokyo and Seoul, where he was
responsible for Asian multinational corporations, and as a manager at NTT Communications
Corporation, the largest Telecom in Tokyo. He is a regular participant in the World
Economic Forum and was also selected as a member of the Asian Young Leader’s Forum by the Korea/Japan
Foundation in 2005. He graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Brown University/Yonsei University. He is
fluent in Korean, English, and Japanese, and is an enthusiastic lover of sports, traveling, photography, and
gastronomy.
Lucifer Chu
Lucifer Chu is the CEO and Founder of the Foundation of Fantasy Culture and Arts. He was born
in 1975 and graduated from Taiwan’s National Central University in 1998 with a B.S in electrical
engineering. He has dedicated himself to promoting fantasy literature because of his passion for
PC games and fantasy fiction. He also has developed the Opensource Opencourseware Prototype
System (OOPS), a “bottom-up” open source model designed to facilitate the sharing of knowledge
between the English- and Chinese-speaking worlds. In less than a thousand days, the volunteer
group has grown from two people in Taiwan to 2,400 volunteers from 22 countries around the
world. Mr. Chu received the Presidential Culture
Award in 2005. He also advises many Taiwanese institutions on topics related to innovation and e-learning.
Mui Hoong Chua
Chua Mui Hoong is a senior writer with The Straits Times, Singapore’s flagship English
language daily newspaper. She writes on political and social issues, and occasionally on
lifestyle issues. She has a degree from Cambridge University in English Literature and a
Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard.
Veuk Chum
Veuk Chum is the Secretary General of the Khmer Foundation for Justice, Peace, and
Development, a non-profit organization that reaches out to Cambodia’s orphan,
underprivileged, and homeless children. He joined the Khmer Foundation in 2003 as a
Second Secretary General and now oversees all of the Foundation’s activities. The mission
of the Khmer Foundation is to show the possibility of a brighter future to the children now
reduced to begging in the streets. Decades of conflict have left its scars on Cambodian
society, with children being the most vulnerable. The Khmer Foundation seeks to build a
more just society in which all Cambodians are free from poverty and can live with dignity.
It sees education as the key to building a sustainable and independent future and so it uses education to spread
the values of Peace (in mind), Justice (in action), and Development (both in action and mind).
Talgat Dairbekov
Talgat Dairbekov is a Senior Advisor on Corporate Affairs for Fintur Holdings B.V.,
which is one of the leading providers of mobile telecommunications services in the
Eurasian emerging markets, with operations in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and
Moldova. His previous experience includes working as a senior representative in
Almaty for 3Seas Capital Partners, serving as a General Director of the Eurasian
Media Forum (EAMF), acting as General Director of the “Big Idea Group”
advertising agency BBDO Kazakhstan, serving as Executive Director of Eurasia + ORT, working as a translator
in the Secretariat of the Economic Cooperation Organization in Tehran, and acting as a representative of the
Kazakhstan Center for Economic Development in Geneva and Paris. Mr. Dairbekov is a graduate of the Almaty
State Medical Institute and has a Bachelor’s of Law from the Adilet Law School. He also studied at Saint
Michael’s College in Vermont, U.S., under the Presidential “Boloshak” program, and received a diploma in the
French language from the Alliance Francaise of Paris. Mr. Dairbekov is a member of the Central Eurasian
Leadership Academy, founded by the East West Institute of New York City, and also belongs to the Society of
International Business Fellows of Atlanta.
Damdin Tsogtbaatar
Damdin Tsogtbaatar is the Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Mongolia. He received a
Master’s of Legal Studies in International Law from the Canberra School of Law (with
Distinction) and a Master’s degree in Political Science (with honors) with a specialization in
International Relations from the Institute of International Relations in Moscow. He has also
received certificates from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel in Jerusalem and the
Clingendael Institute of International Relations at The Hague. Mr. Tsogtbaatar speaks
Russian, English, Chimera, and Thai.
Jeffrey Daniels
Major Jeff Daniels of the U.S. Air Force is a Strategic Planner with the United States
Forces Korea in Seoul. He is pursuing a Master’s degree in Government with an
emphasis in Northeast Asia Studies. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from East
Carolina University and is a 2005 graduate of the Air Command and Staff College, a
graduate-level strategic and joint forces studies program. Mr. Daniels is a U.S. Air
Force Pilot with over 3,700 flight hours in the T-3, T-37, T-1, C-5 and his primary
aircraft, the C -17 Globemaster. In his previous position, he was the Wing Command
Post Division Chief at Charleston AFB, S.C., and a C-17 Instructor pilot. His future
goals include continued work in Northeast Asia in either the public or private sector. Mr. Daniels is married
with four children and enjoys sports, travel and, of course, flying.
Siddhartha Das
Siddhartha Das is a design consultant based in India with an international practice. He
specializes in working with spaces (heritage, museum, public, cultural, and thematic
exhibitions) and on publications (books, brochures, posters, and websites). He has a strong
affinity for using design to portray developmental themes and has worked with various
organizations that deal with traditional Indian crafts. Mr. Das has collaborated on museum
projects with the staffs of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Museum Rietberg
in Zurich, the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, and the Crafts Museum in Delhi. He has also
teamed with developmental organizations, ranging from the Aga Khan Foundation of
UNWFP to smaller nongovernmental organizations in Gujarat, as well as on craft communities across eight Indian
states and public spaces in Mumbai, Gujarat and Punjab.
Robert Allen Davis Jr.
Robert Davis is the Director of the Confucius Institute in Chicago and of the Chicago Public Schools’ Chinese
World Language Program, the largest K-12 Chinese language program in the United States. He lived in China for
three years and has led nine cultural immersion programs to China. In 2002, he received a full scholarship to study
at Peking University. He has served as President of the Illinois Chapter of the National Association of Asian
Pacific American Educators and is the education co-chair of the Chicago/China Sister Cities Committee. Mr.
Davis has raised over one million dollars to support the teaching of Chinese language and culture in the city of
Chicago.
Channa De Silva
Channa De Silva is the Director General and CEO of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Sri
Lanka. He has also represented the Sri Lankan government on the boards of such bodies as the Public Enterprise
Reform Commission, the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards
Monitoring Board, the Construction Guarantee Fund, the National Council for Economic Development (Capital
Market Cluster), and the Governance and Standards committees of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He
previously served the Sri Lankan government as Executive Director of the Board of Investment. He last worked
in the private sector in 2003, when he was Head of Strategy at the Eagle Insurance Company.
Enrique Dela Cruz
Enrique Dela Cruz is a Councilor in the Municipal Council of Baliuag, Bulacan, Philippines.
His peers refer to him affectionately as “Attorney Buko,” a nickname that was born when he
ran for president of his high school student council. While his opponent openly gave t-shirts
and pens to schoolmates, he could only afford to treat his friends to Buko (young coconut)
juice. As a councilor, he has remained an outspoken opponent of corruption, even to the point
of endangering his life and his political career. During his student days, Mr. Dela Cruz received
a scholarship to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he
completed a post-graduate fellowship on Leadership in 2002. He was then awarded the coveted
Chevening Scholarship by the British Council to attend the University of London, where he
earned a Master of Laws degree in 2004. He received several offers from
foreign law firms and multinational companies abroad, but because of his commitment to nationalism and
patriotism he chose instead to return to his country and a career in public service.
Nia Dinata
Filmmaker Nia Dinata was born in 1970 in Jakarta, Indonesia. She majored in Mass
Communication at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, then took special programs on film
production at New York University. She returned to Indonesia in 1995 and began directing
television programs and commercials and music videos. She made her feature film debut in
2001 with Ca Bau Kan (The Courtesan ). She received an award for Best Promising New
Director at the Asia Pacific Film Festival for the film. In 2003, she directed Arisan! (The
Gathering), a satirical comedy with a screenplay that she co-wrote with Joko Anwar. Arisan!
received critical acclaim for its boldness in portraying gay characters in a large
Muslim country. It earned numerous awards and has been screened in more than fifty film festivals around the
world. In May 2004, Ms. Dinata was invited to join the Cannes Young Directors Program. Her next feature film,
Janji Joni (Joni's Promise), was released in April 2005 to great acclaim. Her latest film, Love for Share (2006),
tackles the delicate issue of polygamy with sensitivity and has received many awards. Ms. Dinata is also doing
her part to develop young Indonesian filmmakers through her independent production company, Kalyana Shira
Films.
Thilakasiri Dissanyaka
Thilakasiri Dissanayaka is a Lecturer at the Maldives College of Higher Education in the
Republic of Maldives who has a lengthy history of public service in Sri Lanka. Born in 1971,
he got an early start on leadership by serving as head prefect and as president of many school
associations. In 1994 he entered Sri Lanka’s Sabaragammuwa University and was elected
President of the Student Council and the Faculty Council. After earning a B.A. in Languages,
he became a member of the executive committee of the Sri Lanka Liberal Party and later the
Propaganda Secretary of the Party. He then entered the government service as a teacher before
assuming his current position in 2006.
Barkha Dutt
Barkha Dutt is Managing Editor of NDTV 24x7, India’s leading English satellite television
channel, which is beamed to more than one hundred million homes across South Asia and the
Middle East. She is also the host of India’s most popular talk show, We the People, which was
selected the Best Talk Show for five consecutive years by the Indian Television Academy. Her
area of specialization is conflict reporting, including frontline reporting from Kashmir,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and the Middle East. She has been the recipient of several national
and international awards, including the Global Leader for Tomorrow from
the World Economic Forum and the Commonwealth Broadcasters’ Award for Best News Reporting.
Dennis Eclarin
Dennis Eclarin is the Founder of Hometown Corporation, a microfinance company that strives
to alleviate poverty in the geographically isolated highland and island towns of the Philippines.
After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Major Eclarin served
as a combat commander in the elite Scout Ranger Regiment of the Philippine Army. While in
the war zones, he authored two books on combat techniques. He then became convinced of the
need to fight another war by advocating social entrepreneurship. Thus, he founded Hometown
Corporation, a company solely dedicated to serving the hard-to-reach areas of the Philippines.
Dale Edmonds
Dale Edmonds is the Founder of the Riverkids Project, a non-governmental organization that aims to stop child
trafficking in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Ms. Edmonds is a New Zealand citizen who was born and raised in
Singapore. When she adopted four children from Cambodia, she learned first-hand about the tragedy of child
trafficking and started Riverkids more than a year and a half ago to offer alternatives. The Riverkids Project aims
to do so by providing an education for children, by enrolling them in school and offering them extra academic
assistance, by providing a support structure for these children, by strengthening bonds between parents and
children, and by teaching skills to the teenagers most vulnerable to being sold in brothels.
Harlans M. Fachra
Harlans M. Fachra is National Consulate for GeRAK Indonesia, an organization that focuses on
anti-corruption education and building networks that help end corruption in Indonesia by creating
legitimate alternatives at the village level. The organization has thirty-seven institutional members
spread across Indonesia. Mr. Fachra is passionate in his belief that corruption can be eradicated
in Indonesia if enough people are committed to doing so. For his work, he received the Ashoka
Changemakers award from the Ashoka Foundation.
Fan He
He Fan is Assistant Director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He is also Deputy Director of the Research
Center for International Finance at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the
Editor-in-Chief of the World Economy Journal, a leading academic journal in China.
He is one of the most active young economists in China and the youngest intellectual
ever to lecture before the top Chinese state leaders. His fields of interest
include international finance, Chinese macro-economy, and international political economy. He is the author or
editor of eight books and more than fifty papers in professional economics journals. He is a consultant for the
Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce and is deeply involved in many policy discussions. At the same
time, he has written extensively for a broader public audience as a columnist for many newspapers and magazines.
He received his Ph.D. and his Master’s degree in Economics from the Graduate School, Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Hainan University. From 1998-2000, he was
a visiting fellow at Harvard University.
Douglas Foo
Douglas Foo is Founder and CEO of Apex-Pal International Ltd. of Singapore, which owns and operates Sakae
Sushi, Sakae Teppanyahi, Sakae Pizza, Sakae @ Campus, Uma Uma Men, Sho-U, Crepes & Cream, and Nouvelle
Events. The group now has over sixty outlets in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia,
the Philippines, and the United States, with a turnover of SGD66.6 million in 2006. Mr. Foo was recognized as
Entrepreneur of the Year and Top Outstanding Young Person in 2002. For his exceptional entrepreneurial
achievements and notable service to the community, he was the recipient of the Singapore Youth Award 2003 and
the ASEAN Youth Award in 2004.
Shinichiro Fukushige
Shinichiro Fukushige is a venture capitalist specializing in cross-border investments
at Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, a VC subsidiary of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
He specializes in investments in businesses that are enabled, or are enabled by, ICT
and advances in physical sciences. He focuses in particular on enterprises whose
potential is fully realized by connecting technologies and markets across borders. Prior
to becoming a venture capital professional, he worked for close to a decade in Japan
with venture and growth stage multinationals in various sectors of the IT industry,
including serving as President of a NASDAQ-listed IT organization’s
Japanese subsidiary. Mr. Fukushige also sits on the nomination committee for the Entrepreneur of the Year Japan.
Riichi Furugaki
Riichi Furugaki is stationed at the Tsuiki Air Base as Commander for the Maintenance and Supply Group of the
8th Air Wing of the Japan Air Self Defense Force. Prior to that, he worked in the Logistics Division of the Air
Staff Office of the Minister of Defense. He has earned degrees from the National Defense Academy of Japan, the
Command and Staff Course of the Air Staff College, the School of Advanced International Study at Johns Hopkins
University, and the National Institute for Defense Studies. Col. Furugaki has also been a visiting scholar at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Jayadev Galla
Jayadev Galla is Managing Director of Amara Raja Batteries Limited (ARBL), a leading
manufacturer of advanced lead acid batteries for industrial and automotive applications.
ARBL is a joint venture of the Amara Raja group and the U.S.-based Johnson Controls
Inc. Mr. Galla is also a member of the board of the Amara Raja Group of Companies. He
serves as a director of the Amara Raja Power Systems Pvt. Ltd., the Amara Raja
Electronics Pvt. Ltd., the Mangal Precision Products Pvt. Ltd., the Galla Foods Pvt. Ltd.,
and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He is also National Vice Chairman of the
Young Indians, Chairman of the Young Indians District Chapter Initiatives, and a Member of the Southern
Regional Council. He earned degrees in Political Science and Economics from the University of Illinois and
Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Patricia Isabel Gallardo
Patricia Isabel Gallardo is Corporate Social Responsibility Manager for Ayala Land, the
largest real estate company in the Philippines. She handles the company’s Campaign for
Sustainability, which commits business resources to building model communities and
pursuing sustainable land use and development. She is currently working on the company’s
first Sustainability Report under GRI Standards and has instituted the first land developer’s
program on responsible Informal Settler Relocation and Social Reintegration. She has work
closely with or been involved with such organizations as the Asia Foundation, the Figaro
Foundation, the UNDP Special Projects, Asia Europe Young Leaders, the ASEF University program, and the
Office of the President of the Philippines. She also founded the Birmingham (U.K.) Chapter of the United Nations
Association. Miss Gallardo holds an M.A. in Globalisation & Governance from the London School of Economics,
where she graduated with distinction. She speaks Italian, German and Spanish, is a vegetarian, and is a practitioner
and teacher of yoga.
Su-Lin Gan
Gan Su-lin is a Council Member of the National Youth Council and Director of the School of
Technology for the Arts, Republic Polytechnic. She is a media psychologist by training who,
since returning to Singapore in 1996, has become a familiar face in Singapore’s youth
development scene recognized as a tireless champion for the holistic education of Singapore’s
youth. Her vision for youths is “Heads that understand, Hearts that empathize, Hands that freely
give”. Two values most often manifest in her youth development work are a definition of wealth
that extends far beyond material possessions, and the belief that hang hang chu zhuang yuan
(Mandarin for “every field of work can produce a top scholar”). Dr
Gan’s deepest wish is that she can help youths realize they can be zhuang yuan.
Bir Bahadur Ghale
Bir Bahadur Ghale is the Founder and Chairman of the Nepal Micro-Hydro Entrepreneurs
Federation (NMHEF) and has been a practitioner of renewable energy technology since
1990. He owns a 140-kilowatt Micro Hydro Power Plant in the village of Barpak in the
Gorkha district of Nepal and has installed more than twenty-five Micro Hydro Power
Plants of sizes ranging from 5 to 140 kilowatts in various parts of rural Nepal. His Micro
Hydro Power Plant in Barpak was the first in the region and now serves approximately
800 households and supports several small and micro industries. His other installations
have likewise made electricity accessible to several hundred
households in rural Nepal, thus increasing opportunities and empowering the residents. Mr. Ghale is currently a
member of steering committee of the Government of Nepal’s Alternate Energy Promotion Center and has actively
contributed to the e-7 Rural Electrification Program 2004 in Bangkok. Among the many accolades he has received
was the Ashoka Fellowship. At present, Mr. Ghale is concentrating his efforts on increasing the participation of
Micro Hydro beneficiary groups in the planning and implementation process.
Adam Gilmore
Adam Gilmore is the Mechanical Systems Lead for NASA at the International Space
Station, where he works closely with NASA’s international partners on this
multinational endeavor. He leads teams within the United States and across the world
in preparation for Space Shuttle launches and in the resolution of anomalies aboard
the International Space Station. He has won several awards for his contributions to
NASA, most notably the Silver Snoopy Award in 2006, a
recognition given to less than one percent of NASA’s workforce. He is also the President of Tigi Real Estate, a
Houston-based company specializing in the acquisition, rental, and sales of residential properties. Mr. Gilmore is
an active member of the Houston World Affairs Council and Toastmasters International, through which he
recently won the Area Contest for Humorous Speech.
Navroze Godrej
Navroze Godrej is Special Projects Manager at Godrej & Boyce Ltd. in Mumbai, India. He joined the Godrej
Group in 2005 as a Manager and has since worked on various brand and design -related projects. He earned a
Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication and French from Boston College in 2005. Mr. Godrej has been a
member of CII Young Indians since 2005 and currently serves as co-chair of the education committee. He is an
active member of the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Bombay Natural History Society, the Museum Society of
Bombay, and the Bombay Sailing Association. He enjoys the performing arts and has been involved in several
stage productions and concerts in the United States. He has previously lived and worked in Paris, London, and the
United States, and currently lives in Mumbai.
Nicholas Goodwin
Nicholas Goodwin is a political, development and communications adviser with
extensive experience throughout Asia. While working for Ogilvy Public Relations
Worldwide, he collaborated with the Coalition for a Healthy Indonesia and Johns
Hopkins University in leading the “Fantastic Mom” campaign to reduce child mortality
in Indonesia, for which he received five international awards. He also led
digital divide, CSR, post-tsunami and environment programs while with Ogilvy. Prior to that, he advised UNAIDS
on HIV/AIDS partnerships, advocacy and policy coordination. While based in Singapore and working for Levi
Strauss, Mr. Goodwin co-founded the Business Coalition on AIDS in Singapore, managed grant programs across
the Asia Pacific and led the “Speak Your Mind” youth rights campaign, which included a presentation of the
Asian Youth Charter to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. He has also worked in Timor Leste for
UNTAET and in his native Australia for UNICEF, AusAID and Parker & Partners.
Paromita Goswami
Paromita Goswami is responsible for a number of initiatives that seek to empower some of
India’s poorest and most marginalized citizens, including serving as President of Shramik Elgar
(The Marching Army of Workers). In this capacity, she is responsible for leading the
organization, expanding its membership base, campaign planning and management, identifying
and training community leaders, and spearheading advocacy efforts at the policy level. Under
her leadership, Shramik Elmar has worked to address such issues as bonded labor, protection
of human rights in violence-affected areas, equity in the criminal justice system, quality of prison facilities, and
land rights. This organization works synergistically with other grassroots initiatives that she has co-founded,
including a membership organization, a non-profit organization and a women’s credit union. Together, these
organizations aim to enable the poor, marginalized people in rural areas to challenge exploitative practices and to
demand justice in the form of equal access to social and economic programs.
Amlanjyoti Goswani
Amlanjyoti Goswani is an RA for the National Knowledge Commission, an autonomous body set up by the Prime
Minister of India to formulate long -term policies that will enhance India’s social and economic well-being in the
21st century. He is currently engaged in formulating regulatory solutions on a variety of issues pertaining to the
creation of, access to, and application of knowledge. His areas of interest include Constitutional Law, International
Environmental Law and Policy, Human Rights, IPR and Innovation in the domestic and international spheres. A
Gold Medalist from Delhi University and an Inlaks Fellow, Mr. Goswani studied Law and Governance at Harvard
Law School.
Menaka Curuswamy
Menaka Guruswamy is a advocate or attorney in New Delhi, India. She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford
University, and a Gammon Fellow at Harvard Law School, and a gold medalist from the National Law School of
India. She has law degrees from all three schools, with a focus on Constitutional Law and Public International
Law. Menaka has practiced law at the Office of the Attorney General of India, the highest office that represents
the federal government of India in the Supreme Court of India. She has also practiced law in New York, as as
asscoiate at Davis Polk & Wardwell, a large American law firm, where her primary area of practice was
commercial law.Menaka has also worked as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program and the
United Nations Devevlopment Fund for Women (UNIFEM), advising both on law reform. This past year Menaka
was an Assistant Professor at New York University's School of Law. Menaka presently lives in New Delhi, where
she pratices law, and focuses on Constitutional Law scholarship and litigation.
Alamdar Hamdani
Alamdar Hamdani is a partner in the Houston law firm of Borunda Hamdani & Simon, LLP,
practicing in the areas of commercial litigation, civil rights, national security, and tort litigation.
In recent years, he has dedicated a significant portion of his free time to civil rights issues
facing Muslims, South Asians, and Arabs in the post 9-11 environment. He has also been
published on that topic in the ABA’s Supreme Court Preview and reached a wider audience
with opinion pieces in the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle. He was a founder
of the North American South Asian Bar Association and was the first South Asian or Muslim
board member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. Mr.
Hamdani has given several speeches and debated U.S. Attorneys and other DOJ officials on national security and
civil liberties. In addition, he has also been responsible for the release of several immigration detainees through a
pro bono habeas practice. His work has resulted in numerous awards and honors, including being chosen as one
of twenty-four Asia 21 Fellows chosen from Asia and the United States for 2007-2008. Mr. Hamdani received his
BBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and his JD from the University of Houston.
Piya Hanvoravongchai
Piya Hanvoravongchai is a physician and a lecturer in the Department of Preventive and Social
Medicine at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, with interests in international health policy and
health economics. His work concentrates on the areas of health system development, health care
financing, health workforce management, and health policy, and he has published widely on health
systems and health financing. He is a research fellow at the International Health Policy Program of
the Thailand Ministry of Public Health. Mr. Hanvoravongchai’s previous work includes health
system performance assessment at the World Health Organization in
Geneva and global health workforce policy development at the Global Equity Initiative of Harvard University. He
received his M.D. from Mahidol University, his M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and is a doctoral
candidate at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Kiyono Hasaka
Kiyono Hasaka is Vice President, Payments and Cash Management, at the Hong Kong and
Shanghai Banking Corporation, Tokyo Branch. She previously worked as Assistant Vice
President and Sales Officer with the Bank of America’s Global Treasury Services in
Tokyo, where she was responsible for providing e-commerce solutions of cash and treasury
management products for large multinational companies, local corporations, and
government agencies in the Asia Pacific region, with a special focus on Japan. Prior to
taking up her assignment in Tokyo, Ms. Hasaka worked for the Bank of America’s
Singapore regional office as a Sales Analyst, Global Treasury Services. Earlier, she worked
for a number of years at the then Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi marketing ecommerce solutions for Southeast Asian countries. Ms. Hasaka holds a B. Soc. Sci. (with honors) from City
University, U.K., and an MBA from Deakin University in Australia. She regularly participates in forums and
seminars for working women in Asia, and is particularly interested in the issues of equal employment
opportunities and favorable working conditions for women in Japan.
Amin Hashwani
Amin Hashwani is Director of the Hashwani Group of Companies, an established business in
Pakistan with diversified interests in various fields. He has been the president or chairman of
numerous business and non-business organizations, including the Pakistan France Business
Alliance, the Pakistan India CEO’s Business Forum, the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO)
of Pakistan, and the Allama Iqbal Institute of Research, Education, and Dialogue. Mr. Hashwani co-founded the
YPO’s Peace Action Networks, which arranged forums that brought together CEOs from Israel and Arab
countries, Jews and Muslims in the U.S., and Indians and Pakistanis. He has led several delegations abroad,
organized international events, moderated international forums, been a guest speaker at seminars in Asia, Europe,
and the U.S, and championed social initiatives within and outside Pakistan. Mr. Hashwani has been the recipient
of several international awards for his work. He regularly appears on the electronic media on such issues as
geopolitics, social challenges and international trade.
Gang He
HE Gang is the special assistant to the Chairman in Peking University Environment Fund and Co-initiator of
China Climate Action Network. He got his Bachelor’s degree in Geography and then Master in Resource and
Environment Management from Peking University. He was selected as the only Chinese youth to attended the
UNFCCC, COP11/MOP1 in Montreal 2005, after that he founded the PKU “CDM(Clean Development
Mechanism) Club, 6 E(Environment, Energy, Economy, Ecosystem, Equity, Education) plus” association which
is the pioneer student association focuses on climate change. He also attended the China-US climate change
conference in Berkeley, 2006 and was an invited speaker in the section of media, public information and climate
change. He once served as the president of the Graduate Students Union of College of Environmental Sciences,
Peking University. From 2004-2006, he worked for CEEC (Center for Environmental Education &
Communication of State Environmental Protection Administration of China) and was a project officer and special
reporter there. He was a visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Journalism in UC Berkeley, 2007 and
coordinated the China Environment Report program. Now he is studying in Columbia University and contributing
to the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, bridging stakeholders and promoting mature understanding and
joint actions. He is the author of couples of books and articles.
Natalie Hennedige
Natalie Hennedige is the Artistic Director of Cake Theatrical Productions, a Singaporebased contemporary theatre company committed to creating highly theatrical original
works that address modern-day concerns and complexities. She has conceptualized,
written, and directed most of Cake’s productions since its inception in 2005, including
Nothing (2007), CHEEK, Yolanda’s Fever, and Queen Ping (all 2006), and Animal
Vegetable Mineral (2005) . In 2006, she directed Divine Soap, which was commissioned by the National Museum
of Singapore for its Official Opening Festival. From 2002 to 2005, Ms. Hennedige was a full-time Artist and
Resident Director at The Necessary Stage, where she directed several critically acclaimed plays, including Sing
Song and What Big Bombs You Have!!!, and took part in the Inaugural M1 Singapore Fringe Festival in 2005. She
also works with youths and the community to create productions that not only articulate their realities but also
help them unleash their creativity. Ms. Hennedige was recently selected to represent Singapore in the ASEAN
Theatre and Multimedia Workshop on Ancestral Roots to New Artistic Routes of Expression Reflecting the U.N.
Millennium Development Goals. The workshop was held in the Philippines at the Philippine ITI Centre from July
26 to August 8, 2007.
Jo-ar Herrera
Jo-ar Herrera is a Tactical Officer and an Instructor on Internal Security Operations,
Military Science, and the History of Military Thought at the Philippine Military
Academy. Born in 1976, his leadership skills and penchant for achievement began
to emerge at an early age. He is a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy and
also earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Management. While stationed in
Mindanao, he served as Commanding Officer of an Infantry Unit and led numerous
successful combat and civil military operations, for which he earned seven Gold
Cross Medals for Gallantry in Action. Mr. Herrera has also received twelve Bronze
Cross Medals and twenty-six Military Merit Medals, as
well as citation as the Best Junior Officer and the prestigious Cavalier Award for outstanding performance as a
military professional. In addition, he was awarded the Dangal ng Bayan Award from the National Government
for exemplary conduct and ethical behavior in public service, becoming the first and only military personnel to
earn this distinction.
Blaine Holt
Colonel Blaine Holt is a student at the United States Air Force Air War College, where he is
focused on political- military affairs in China and Mandarin language studies. He graduated
from the University of Georgia in 1988, where he was commissioned and designated a
Distinguished Graduate of Georgia’s Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. He has served
as Operations Officer, 17th Airlift Squadron, and Chief, Joint Requirements, Directorate of
Operations, United States European Command. Prior to his current assignment, he commanded
the 16th Airlift Squadron and 817th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron. He is a command pilot
with more than 3,700 flying hours in a variety of aircraft.
He was selected to the C-17A Initial Cadre, completing the tour as a C-17A Lead Airdrop Examiner Pilot. Mr.
Holt is certified as a military linguist and maintains fluency in Dutch. His dissertation, written and defended in
Dutch, was awarded a “with distinction” honor at the Royal Superior College of Defense in Brussels. In 2006, he
partnered with a fellow C -17A Squadron Commander to develop, write, and successfully staff a revolutionary
new strategy in the combat employment of C-17A forces.
Adrian Hong
Adrian Hong serves as Executive Director of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), an
international nongovernmental organization devoted to human rights in North Korea and
to the protection of North Korean refugees all over the world. He provides advocacy for
the North Korean people to governments, institutions and agencies worldwide and also
works on policy issues affecting the North Korean people. He is also involved in
maintaining and supporting a large underground network of shelters for North Korean
refugees in hiding, and in organizing routes and operations on the underground railroad
that brings North Korean refugees to freedom. In December of 2006, he was arrested
along with two LiNK field workers and six North Korean refugees in the People’s Republic of China and
imprisoned, before being released and deported. In an unprecedented move, the refugees were released by Chinese
authorities in July of 2007 and sent to South Korea.
Ryan Hong
Ryan Hong is Chairman and CEO of Herald Media, a leading media group in Korea. He is
the publisher of Herald Media’s publications, including The Korea Herald, the nation’s
largest English newspaper, and The Herald Business, a leading Korean business and
entertainment daily. Mr. Hong is on the boards of all of Herald Media’s subsidiaries and
serves on the boards of the Korea Newspaper Association, the International Press Institute
Korea Committee, and the Korea Press Ethics Commission. He has also worked as an
investment banker and lawyer in the United States. He acts as a board director of the KoreanAmerican Association, a member of the Policy Advisory Committee of Asia
Society, and is an avid patron of the arts. He was selected a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum
in 2005 and an Asia 21 Fellow by the Asia Society in 2006. He has published many articles and books, including
Seven Acts, Seven Scenes, an autobiography that has sold over 1.3 million copies. Mr. Hong received his A.B.
from Harvard University and J.D. from Stanford University and also studied at Peking University and Seoul
National University. In 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in politics from Yongin University in Korea.
Anisul Hoque
Anisul Hoque is a fiction writer, poet, playwright and journalist who is the Deputy Editor at
Prothom Alo, the highest- circulation daily newspaper in Bangladesh. He also writes a popular
weekly column for the newspaper. He is one of the most popular fiction writers in Bangladesh
and writes screenplays for popular television soap operas. He has received several literary
awards. He is a civil engineering graduate from BUET. He participated in an international
journalism exchange program in the USA in 1995, an East-West Center seminar program in
the USA in 2004, and an AIDS awareness workshop in Thailand in 1999. Mr. Hoque is the
President of Bandhusobha, a forum for young readers sponsored by his
newspaper. Bandhusobha plays an active role in social welfare and charity activities and has more than eighty
branches and more than 30,000 registered members.
Sara Hossain
Sara Hossain is a lawyer at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh (High Court Division), practicing constitutional and
public interest law. She is a Board Member of Ain o Salish Kendra (the Law and Mediation Centre), a leading
national human rights organization and is also associated with other legal services groups. She regularly writes,
lectures and comments on human rights law and practice. She previously served as the Legal Officer for South
Asia at the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (INTERIGHTS), based in London. In
this capacity, she worked with lawyers and judges across South Asia on the process of incorporating international
human rights law in national courts. Ms. Hossain has written and lectured on public interest law, domestic
application of international human rights law, and on women’s human rights. Her most recent publication is
'Honour': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence against Women (Zed, 2005), which she co-edited with Lynn
Welchman.
Bi-Khim Hsaio
Bi-Khim Hsaio is a Member of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan. Although she is one of the
youngest members, Ms. Hsaio has been active in Taiwan politics for over a decade. She
is currently Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Legislative Yuan and has
been elected Vice President of Liberal International, an organization of liberal political
parties around the world. She has also been the Director of International Affairs for the
governing Democratic Progressive Party, Consultant to the Mainland Affairs Council,
spokesperson for Chen Shui -bian’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, Advisor to the
Office of the President, Secretary General of the Council of Asian Liberals and
Democrats, and President of the Taiwan Association for Women in Sports. In addition to
foreign policy issues, Ms. Hsaio continues to be outspoken on immigrant rights, gender equality, sports, human
rights, and other issues in Taiwan.
Ron Huberman
Ron Huberman was appointed President and CEO of the Chicago Transit Authority in
May 2007. He oversees strategy and day-to -day operations of the second-largest transit
agency in the U.S., with over 12,000 employees. From 2005 to 2007, he served as Chief
of Staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, directing the operations of the city’s
forty-nine departments and 39,000 employees and overseeing an annual budget of $5.7
billion. Mr. Huberman led the city’s reform initiatives to
eliminate corruption and put in place a dynamic new performance management system. From 2004 to 2005, he
served as Executive Director of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC), in
charge of emergency response and Homeland Security issues. He began his career as a beat cop with various
tactical gang team and special operations unit assignments. His many awards and honors include the International
Gary P. Hayes Award for innovation and leadership in policing. Mr. Huberman holds Master’s degrees in Business
Administration and Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago, where he was an Albert
Schweitzer and a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow.
Dang Huong Giang
Dang Huong Giang is the Director of Action for the City, a registered local nongovernmental organization that she founded in 2006 to promote sustainable urban
development in Hanoi. Action for the City encourages citizens to minimize
consumption of resources, carries out communication campaigns to reduce transport
emissions, and promotes green spaces and green buildings. She has been an active
advocate for civil society in Vietnam for the past decade as a Senior Trainer and
Consultant for the Center for Community Empowerment and as Education Program
Manager for Catholic Relief Services. Ms. Huong Giang holds a Master’s degree in
Sociology from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Noor Effendy Ibrahim
Noor Effendy Ibrahim is a Singapore director, playwright, performer, performance and
time-based artist, producer, and an art educator. He is currently an Associate Artist with
The Substation and a member of the Academic Staff of the Republic Polytechnic’s
School of Technology for the Arts. He studied Theatre Studies and Drama at Victoria
Junior College in Singapore, and then received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Master’s of Arts in Contemporary Practice
from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts/University of Huddersfield. Mr. Ibrahim has
written and directed plays for Malay Theatre since
1991, and was the artistic director and manager-producer of Teater Ekamatra, a Singapore -based contemporary
Malay Theatre company from 2001 to 2006. He first crossed into performance art in 1994 and has since performed
solo and ensemble performances all over the world and worked with numerous theatres, arts groups and
collectives. He has served as a member of the Singapore National Arts Council Board and also designed and
coordinated the first Contemporary Malay Drama program at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts School of
Performing Arts.
Daisuke Iwase
Daisuke Iwase is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Net Life Planning Co., Ltd., an
online insurance venture with the goal of revolutionizing Japan’s inefficient $400 billion life
insurance industry. He recently secured financing of around $17 million from blue chip
investors such as Seven and I Holdings (parent of Seven Eleven), Shinsei Bank, and Mitsui &
Co. He previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group, the Internet Capital Group, and
Ripplewood Holdings. He also served as a fellow at ACCION, a prominent microfinance
institution. Mr. Iwase holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Tokyo and an
MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School.
Deepa Iyer
Deepa Iyer is the Executive Director of South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow (SAALT) and a tireless civil
rights and immigrant rights advocate. She began her public interest career at the National Asian Pacific American
Legal Consortium, where she managed the Census 2000, Language Rights, and Voting Rights programs. She then
served as Trial Attorney at the Civil Rights Division of the USDOJ, where she represented victims of workplace
discrimination due to their immigration status or national origin, and assisted with efforts to address backlash
discrimination in the wake of September 11th. She most recently served as the Legal Director of the Asian Pacific
American Legal Resource Center, where she instituted a multilingual legal referral hotline and organized a panethnic coalition that successfully advocated for linguistic access to government services. Ms. Iyer is also the
Executive Producer of a twenty-six-minute documentary featuring hate crime survivors. She has taught classes
on legal issues affecting Asian-Americans at Columbia University and Hunter College in New York City.
Lavanya Rama Iyer
Lavanya Rama Iyer is the United Nations Development Program/Global Environment Facility
(UNDP/GEF) National Project Coordinator for the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Environment of Malaysia, responsible for assessing and coordinating the implementation of
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) nationally to
address climate change. Before that, she spent 6 years in Geneva, working first with the U.N. Compensation
Commission to apply international law in resolving Gulf War claims, then with UNEP’s Post-Conflict Branch in
formulating legal frameworks and conducting environmental assessments for nations emerging from conflict. Ms.
Rama Iyer qualified as a Barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, U.K., and practiced law in Malaysia for six years. She is also
active in social work, raising environmental awareness, and education for underprivileged children.
Varun Jain
Varun Jain is a Life Trustee on the board of Sanskriti Foundation, a nongovernmental agency engaged in
promoting excellence in the arts and preserving cultural heritage. He aims to give a global dimension to the
Foundation’s programs by leveraging international alliances and new program grants. A case in point is an
extension of the Foundation’s artist-in-residence program to include a recurring residency exchange program
focused on South and Southeast Asia. Professionally, Mr. Jain works with the Global Government Vertical of
Tata Consultancy Services, Asia’s largest IT company. His mandate is to enable more efficient and effective
public administration in South Asia by using a combination of technology interventions and new public
management techniques. He is using this multi-sector and interdisciplinary experience to create new public-private
partnerships that will address the many new challenges of the twenty-first century.
Khairy Jamaluddin
Khairy Jamaluddin is a Director of ECM Libra Capital, a leading Malaysian investment bank,
and Deputy Leader of the ruling United Malays National Organisation’s Youth Wing (UMNO
Youth). Prior to this he served in the government for five years, rising to the position of Deputy
Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister and Director of the Policy and
Communications Division in the Office of the Prime Minister. He was also responsible for
strategic policy initiatives undertaken by the Prime Minister and coordinating policy formulation
across government. He headed the strategic committee for the 2004 General
Elections. He left government earlier this year to become involved in the UMNO party elections. His main interest
in UMNO has been in the field of education, specifically how the party can complement the efforts of the
government in striving to bring a better quality of education to rural areas. Mr. Jamaluddin is also the Chairman
of Akademi Pemuda, UMNO Youth’s think tank, which is responsible for formulating action plans and grassroots
programs for party members and the younger generation. He holds degrees from the universities of Oxford and
London and is a member of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.
Zahid U. Jamil
Zahid U. Jamil is a Barrister-at -Law who is a Senior Partner at Jamil & Jamil Barristers-atLaw, as well as a Professor of U.S. Constitutional Law at the Sindh Muslim Law College at
the University of Karachi, Pakistan. He is a specialist in Banking, International Law,
Property Law, Constitutional, Conflicts of Laws, Corporate Finance, Securitization,
International Law of Trade (WTO), Privatization, Petroleum Law, Recovery of Loans,
Transportation Law, Corporate and Commercial matters. As a member of the Information
Technology Law Forum, Ministry of Science and Technology, Mr. Jamil was the core
drafter of the Electronic Transactions Ordinance, 2002. He is currently working on the
drafts of the Cyber Crimes Law, the Electronic Banking Law, the Telecommunication and Convergence Law, and
the Anti-Trust Law relating to the Information Technology Industry of Pakistan. He is also currently advising the
U.S. Government on a major project based in Pakistan, the State Bank of Pakistan on various regulatory issues,
and the first Pakistani Export Finance Agency Ltd. (PEFGA) on issues from incorporation to treaty reinsurance,
Export Credit and Trade Law. He graduated from University College, London with an L.L.B. (with honors), is a
Barrister of the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, London, U.K., and an Advocate of the High Courts of Pakistan.
Sabeen Jatoi
Sabeen Jatoi works in Communications and External Affairs for BP and recently joined the
company’s global Career Advancement Programme, which will give her the opportunity to
reach and succeed at the Group Leadership level. In her current position, she focuses on
government relationships and sustainable development by engaging stakeholders such as
district governments, local nongovernmental organizations and press clubs to ensure that BP’s
CSR strategy benefits all of the players involved. Her particular area of interest is the role that
responsible corporations and local governments can play to foster a more structured
approach toward sustainable development. Ms. Jatoi qualified as a barrister (Lincoln’s Inn) and then helped shape her
diverse and flexible skill set by working as a journalist for the DAWN group of newspapers, as a consultant for Action
Aid Pakistan, and as a program officer at a nongovernmental organization funded by such international donors as the
UNDP, CIDA and UNICEF. Belonging to a political family from a rural constituency also gives her a unique
perspective on the socio-economic issues faced by rural agrarian communities.
Sandeep Jauhar
Sandeep Jauhar is the Director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical
Center, the largest program of its kind on Long Island. He trained as an experimental physicist
at the University of California, Berkeley. After earning his Ph.D., he went to medical school
at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Jauhar completed his internship, residency, and a
cardiology fellowship at prominent teaching hospitals in New York City. Since 1998, he has
been writing regularly about medicine for The New York Times. He is the recipient of a South
Asian Journalists Association Special Recognition Award for outstanding writing about
medicine. His first book, Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation, will be
published this December by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Younghee Jung
Younghee Jung is a Senior Design Manager at Nokia and leads a multidisciplinary team called
Insight & Innovation. Her research focuses on the social potential of mobile technology and
trends in mobile design. Her projects include the Nokia Lifeblog and the Nokia Sensor. She
joined Nokia in Helsinki in 2000 and currently works in Tokyo. She earned a B.S. in Industrial
Design at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) and an M.A. in
Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon University as a Fulbright Scholar. Prior to joining Nokia,
Miss Jung worked at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center and the Oracle Corporation.
Suzaina Kadir
Dr. Suzaina Kadir joined the Lee Kuan Yew School in July 2005. She obtained her B.Soc.Sc. (1st Class Honours),
Political Science from the National University of Singapore; her MA and PhD (Political Science) from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests and area specialization include Religion and Politics,
with special focus on Political Islam in Southeast Asia; State-Society Relations and Political Change in Asia, with
special focus on civil society activism in Southeast Asia; and Regional Security of Southeast Asia with a focus on
Non-traditional security issues affecting ASEAN. She is a recipient of the NUS Overseas Merit Scholarship and
the Mendaki Award for Academic Excellence. In her spare time, she volunteers at community-oriented projects.
She has served on the 2003 Censorship Review Committee, the Remaking Singapore Committee and the Feedback
Unit Supervisory Panel. She currently serves on the board of the Media Development Authority (MDA) and the
Institute of Technical Education (ITE).
Shinta Widjaja Kamdani
Shinta Widjaja Kamdani is the Director of PT Widjajatunggal Sejahtera, a family-owned Indonesian holding
company engaged in consumer products, industrial products, property development, and energy. She is also active
in many nonprofit organizations, serving as Executive Board Member of the Indonesian World Wide Fund
Foundation, the Chairman of International Trade of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and
Executive Board Member of the Young President Organization. Born in Jakarta, Indonesia, Mrs. Kamdani
graduated from Barnard College of Columbia University, New York City, in 1989 with a B.A. in Psychology and
Dance. She also studied Executive Education at the Harvard Business School.
Gen Kanai
Gen Kanai is Director of Asia Business Development for Mozilla, a California-based not-forprofit organization that develops, manages, and freely distributes the popular Mozilla Firefox
web browser. Firefox is the web browser of choice for over 100 million Internet users
worldwide in over fifty different languages. Mr. Kanai is also Director of Marketing for
Mozilla Japan. Prior to joining Mozilla, he was on the team responsible for the launch of
Technorati Japan, a weblog search engine. In 2003, he co -produced the First International
Moblogging Conference, the first worldwide conference on the topic of mobile weblogs and
personal publishing from mobile phones with over 150 attendees from England, Italy, the
U.S., and Japan. Mr. Kanai has also worked for Sony Marketing of Japan, Sony Electronics Inc., and Toyota
Motor Sales, USA, Inc., on various Internet-related businesses in both the U.S. and Japan. He is a fellow of the
U.S.-Japan Foundation’s “US-Japan Leadership Program.” Later in October, he will be speaking on trends in
consumer-generated media at the USC Global Conference in Tokyo. He received a B.A. in Geography from
Dartmouth College in 1996. He is proud to be born and raised in New York City and currently resides in Tokyo.
Harvey Keh
Harvey Keh is the Executive Director of Pathways to Higher Education at the
Ateneo de Manila University, an organization that aims to help marginalized
students gain access to quality higher education in the Philippines. He became the
youngest Ford Foundation grantee in the world at the age of 22 and has helped
more than 300 poor but deserving students gain a better future by providing them
with an opportunity to enter top-notch universities. He also sits as the youngest
Board Member of the Synergeia Foundation, a coalition of
various public and private institutions and individuals aimed at promoting education reform in the Philippines.
Mr. Keh hosts two regular radio programs and writes a weekly column for The People’s Taliba (a national daily).
He also teaches part-time in the Department of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University.
Tyler Kelley
Tyler Kelley is the Chief Operating Officer and a Managing Director at Bel Air Investment
Advisors LLC, a Los Angeles-based asset management firm that oversees over $5 billion in
assets. Prior to joining Bel Air, he worked on strategic planning and acquisition matters for
AECOM, the largest general architectural and engineering-design firm in the world, and at
Goldman, Sachs & Co. in the Mergers and Strategic Advisory Group. Mr. Kelley is a Los
Angeles County Commissioner. He is a Co-Founder of The NineTenths Group, which offers
pro bono consulting services to early-stage, innovative non-profit organizations supporting
the city’s education needs. He was selected as one of
twenty Americans to attend the 2006 Atlantik-Brücke Young Leader Conference in Hamburg, Germany and was
recently named a Next Generation Project Fellow of the American Assembly. Mr. Kelley graduated in 2000 from
the University of Southern California with honors, where he pursued a double major in International Relations
and Political Science and received the J. Wesley Robb Endowed Scholar in Human Values award. Upon
graduation, he was named one of eighteen Henry R. Luce Scholars in a nationwide competition that took him to
Jakarta, Indonesia.
Peter Kellner
Peter Kellner is Managing Director and Founder of Richmond Management, a global venture
capital firm with investments in India, China, and Central Europe, which is focused on
communications technologies, including mobile payments, health and disease monitoring, finance
and insurance. He is also Co-Founder of Endeavor Global, www.endeavor.org, an international
economic development group with operations in India, Latin America, Africa, Turkey, and the
Middle East. Mr. Kellner is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International
Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Pacific Council on International Affairs. He holds a B.A.
from Princeton University, a JD from Yale Law School, and an MBA from Harvard Business
School.
Mahreen Khan
Mahreen Khan is Media Advisor to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. She was previously the
anchor of two highly acclaimed BBC World series, Question Time Pakistan and HARDtalk
Pakistan, which attracted audiences across the world to developments in Pakistan. The
programming featured open debate on key political issues of the day with leading
politicians, journalists, and analysts. Miss Khan read Law at Cambridge University and
was called to the Bar, then completed a Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) at Harvard
University, focusing on international security and political development.
Senain Kheshgi
2005 Rockefeller Award-winner Senain Kheshgi is a Pakistani-American filmmaker who has produced, written
and directed projects for numerous networks, including CNN, PBS, ABC News, BBC and Discovery. She
produced her first feature documentary, The First Year, with Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim (An
Inconvenient Truth). Their film was awarded the prestigious Peabody Award for Excellence in Journalism and
continues to be screened worldwide. Ms. Kheshgi was selected as a Sundance Directing Fellow and in 2006
attended three prestigious Sundance Filmmakers Labs. She and her directing and producing partner Geeta Patel
were selected as 2006 Asia 21 Fellows and were invited to attend the Seoul conference on scholarship, but were
unable to attend because of a film editing deadline. She was recently appointed as juror on the International
Documentary Association’s Academy Awards Nomination Committee.
Salman Khokhar
Salman Khokhar is Principal of Koka Consulting, a New York-based consulting firm
providing services to the retail, merchandising, and fashion sectors. He has over fifteen years
experience in strategy and brand development and his company’s multi-disciplinary
collaborations have provided CEOs in the Americas, Europe, and Asia with dynamic
strategies for execution and portfolio optimization. Mr. Khokhar sets the direction for the
firm’s programs and initiatives. Under his direction, the firm also launched a first-of-its-kind
fashion fund that invests in undervalued brands and emerging designers and helped organized
the 1st Asia Fashion Week in New York. Early in his career, Mr. Khokhar played
a role in shaping the growth of both Calvin Klein and Donna Karan. He has been a speaker at IFI in Tokyo, the
Istituto Marangoni in Milan, LUMS Lahore, ISB Hyderabad, and is a professor at FIT NY. He serves on the board
of The Khokhar Foundation, working to train entrepreneurs in less developed countries. A native of Lahore, Mr.
Khokhar grew up in Dubai and Miami, and now resides in Manhattan.
Ahmad Kiarostami
Ahmad Kiarostami is an entrepreneur who has worked in the cinema and software
industries for more than fifteen years. He founded three companies, including Iran’s
first multimedia and online production venue, where he published award-winning
multimedia products in cinema and visual arts. His project, Persopedia.com, is the
Internet’s largest digital library of Iranian poetry. He also served as an advisory
member of the Iranian National Graphics Society and sits on the board of San Francisco Cinematheque. Mr.
Kiarostami has made short films and worked on film projects with several major Iranian directors. He has initiated
and contributed to several film and cultural projects, including a new Online International section for the San
Francisco International Film Festival. He also helps to manage one of the most famous Iranian rock bands, Kiosk.
His music video for Kiosk’s song, “Eshgh-e Sorat,” was the most viewed Music Video on YouTube for several
days, a record for Iranian videos online. Mr. Kiarostami studied Math and Computer Science at Sharif University,
and Philosophy at UCLA.
Bora Kim
Bora Kim is an artist, a design and research consultant for Samsung Electronics, and an art
community activist. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Sookmyung Women’s University,
where she lectures on design and its correlation to art history. Miss Kim has exhibited her work
in the United States, Korea, and China, garnering critical acclaim and receiving the Sara Lee
and Skowhegan Merit Fellowships. At Samsung, her area of expertise is analyzing
a country’s design heritage and culture in order to develop innovative product designs. She also had an advisory
position on the Seoul City Project. Miss Kim holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Shin Han Kim
Shin Han Kim is the Director of the Strategic Planning Department at Daesung Industrial Gas
Co., which is the second-largest industrial gas company in Korea and also one of the country’s
oldest companies, with sixty years of experience in the energy business. Mr. Kim also holds a
seat on the board of Daesung and is involved in making key strategic decisions and creating new
business. The conservation of energy and how to develop renewable energy are among his areas
of focus. Mr. Kim previously worked at Samsung Electronics, where he was involved in
making standard technology for securing removable media. He studied Physics at Amherst College and obtained
a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering (VLSI computer chip design) at the University of Michigan.
Masaakira James Kondo
James Kondo is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Healthcare and Social Policy
Leadership Program at the University of Tokyo. He is also a Co-Founder and Vice Chairman
of the Japan Healthcare Policy Institute, a think -tank committed to addressing the most
pertinent healthcare issues of our time. Mr. Kondo was a longtime member of the McKinsey
Global Institute and a Co- Leader of McKinsey’s Asia Pacific Global Strategy Practice. Born
in the U.S., he grew up in the U.K. and went to high school in Japan. He then attended Keio
University in Tokyo, Brown University, and Harvard Business School. He was designated a New Asian Leader
(2004) and a Young Global Leader (2005) by the World Economic Forum.
Ravi Krishna
Ravi Krishna is a Director and Co- Founder of Ambulance Access for All, an initiative that seeks to bring universal
emergency medical service (along the lines of 911) to the general public of India. In the past year, he has also
championed the cause of “temple entry for all” in Kerala, where even today there are temples that restrict access
on the basis of caste or gender. A lawyer by training (LL.M., University of Pennsylvania), Mr. Krishna has also
worked for the Attorney General of the State of Kerala and for various private corporations.
Vishwajeet Kumar
Vishwajeet Kumar is a physician who has led the Collaborative Center for Advancing Public Health in India since
its inception in 2003. This initiative has created a climate in which diverse disciplines, groups and institutions can
work closely with governments and rural communities to develop solutions that produce just and lasting change.
He also holds faculty positions with Johns Hopkins University and the Center for Global Health, advises
governments and organizations on innovative public health strategies, and mentors young minds. One of his key
achievements has been the development of a participatory model for child survival that is based on community
empowerment. This model is designed to accelerate progress toward achieving the U.N.’s Millennium
Development Goals and is being adopted for large-scale implementation. Dr. Kumar was the recipient of the
Young Achiever Award 2006 for providing transformational leadership.
Saumya Lashkari
Saumya Lashkari currently leads the Global Corporate Social Responsibility initiative for
Genpact, the former captive BPO arm of General Electric, which employs over 30,000
people across nine countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, Mexico, and the United States. Her
responsibilities include leveraging Genpact’s unique process and technology
competencies to design and implement systemic solutions that are targeted at sustainable
and scalable socio-economic development in these communities. Ms. Lashkari previously
worked with GE’s Corporate Technology group in the U.S. Having lived, studied and
worked in four continents, she thrives in challenging cross-border
environments.
Vivian Lau
Vivian Lau is the CEO of Junior Achievement Hong Kong, an educational non-profit
organization, and Hong Kong Petrochemical Co Ltd, a for-profit US$200 million turnover
company. She has twenty years of international experience spanning the educational nonprofit, petrochemical, leadership development, IT, airlines, advertising, online, and
telecommunication industries. In 1999, she was elected one of 12 Internet Superstars of the
Year by Advertising Age International. Ms. Lau was the Chairman of the Hong Kong
Chapter of the Interactive Advertising Bureau from 2001 to 2003, and the Founding
Chairman of the Hong Kong 4A’s Interactive Committee. In 2006, she was selected by the
International Women’s Forum as one of the 16 Leadership Foundation Fellows for its 2006-2007 Global
Program.
Dinh Quang Le
Dinh Q. Le is the Founder of Untitled Space, a residency project in Ho Chi Minh City, and
Co-Founder of the Vietnam Art Foundation in Los Angeles. Dinh was born in Ha Tien, a
small town near the Cambodian border, in what was South Vietnam. When he was ten years
old, he and his family escaped to Thailand, where they spent nearly a year before immigrating
to Los Angeles. He began his art education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in
1989 and continued his studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he received
a Master of Fine Arts degree. In the early 1990s, Mr. Le revisited Vietnam and by the middle
of the decade was spending most of his time in Ho Chi Minh
City, where he now lives.
Minh Le
Le Quoc Minh started his journalism career in 1990 and is now Deputy Director and
Senior Editor at the Vietnam News Agency, a wire news service. He has also been in
charge of the company’s website since 2002, which appears in four different
languages, Vietnamese, English, French, and Spanish. He previously worked from
1996 to 2000 for Japan’s only public broadcaster, NHK World. In November 2004,
Mr. Le launched his own Vietnam Journalism Forum at
www.vietnamjournalism.com in both Vietnamese and English. It quickly became the most popular website on
Vietnam’s media industry among local and foreign users. He was also one of the early and leading bloggers in
Vietnam and he spares no effort in fighting for journalism ethics and professionalism.
Eileena Lee
Eileena Lee is the founder of RedQuEEn, Singapore’s first and largest e- group for
queer women, as well as a past president of the Singapore-based gay rights advocacy
group, People Like Us. She also helped start Pelangi Pride Centre, Singapore’s first
Pride centre. Another of her creations is Women’s Nite, which provides a safe, neutral
and alcohol-free space for lesbians and bisexual women in Singapore to gather and
discuss the issues relevant to their lives. Ms. Lee volunteers as Program Coordinator
for Action for AIDS Singapore, promoting safe sex measures to women who have sex
with women and also sits on the HIV/AIDS & Women sub-committee
of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) – the first and, at present, only advocacy group
dedicated to promoting gender equality and understanding in Singapore. She is a Buddhist who believes in the
truth of all faiths.
Lifan Li
Lifan Li is an Assistant Professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and an Adviser to the Overseas
Chinese Affairs Office of Shanghai Municipality. He is a graduate of the Belarusian State University, where he
obtained his B.A. and M.A. He is now chairing some of the programs of the National Planning Project of
Philosophy and Social Sciences, as well as the National Project, sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office
of the State Council. In 2005, he was selected by China’s MFA to serve as a member of the Chinese Diplomatic
Observer Group in observing the parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan. He has lectured widely in the U.S.,
Central Asia, and Europe, and has published many articles on a variety of topics within China and abroad.
Scarlett Li
Scarlett Li co-founded R2G in 2004 and is currently the start -up’s President, with responsibility
for managing day-to-day operations. R2G is the first company in China to promote and
distribute legitimate digital music. Prior to founding R2G, Ms. Li was already recognized as
one of China’s leading media executives. As general manager of the Newscorp’s Channel [V]
music channel, she launched the first-ever Channel [V] Chinese Music Awards (CMA). The
event broke viewership records for music awards shows in China,
reaching more than 139 million homes. She also launched the popular “Made in China” campaign to increase the
pride and sense of ownership in modern Chinese music by China’s youth, which helped turn [V] into one of the
most popular youth/music brands in China. Ms. Li obtained her B. Com. degree in Australia and her MBA from
Tsinghua University in Beijing. She is a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute.
Andrew Lih
Andrew Lih is the author of The Wikipedia Story, to be published by Hyperion in
2008. Previously, he was an academic for ten years, teaching courses about new media
and journalism at Columbia University and Hong Kong University. He has been a
software engineer, entrepreneur, academic, new media researcher and writer, and a
commentator on technology and journalism issues on CNN, BBC radio, MSNBC and
NPR. Currently based in Beijing, China, his interests include open content and
collaborative efforts in journalism, which he believes will have an increasingly
important role in China’s Internet and mobile media ecology.
Christina Lim
Christina has been actively involved in the securities industry for more than fifteen years. She
developed Harita Securities from a small brokerage house to a well-known medium-sized
company actively involved in equity trading and advisory services. Christina is intimately
involved with the day-to-day management of the company. She is responsible for bringing in
new company’s corporate and retail accounts, as well as maintaining existing accounts. During
her tenure, her firm was voted in the top quartile in the rankings by Investor Magazine. In 2005,
Asiamoney voted Harita Securities the fourth best local brokerage in
Indonesia. Previously, Christina was an Investment Analyst at Nomura Securities. She received a B.A. degree in
Business Administration from the University of Southern California. Christina is a BAPEPAM licensed BrokerDealer, Underwriter and Investment Manager Representative. She was Finance Chair for the Indonesia Chapter
of Young Entrepreneurs Organization in 1999-2000 and Membership Chair in 2000-2001. She was Treasurer of
the Underwriter’s Association in 2000- 2002. Christina has been a member of the Jakarta Stock Exchange
Discipline Committee since 2004 and is currently acting as Vice Chair where she and the rest of the members are
advising the Board of Directors of the JSX on regulatory matters and issues concerning the securities industry.
She is a member of the Indonesia Chapter of Young Presidents’ Organization and elected to be a Chapter Network
Co-Chair for 2007-2008.
Jeremy Lim
Jeremy Lim is Director of Policy and Research at Singapore Health Services (SingHealth).
A surgeon by training, in his current position he oversees policy issues at the largest
healthcare cluster in Singapore, which includes Singapore General Hospital, KK Women’s
and Children’s Hospital, and the National Cancer Centre. In addition, he leads SingHealth’s
health services research program, which conducts research into the quality, cost and access
to healthcare. He earned a Master’s of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins School of
Public Health, where he studied under the Fulbright program.
Lin Gu
Lin Gu teaches Journalism at the Beijing Foreign Studies University and will join a new talk
show program on China Central Television as a producer in October, 2007. He previously
covered China for eight years as a journalist at China Features, China’s leading feature wire
service for overseas media outlets. He has reported on a wide variety of issues, including
social migration, environmental protection, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. His stories have
appeared on the BBC and in the South China Morning Post and Bangkok Post, among others.
In 2004, Mr. Lin became a co-presenter on the new radio program Letter on the BBC World
Service, where he wrote and presented a ten-minute monologue on China. He
was also a researcher for the BBC/PBS documentary China from the Inside. Mr. Lin received the Developing
Asia Journalism Award in 2004 and 2006. He holds an M. Phil. in Social Anthropology from Cambridge
University and was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, from 2006 through 2007.
Kee Hong Low
Kee Hong Low is currently the General Manager of the Singapore Biennale. Organized by the
National Arts Council, the inaugural Singapore Biennale was staged in 2006 to much critical
success. It is currently the country’s largest international contemporary visual arts platform.
The second edition of the Singapore Biennale will take place in 2008, with the theme of
Wonder. From 2002 to 2005, he served as Associate Artistic Director of TheatreWorks, where
he introduced a whole new genre of creative works with the aim of recalibrating the bounds
between art, science and “live” performance. This process began with a new laboratory called
the DAVINCIPROJECT, which led to the emergence of
collaborations like Balance: Space Time Movement (August 2003), for which Mr. Low was awarded the
Best Director and Best Set Design awards at the 4th Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards. He has toured extensively
and serves as writer, researcher, dramaturg and associate director on several regional projects. Mr. Low is also an
active scholar, holding a Master’s degree in Sociology and having ongoing research interests in cultural policy,
urban planning and architecture, performance studies, vernacular and contemporary culture, and the arts of
Southeast Asia.
C.V. Madhukar
C. V. Madhukar is the Founder and Director of PRS Legislative Research – a first-of-its-kind
initiative in India that supports Members of Parliament and political parties by providing easyto-understand analysis of legislation. He started as an investment banker with ICICI Securities
and has played a significant leadership role in building Pratham, an education initiative in
Mumbai. He was later invited by Mr. Azim Premji to help set up the Azim Premji Foundation.
He was also invited by the Government of Karnataka to set up and manage the Akshara
Foundation in Bangalore, a basic education initiative that harnessed the collective strengths
of government, citizens, and the corporate sector. He was
an Edward S. Mason Fellow at Harvard University and holds a Master’s in Public Administration degree from the
John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He also has an MBA in Finance from the University of
Houston and a Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree from Bangalore University. In recognition of his innovative
leadership, Mr. Madhukar has been awarded the Echoing Green Fellowship and an Ashoka Fellowship. He has
also worked with the World Bank in Washington and was recently been selected as the Eisenhower Fellow from
India for 2008.
Keith Magnus
Keith Magnus, Managing Director of Merrill Lynch and Head of Investment Banking in
Singapore and Malaysia, is one of the region’s most accomplished investment bankers and a
trusted corporate advisor and close confidant to leading captains of industry. He has a proven
track record of success that includes closing some of the largest and most complex merger
and acquisition, equity capital market, and debt capital market deals in Singapore. He has led
investment banking practices for financial institutions in Singapore that have won a clean
sweep of consecutive annual awards for Best Foreign Investment Bank in Singapore. He is
also a board member of the Sentosa Development Corporation (Finance
Committee), a statutory board operating under the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry. Mr. Magnus holds
Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Economics (Accountancy) degrees from Monash University in Clayton,
Australia.
Shalini Mahtani
Shalini Mahtani is Founder and CEO of Community Business, a leading non-profit
organization in Hong Kong that works with some of the world’s largest companies in the
area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). She works with these companies’ leaders
on CSR strategy for Asia, corporate community investment, and diversity in the
workplace. She has numerous publications and is a frequent speaker on these topics. Ms.
Mahtani was awarded the “Chief Executive’s Commendation for Community Service”
by the Hong Kong Government for her contributions to the ethnic minorities of Hong
Kong and was named an Asia 21 Young Leader by the Asia Society. Ms. Mahtani
serves as External Diversity Advisor to Merrill Lynch in Asia Pacific and is a founding board director of The
Women’s Foundation in Hong Kong and the founder of the Suddhananda Vidyalaya Ammapettai School in
Madras, India, a village school for first generation school attendees. Before founding Community Business, she
had a career in accounting and banking. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics and is a Certified
Public Accountant. She is married with one son.
Butet Manurung
Butet Manurung is Director of SOKOLA, which provides alternative education for
Indonesia’s indigenous people. Ms. Manurung’s interest in educating indigenous people
began when she started working as a teacher in the jungles of Bukit Duabelas in 1999. In
addition to teaching the forest-dwelling Orang Rimba how to read, write, and count, she also
prepared them for the onset of changes to their climate, environment, and needs. She also
helped them adapt to the threats posed by logging interests, outsiders, and new governmental
policies on transmigration. She has established nine other alternative schools for indigenous
people in such remote areas of Indonesia as Sumatra, Sulawesi, Java, Flores,
and Halmahera Island. She was honored with the Asia Hero award in 2004 from TIME magazine, the Woman of
the Year 2004 award in education by ANteve, Indonesia, and the Man and Biosphere Award 2001 by LIPI and
UNESCO Indonesia. She became an Ashoka Fellow in October 2006. Ms. Manurung is a graduate of Padjadjaran
University, where she majored in Anthropological Studies and Indonesian Literature.
Daniel Marguari
Daniel Marguari is Chief Executive of Spiritia Foundation and works tirelessly to empower
Indonesians infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. He oversees more than twenty catalyst and 130
peer support groups in seventy districts of Indonesia. He has attended and presented at
numerous HIV/AIDS conferences. Mr. Marguari is a member of the Country Coordinating
Mechanism of Global Fund of Indonesia and of the National AIDS Comission. He received an
Ashoka Fellowship as a Social Entrepreneur in October 2005 and his nongovernmental
organization was honored with a Red Ribbon Award from the UNDP in 2006. Mr. Marguari
holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
Shaffi Mather
Shaffi Mather is the Founder of “DIAL 1298 FOR AMBULANCE” (www.1298.org.in) in
Mumbai, which is India’s first truly world-class self- sustaining Emergency Medical Service.
This project is now under expansion in Mumbai and in his home state of Kerala. He is part of
an upcoming new generation of young leaders within the Indian National Congress Party. He
was educated at the Mahatma Gandhi University in India, the University of Pittsburgh and the
University of Bridgeport, both in the U.S., and the London School of Economics, U.K., where
he was a Chevening Senior Scholar and is currently a Visiting Lecturer. He has
been selected to be a Mason Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, for the
academic year 2007-08. He also successfully headed his family real estate business and worked with two of India’s
leading corporate tycoons, Mr. Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries) and Mr. Subash Chandra (Zee TV/Essel
Group).
Evan Medeiros
Evan S. Medeiros, Ph.D., is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He specializes in research and
analysis on the international politics of Asia, Chinese foreign and security policies, and Chinese defense issues.
He has published numerous books, monographs, and journal articles on these subjects. From 2007-08, he is
advising the Treasury Department’s U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue under an International Affairs
Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is also a term member. Dr. Medeiros previously
conducted research on Asian security issues as a Senior Research Associate at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies and as a visiting fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. He reads,
speaks, and writes Mandarin Chinese.
Dovran Meredov
Dovran Meredov is PC Sales and Marketing Director and Trainer for Blue Star of Kazakhstan LLP, the official
DaimlerChrysler AG distributor in Kazakhstan. He previously worked for IPC Motors and Amadia Motors, both
in Turkmenistan. Mr. Meredov was born in the small town of Bayram-Ali, Turkmenistan, and graduated from the
Art College in Mary in 1991 and the Azady Turkmen State Institute of World Languages in Ashgabat in 1996,
where he has also taught.
Samar Minallah
Samar Minallah is the Executive Director of a non-government organization called
Ethnomedia, which works in the fields of advocacy and awareness-raising in Pakistan. She
is also an accomplished filmmaker, using documentaries and other forms of media as tools
for social change by which to spotlight human rights violations and challenge culturally
sanctioned forms of violence. She has traveled to rural and tribal areas to give a voice to
women who are kept away from the eyes and influence of the outside world. She believes
in the power of film to generate dialogue and understanding on issues that are otherwise
invisible. By doing so, she has managed to give a new meaning to advocacy
and documentary filmmaking in Pakistan. Her documentaries are especially targeted for religious scholars, tribal
elders, and policy and decision makers. Mrs. Minallah received the Perdita Huston Human Rights Award in 2007.
Nitish Mishra
Nitish Mishra is a Minister of the Department of Sugar Cane Industries in the Government
of Bihar, an Eastern Indian State. Before entering politics, he had more than ten years of
experience in management and operations in the profit and non- profit sectors. He has
focused on strategies for community and societal development in health and sanitation,
empowerment of rural womenfolk, watershed management, education, and emergency flood
relief. Mr. Mishra holds an MBA in International Business from the Maastricht School of
Management and a post-graduate degree in Global Political Economy from the University of
Hull, U.K., and was a recipient of the Chevening Scholarship. Mr. Mishra
was responsible for an E-Swasthya (health) project in the Madhubani district of Bihar that provides health cards
and online medical advice to the underprivileged, particularly women and children. The project was a finalist for
the Digital Partners Social Enterprise International Award 2003-2004. Mr. Mishra is the author of two books,
Essays in Political Economy: A Global Perspective (1998) and External Alienation and Internal Apathy: An
Analysis of Bihar’s Backwardness (1999).
Sarita Mishra
Sarita Mishra is a Senior Tabala Player and Assistant Lecturer at the Padmakanya Campus of
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal. While tabala playing is still viewed as a man’s job
in Nepal, she is doing her best to change that perception. She has worked as a senior tabala
player for Nepal’s state-run television and radio stations and has conducted more than a
thousand musical shows and concerts both inside and outside Nepal. She has organized
numerous musical and dance programs and been involved in many organizations devoted to
classical music in various capacities. She serves as president of Narayan Music Academy, as
general secretary of Kirateswar Sangeet Asram, and as president of Cheli Sangeet Samuha, a
musical group that consists of female musicians. Music is Ms. Mishra’s passion and she is thrilled that she has
helped to popularize classical music in Nepal and that growing numbers of parents want to include music in the
education of their children. She also believes that music has a deep spiritual component, because it “connects us
with the almighty God” and “gives us perfection and realization about ourselves.”
Neelesh Misra
Neelesh Misra is a journalist who serves as Senior Roving Editor for the Hindustan Times,
India’s leading English language daily. As roving editor, he travels widely and writes on
diverse issues, with a focus on investigative writing. His stories are frequently translated into
Hindi for his newspaper’s sister publication in that language. Mr. Misra has also written three
books. The first two were works of nonfiction: 173 Hours in Captivity (2000) describes the
hijacking of an Indian Airlines jetliner to Afghanistan, while End of the Line (2001) is about
the massacre of Nepal’s royal family. His first novel, Once Upon a Timezone (2006), is a
romantic comedy set in New York and an Indian call center that
offers a humorous take on issues related to outsourcing and globalization. His forthcoming book, tentatively
entitled India Under Siege, is a study of how insurgency is sweeping across vast swathes of the “Invisible India,”
even while the hype and glamour of a “Shining India” spurs one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Mr.
Misra also writes Hindi movie screenplays and songs for Bollywood, some of which have been major hits.
Nikhil Mittal
Nik Mittal is a Managing Director at JANA Partners, a multi- billion-dollar global investment firm with offices
in the U.S. and Asia, and is responsible for leading the firm’s investments in India. After receiving his JD and
MBA from New York University School of Law and Stern School of Business (with honors), he started on Wall
Street in 1998 with the investment banking group of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. He then ran a small technology
company before returning to India in 2002. Mr. Mittal was born in India and moved to the United States as a
young child.
Harsha Moily
Harsha Moily is Founder and CEO of Moksha-Yug Access (MYA) of India, a rural infrastructure and services
company with a primary focus on microfinance. With the goal of making the rural poor active participants in
India’s growth, MYA uses microfinance to develop the capacity building, training, and entrepreneurial skills of
the poor. MYA is working to build a comprehensive supply chain model to facilitate job and asset creation for
the rural poor and to help product and service providers reach rural households. MYA currently reaches 24,000
poor households in rural India and aims to serve one million micro-entrepreneurs and their families within three
years. Mr. Moily holds an MBA in International Business Management from the Garvin School of International
Management (USA). His prior experience includes four years with Agribusiness, Investment Research and
Venture Capital companies in the U.S., three years in London with a private equity and project development firm
focused on infrastructure sectors, and three years in India, working on the rollout of one of the world’s largest
telecom networks.
Ali Mostashari
Dr. Ali Mostashari is a strategic advisor to the Assistant Secretary General for Africa at the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He leads an oversight and performance management
function for the UNDP’s development project portfolio in Africa and plays a key role on various
strategic initiatives. He previously served as the LEAD Project Manager for the UNDP
ARMADA Initiative and as a researcher on Sustainable Development, Energy and Transportation
at MIT, where he was awarded the Martin Family Fellowship for Sustainable Development. He
was nominated for the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders 2008 award. He is the
author of a book on stakeholder
engagement in Sociotechnical Systems Design and of many book chapters and articles and is the Editor-in-Chief
of the Iran Analysis Quarterly. Dr. Mostashari holds a Ph.D. in Technology, Management and Policy from MIT,
two Master’s degrees from MIT and one from the University of Nebraska, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering
from Sharif University.
Mee Moua
Senator Mee Moua was elected to the Minnesota legislature in February 2002, becoming the first Asian-American
woman elected to the Minnesota Senate. Senator Moua chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and sits on the
Senate Committees on Taxes, Transportation, and Public Safety Budget. She is a member of the Democratic
National Committee and sits on the board of the Asian and Pacific Islander American (APIA) Health Forum, a
national policy advocacy organization. She was born in Laos, immigrated to the United States in 1978, and
currently lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband and three children.
Farhan Muhammad
Farhan Muhammad has worked in the radio and television industries of Indonesia since 1994.
Starting out as an assistant writer, he has gained extensive experience in creating, writing,
producing, and hosting shows and now hosts his own television talk show on ANTV
Indonesia. He also used his background in economics to start Intuitif, a creative marketing
communication company that works with such clients such as Suzuki Motorcycle and the
Djarum Tobacco Company. Mr. Muhammud is also active in many social activities, having
worked with Yayasan Cinta Anak Bangsa to prevent drug abuse, with Yayasan AIDS
Indonesia to prevent HIV/AIDS, and with Yayasan Autisma on the
Indonesia Autism awareness campaign. He is married and the father of two.
Siamak Namazi
Siamak Namazi is Partner and CEO of Atieh Bahar Consulting (www.atiehbahar.com), a
consulting firm that advises blue chip companies on how to enter and succeed in the
Iranian market. He is a frequent contributor to international publications and conferences
on Iranian political and economic issues, and has appeared regularly as a commentator in
domestic and international media. Mr. Namazi also serves as an advisor to PIRA’s Global
Political Risk Service (www.pira.com), as a member of the editorial board of Iran Strategic
Focus, and as a founding board member of the International Association for Iranian
Managers (www.i-aim.org). He holds an M.S. in Urban Planning and Policy
Development from Rutgers University and a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University. He has been
a Fellow at the National Endowment of Democracy, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and
the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The World Economic Forum recognized Mr. Namazi as a
Young Global Leader in 2007.
Shankar Narayan
Shankar Narayan is Policy Director at Hate Free Zone Washington, a Seattle-based
organization that advances the principles of democracy and justice at local, state, and
national levels and seeks to empower immigrant communities. He was previously with
the Seattle law firm of Preston, Gates and Ellis LLP, where he built a practice in
technology and intellectual property law. He has also worked at the ACLU’s Drug
Policy Litigation Project, the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre in
New Delhi, and Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria, South Africa. Mr. Narayan is an active member of the
South Asian Bar Association of Washington and the Detention Watch Network, and formerly co-chaired the
Ethnic Diversity in the Legal Profession Committee of the King County Bar Association. He holds a JD from Yale
Law School, an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a B.S. in Economics from Bates
College. Mr. Narayan was born in Moscow, grew up in the U.S., the Maldives, India, Yugoslavia, Thailand, and
Russia, and is an Indian citizen.
Siddharth Narrain
Siddharth Narrain is a legal researcher at the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore, where
alternative lawyering is integrated with critical research, pedagogic interventions and sustained
legal interventions on various social issues. His areas of interest include freedom of speech and
expression, as well as judicial decisions related to socio-economic rights, media laws, and
sexuality rights. Mr. Narrain has worked as a journalist for Frontline magazine and The Hindu
newspaper of New Delhi, writing extensively on socio-legal issues. He graduated from the
National Law School of India University, Bangalore, in 2002 and from the Asian College of
Journalism, Chennai, in 2003.
Thi Thu Huong Nguyen
Thi Thu Huong Nguyen is a Specialist in Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Vietnamese
Department of Cultural Heritage. This position continues the work she has done for the past
eleven years as a Researcher and Curator for Southeast Asian cultures at the Vietnam Museum
of Ethnology. She specializes in using museum exhibitions to preserve and promote cultural
heritage, to enhance public awareness of critical issues, and to stimulate cultural exchanges
and dialogues. She is particularly interested in the implementation of cultural policies at the
local level and in how to better adapt those policies to the needs of communities to safeguard
their cultural heritage.
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Tuan Andrew Nguyen is an artist and filmmaker based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Since receiving his MFA
from the California Institute of the Arts, Nguyen has participated in international art exhibitions and film festivals
around the world. Mr. Nguyen is currently collaborating with Vietnam’s first generation of graffiti artists on a
feature-length documentary film that will explore the complex issues surrounding modernization, expression, and
youth culture in Vietnam. He is part of a group of artists who have started a nonprofit, artist-run exhibition space
dedicated to the exchange of contemporary art and ideas between Vietnamese and international artists.
Rodel Nodora
Rodel Nodora is a physician working for the Philippines Department of Health in the
field of Human Resources for Health. He was previously a volunteer in the “Doctors to
the Barrios Program,” which sent doctors to the hard-to -reach and economically
depressed areas of the country. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Public Health from the
University of the Philippines, Manila, as well as a Doctor of Medicine degree and an
MBA. He enjoys traveling.
Byoungkwon Oh
Byoungkwon Oh is Director of the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs
of the Korean Government. Born in Seoul in 1971, he majored in International Relations and
Law at Seoul National University and then studied Comparative Law at the University of San
Diego’s School of Law. While still a college student, he passed the highly selective examination
for government officials in 1995 and has worked for the Ministry of Government
Administration and Home Affairs ever since.
Soh Kim Ong
Soh Kim Ong is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering,
National University of Singapore. Her research interests include distributed manufacturing
systems, life cycle engineering, and virtual and augmented reality applications in
manufacturing. She heads a team of twelve researchers and students who are actively
developing assistive technology tools. She has published four books, and over 130 refereed
journals and conference papers. She has received many international and national awards,
including the 2004 Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of
Manufacturing Engineers, the 2004
Singapore Youth Award from the Singapore National Youth Council, and the 2006 Outstanding Young Person of
Singapore Award from the Singapore Junior Chamber of Commerce. She served as a Nominated Member of
Parliament from January 2005 to April 2006.
Ebonique Padgett
Ebonique Padgett joined the U.S. Department of State in 2005 and is currently a Science
and Technology Officer for China. She negotiates and facilitates bilateral agreements and
has coordinated such events as the White House- led U.S.-China Joint Commission
Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation and the U.S.-China Executive
Secretary’s Meeting. Prior to joining the State Department, she served as an International
Trade Specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce, where she managed the IT and
telecom portfolios, coordinated outreach to small and medium-sized companies, and
organized nationwide “Doing Business in China” seminars. She also worked as Assistant to the Anti-Fraud Officer
at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and as a Trade Specialist at the Taiwan Trade Center in New York. Ms. Padgett
received her B.A. in English Literature and Chinese Studies from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and an
M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She has studied
Chinese since 1992, at three different universities.
Celia Pan
Celia Pan is Head of China Marketing for Google, where she leads the efforts to introduce
Google’s brand, products, and advertising solutions to Chinese Internet users and
enterprises. She is a veteran of the Chinese Internet and television industries, having
previously worked as the Marketing Director for Yahoo China and in management positions
with two Internet startups. Ms. Pan was also the director, writer, and editor of several awardwinning documentaries for China Central Television and for PBS in the United States. She
graduated from Stanford University in 1997 with a Master’s degree in Communication.
Adrian Panggabean
Dr. Adrian Panggabean is an Economic Adviser in the Department of Economic
Planning and Development of the Prime Minister’s Office of Brunei Darussalam. He
provides policy and technical advice to the department on a wide range of policy
issues, including economic development strategy, privatization, economic
coordination, and mid-term public investment strategy. Previously, Dr. Panggabean
served as an Economist with the Asian Development Bank, headquartered in Manila,
and as a Southeast Asia Economist and Vice President of Equity Research for
Nomura Singapore. He started his career in academia by teaching Economics at the University of Indonesia. Dr.
Panggabean studied Economics at the University of Indonesia, and then earned his Master’s and Doctoral degrees
in Finance from Birmingham University in England.
Mozart Anthony Pastrano
As founding artistic director of Pasundayag Community Theatre, I have been in the
forefront of engaging our communities of peace in Northern Mindanao, the Philippines,
through contemporary theatre that explores and expresses the issues of our times in the
context of community- and even nation-building. Our free theatre workshops have
empowered the youth to articulate their community concerns through original laboratory
theatre pieces (which become the basis for the establishment of their own theatre groups),
even as our educational theatre productions have supplemented the curriculum-centered
systems of our educational institutions in the region.
Geeta V. Patel
Geeta V. Patel is a novelist and a director and producer of documentary and dramatic films. With funding from
PBS and Sundance, she and Senain Kheshgi directed the feature documentary film Project Kashmir. She has also
worked on film and television projects for Disney, Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, ABC, NBC, and
Twentieth Century Fox, including The Fast and the Furious and Blue Crush. A graduate of Duke University, Ms.
Patel’s background in languages and international relations informs her work with new media, multifaith
education, and conflict resolution. She is a Sundance Directing Fellow, has served on Nomination Committees
for the Rockefeller/Renew Media Art’s Fellowship and the IDA’s DocuWeek, and is a Board Member of the
Center for Multifaith Education and Artwallah. Ms. Patel is also author of an upcoming novel entitled The
Laughing, which is set during Kashmir’s worst year of human rights violations. She is currently working on a
comic book/live-action series based on Partition.
Tejendraprasad Patel
Tejendraprasad Patel is the Founder of Indus Partners, a consultancy that works on U.S.Asia trade and economic cooperation. He is now in the process of launching e2, a socioenvironmental venture that aims to provide equitable energy options and empower the
commercialization of sustainable energy in developing nations. He served as Regional
Director for Asia/Pacific for the State of Texas during Governor George W. Bush’s
administration. He became the first state official to visit Vietnam since normalizing relations with that country
and drafted a Statement of Cooperation between Texas and Vietnam, the first of its kind. He has also worked on
outreach to the Asian community outreach for various political campaigns. He earned a degree from the University
of Pennsylvania in Economics and South Asia Studies with distinction. He speaks English, French, Gujarati, and
Hindi, and says that traveling and living all over the world have shaped his lifelong passion for people, places,
and policy.
Jasmeen Patheja
Jasmeen Patheja is a photographer who blends that medium with performance art, videos and blogs because she
believes that the participation of her subjects is necessary to complete her work. Her work is interventionist as she
seeks to challenge societal attitudes toward the issues of street sexual harassment and violence and the notion of
modesty. The public and participatory arts project Blank Noise (www.blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com) as grown
out of this goal. Blank Noise began as a student project and has grown to become a worldwide community of
people interested in reexamining street sexual harassment (or “eve teasing”). Ms. Patheja is also committed to
creating interactions in public spaces through online events and street interventions across India and now Pakistan.
Tshering Penjor
Tshering Penjor was recently appointed as Executive Director of the newly established
National Council for Education of Bhutan. He previously served as Coordinator of the
People’s Project Research Office 1 under the Secretariat of His Majesty the King of
Bhutan, which was responsible for the drafting of a Comprehensive Development Strategy
for Bhutan. He joined the country’s Foreign Service in 1992 and served as a diplomat in
Dhaka, Bangladesh, from 1993 to 1997 and as a permanent delegate of Bhutan to the
United Nations in New York from 2002 to 2005. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from
Delhi University and a Master’s degree in International Affairs from
Columbia University.
Kousalya Periasamy
Kousalya Periasamy grew up in a middle-class family in Namakkal, India, but her life was changed when she got
married and became infected with HIV. As a widow living with HIV, she decided to do more for women who are
similarly suffering in India by starting the Positive Women Network in 1998. The organization has grown into a
national one that operates in thirteen states with more than 5,000 women as members. It has become a key
advocate for improvements to the quality of life of women living with HIV.
Wenchi Yu
Wenchi Yu is Vital Voices Global Partnership’s New York Office Representative and
Human Rights Program Director. She liaises with the U.N. on behalf of Vital Voices
and is also responsible for expanding the organization’s network, building privatepublic partnerships in New York, and managing and developing human rights
programs, including its hallmark anti-trafficking program.
She has testified before the U.S. Congress and has been quoted in many major international media outlets on
women’s rights issues. She has also published articles in the Asian Wall Street Journal and the United Nations
Chronicle. Prior to joining Vital Voices, Ms. Perkins worked with an immigrant rights organization, trained law
enforcement personnel, and did research and policy advocacy in labor rights and corporate social responsibility in
East Asia. She has also worked as a foreign policy assistant at the Taiwanese Parliament and for Taiwan’s
Consulate in Chicago. Ms. Perkins has an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a
B.A. in Political Science from National Taiwan University.
Mitchell Pham
Mitchell Pham is Director and Co- Founder of the Augen Technology Group. Born in Vietnam,
he arrived in New Zealand in 1985 at the age of 13 as a refugee. After studying Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) in university, he co-founded the Augen Technology
Group, which now encompasses a number of ICT companies in both New Zealand and
Vietnam. He also works as a strategy advisor to a number of New Zealand companies with
high-growth potential and advises in a number of New Zealand-Asia government initiatives,
trade missions, and research projects. Mr. Pham is a keen supporter of the Asia-New Zealand
Foundation and of efforts to encourage ICT companies to engage
with Asia. He also supports not-for-profit organizations in the community/disability services sector and the fitness
industry.
Quan Phung
Quan Phung is Senior Vice President of Creative Affairs for Twentieth Century Fox TV Studios. He works closely
with writers, producers, directors and actors to develop scripted television series for the American broadcast
networks. Some of the more recent critically acclaimed series produced by Twentieth Century Fox TV include
The Simpsons, 24, Prison Break, Family Guy, My Name Is Earl, How I Met Your Mother, and
Arrested Development. Mr. Phung’s area of specialization is the development and production of comedy series
that will not only work in the U.S. but also throughout the world.
Jia Ping
Jia Ping is Chief Executive Director and Founder of Global Fund Watch (China
Initiative), a watchdog nongovernmental organization that combats AIDS,
tuberculosis and malaria. He is also the Chief Lawyer for the Project of Friends, which
is the leading MSM Network on the Chinese Mainland and just received the UNAIDS
award for its contributions to fighting AIDS. He also served on the experts’ committee
for HIV/AIDS of China’s Center for Disease Control. Mr. Ping is a tireless advocate
for the rights of people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS, sex workers, migrant
people, drug users, and homosexuals. He aims to bring the rights of these socially
marginalized groups under Chinese constitutional law into accord with international
standards. Mr. Ping also served as executive director of Tsinghua University’s human
rights and constitutional law center, and as the lawyer
responsible for health education at the Beijing Ai Zhi Xing Institute. He graduated from the Ren Min University
and East China law schools and was a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Center for the Study of Human
Rights in 2005.
Rohitashwa Poddar
Rohitashwa Poddar is Managing Director of Wearology Ltd., a family business that he has re-engineered into an
environmentally friendly, yet financially sound company. After being educated at the Cathedral School in Bombay
and Winchester College and King’s College in England, he returned to India in 1994 to join the family business.
He recognized that spirituality, social responsibility, and business can co-exist and has made organic farming,
organic textiles, and low-cost housing the hallmarks of the business. Wearology is now a leader in each area with
11,000 acres of certified organic land devoted to growing various produce, textiles that are 100% certified organic,
and a commitment to providing “green” low-cost housing in Mumbai to 150,000 people over the next four years.
Suman Pradhan
Suman Pradhan is a Senior National Political Affairs Officer in the United Nations Mission in Nepal, which is
assisting the country establish peace, democracy, and stability after ten years of violent conflict. He has worked
as a political journalist for more than twelve years, serving as a senior editor and columnist for some of Nepal’s
best-known newspapers. Mr. Pradhan holds a Master’s degree in History from Tribhuvan University in
Kathmandu and was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University in 2005-06.
Tony Pua
Tony Pua was the CEO and founder of a successful Malaysian IT company that he headed
for ten years. In January 2007, he sold the company to work full-time (without pay) as the
Economic Advisor to the Secretary -General of the Democratic Action Party of Malaysia.
In his new role he is responsible for editing the party newsletter, organizing events, servicing
the constituency, and attracting young blood. Mr. Pua has a degree in Philosophy, Politics
and Economics from Oxford, which he attended under an MTC Foundation scholarship. He
completed his secondary education in Singapore at the Raffles Institution under the ASEAN
Scholarship.
Massoud Qiam
Massoud Qiam is Current Affairs Program Manager and Senior Journalist for TOLO TV
in Afghanistan. He studied at Kabul University’s Faculty of Medicine but eventually
abandoned his studies to concentrate on journalism. He joined Arman FM in 2003 and
soon developed a reputation as a fearless reporter who would cover stories others were
unwilling to touch. When TOLO TV was launched in 2004, he was asked to help develop
current affairs and news formats. Mr. Qiam and his team created the
6:30 Report, which has become Afghanistan’s most dynamic and influential current affairs program. The show
has featured many controversial topics, including the rise of fundamentalism, suicide bombings, the Taliban, Al
Qaeda, and corruption in the country’s justice system. Mr. Qiam has interviewed such figures as President Karzai
of Afghanistan and Prime Minister Singh of India. In 2005, his team launched a hard -hitting new investigative
program called Dahlezha (Corridors). He was a speaker at the Eurasia Media Forum in 2005 and a participant at
the Greenwich Forum in 2007.
Losang Rabgey
Dr. Losang Rabgey, 38, is the Executive Director of Machik, a nonprofit group that she cofounded with her sister Tashi Rabgey, LLM. Machik’s mission is to create innovative
pathways for a sustainable future on the Tibetan plateau. Born in a refugee settlement in
India, Dr. Rabgey moved to Canada as a child. She has co-founded an award-winning
primary school in her father’s village in Kham and has established a program supporting over
200 girls and young Tibetan women through high school and university. Through Machik,
she is coordinating collaborative efforts to establish sustainable geotourism in the region as
part of her ongoing effort to bridge cultural divides. Dr. Rabgey also serves on
the board of directors of the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library, the largest online library of Tibetan culture,
and was a founding board member of Mechak, the first online gallery of contemporary Tibetan art. Her Ph.D. is
in Gender Anthropology and Contemporary Tibetan Culture from the University of London’s SOAS and her
research interests also include social entrepreneurship and rural community development in Tibet. In 2006, Dr.
Rabgey was selected by the National Geographic Society as an Emerging Explorer.
Swati Ramanathan
Swati Ramanathan is the Co-Founder of Janaagraha – The Centre for Citizenship and
Democracy, which works with communities and local development authorities in
Bangalore, India, to bring better governance by means of participatory planning. She
designed and coordinated Janaagraha’s “Ward Vision” Participatory Planning
Campaign, which involved more than 2000 citizens and over 1000 volunteers. She is
also involved in non-profit space design work and urban planning and advised the
National Government on participatory planning processes. She conceptualized, coordinated, and co-authored
Participatory Planning: A Citizens’ Handbook and is also the author of a White Paper on shaping vibrant cities.
She is Chairperson of India Urban Space and a member of the State Urban Agenda for Rajasthan (SUARAJ). Ms.
Ramanathan has a Master’s degree from Pratt Institute in New York with experience as a design professional in
the U.S.and the U.K.
Anita Ramasastry
Anita Ramasastry is a Professor of Law at the University of Washington Law School. Her previous experience
includes working as a staff attorney for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as an attorney for the law firm of
White & Case in Budapest, as a professor at Central European University (Budapest), and as a senior advisor to
the Special Claims Tribunal for World War II dormant accounts in Zurich. She has received the 2008 Fulbright
Fellowship and has also done fellowships at the University of Galway, the Centre for Commercial Law Studies,
the University of London, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and the Harvard Law School. Professor
Ramasastry’s public service activities include working on the Pro Bono Committee ACLU-Washington Legal
Committee and chairing the North American South Asian Bar Association.
Indira Rana Magar
Indira Rana Magar has introduced reform, rehabilitation and welfare programs into Nepali
prisons, where at present only the most rudimentary systems operate. Her approach has evolved
over the years into a model applicable to prison welfare work in other countries. She focuses
on the simple aim of enabling prisoners to return to their families and to a normal life after
prison. Around this idea revolve programs that include welfare support, training and education
for prisoners, residential care for their children, work with families and communities,
reintegration programs, after-prison support systems, and the Junkiri (Firefly) alternative
community schools and libraries. She is the chairperson of the Network for
Children, Prisoners, and Dependents in Nepal and has been a member of the National Consultant Committee in
the Prison Department of Nepal. Ms. Rana Magar has received many awards for her innovative and tireless efforts
to give a voice to the most vulnerable groups in Nepal, including being selected as an Ashoka Fellow and receiving
the Power Goddess Award from the Children and Women’s Ministry of the Government of Nepal.
Irfhan Rawji
Irfhan Rawji is Vice President at Birch Hill Equity Partners, a Canadian private equity firm. He
is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches an
undergraduate capstone course called “Leadership and General Management.” Mr. Rawji is a
Director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario and of the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto.
He was included in MacLean’s magazine’s list of “100 Canadians to Watch in the 21st
Century” and the Globe and Mail’s list of “Top Canadians Under 35.” He has a B. Comm. (Wesbrook Scholar)
from the University of British Columbia and an MBA (Baker Scholar) from Harvard University.
Abhishek Ray
Abhishek Ray is Founder of the Disability Research and Design Foundation, which aims to provide equality and
dignity within Indian society to people with disabilities. Trained as an architect in Mumbai, he worked in
mainstream architecture and construction for two years before redirecting his energies to design alternatives with
a deeper social impact. He first became interested in environmentally sustainable architecture and development,
and eventually focused his attention on disability awareness and universal design for the differently abled. In 2004,
he decided to form the action group Disability Research and Design Foundation, which brings together people
from diverse legal, engineering and design backgrounds to achieve solutions for the differently abled. Mr. Ray’s
organization has used tools such as films, literature and seminars to sensitize students of design, development
authorities, and government officials to the needs of people with disabilities. It also lobbies for policy change and
supports the implementation of new technology to provide unrestricted access within the built environment of
cities.
Nathalie Rayes
Nathalie Rayes is the U.S. National Public Relations Director for Grupo Salinas, a Mexican
conglomerate with US $5 billion in annual sales and 50,000 employees in Mexico, the U.S., and
Central and South America, and with operations in the broadcasting, retail, banking and financial
services, telecommunications, and Internet industries. Previously, Ms. Rayes served as Los
Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn’s Deputy Chief of Staff, directing the Mayor’s Office of
Intergovernmental Relations and serving as chief liaison to federal, state, and regional
governments and the City Council. Prior to that, she was Senior Policy Advisor to L.A.
Councilmember Mike Feuer, heading his activities with respect to citywide legislation and ordinances affecting
the Fifth Council District. She also served as a Department of State Fellow in the Economic/Political Section of
the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt. Ms. Rayes has a B.A. in Sociology cum laude and a Master’s in Public Policy
with concentrations in International Relations and Education from UCLA.
Putsata Reang
Putsata Reang is an award-winning journalist and author who was born in Cambodia and raised
in Corvallis, Oregon. Her journalism career has included stints at major American newspapers
such as the San Jose Mercury News and the Seattle Times. At age 23, Miss Reang secured a
book contract for a work about a notorious multiple murder case that she first covered for the
Times. She returned to Cambodia in 2005 on a prestigious Alicia Patterson journalism
fellowship and remained in the country to launch a pioneer project training Cambodian
journalists in investigative reporting with the international media development organization,
Internews.
Kathleen Reen
Kathleen Reen is the Regional Director for the Asia Projects of Internews, an international nonprofit media development organization devoted to increasing access to information for people
worldwide. She is based in Bangkok and oversees projects in twelve Asian countries. She has
worked on media and development projects throughout Asia since 1998, when she founded
Internews’s media support program in Indonesia. She has led research, training, and grant-giving
initiatives across the region, including efforts to support the rebuilding of Timor’s
devastated media environment and the establishment of a national media assistance program in Pakistan. For the
last year she has been working with dedicated teams of professionals and volunteers providing urgent information
via radio and satellite to populations affected by the tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and the earthquake in
Pakistan. Ms. Reen’s first overseas assignment was in Cambodia in 1993, where she was the youngest registered
journalist to cover the U.N.-sponsored elections. She also reported on the war in Bosnia. Ms. Reen holds a B.A.
in Communication and Broadcast Journalism from Charles Sturt University.
Robert Reffkin
Robert L. Reffkin is an Associate in the Principal Investment Area of Goldman Sachs, where
he evaluates, executes, and monitors investments across a range of industries for the Goldman
Sachs Capital Partners funds. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he worked at Lazard Frères as
an Associate in the Mergers and Acquisitions group and at McKinsey & Company as a
Business Analyst. He currently serves on the Board of USI Holdings Corporation, XLHealth
Corporation, the National Foundation for Teaching
Entrepreneurship, and the Summer Search Foundation. From 2005-2006, he was a White House Fellow serving
in the Department of the Treasury. Mr. Reffkin received a B.A. from Columbia University and an MBA from
Columbia Business School.
Euan Rellie
Euan Rellie is the Co- Founder and Managing Director of Business Development Asia LLC
(BDA) and is based in New York. Since founding BDA in 1996, Mr. Rellie has been based in
Singapore, New York and London and has worked across China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India,
and the Middle East. From 1990 to 1996, he worked in the Corporate Finance Department of
Schroders, a leading U.K. investment bank that is now part of Salomon Smith Barney. He was
based in New York, London, and Singapore and worked on assisting
Western multinationals in their international development. In 1995 and 1996, he was Head of Southeast Asia
Execution for Schroders’ Asia -Pacific Regional Advisory Group. Mr. Rellie’s clients in Asia have included
BUPA, ICI, Intel, Kraft Foods, Lubrizol, Nalco, Parker Hannifin, Philip Morris, Reuters, Rohm and Haas, Sara
Lee, and Tenneco. He was educated at Eton College and Cambridge University, receiving a Bachelor’s degree
with honors in History, and is a Corporate Finance Specialist Registered Representative.
Agnes Reyes
Agnes Reyes is the Director of the Community Extension unit of Notre Dame of Marbel
University in the Philippines. Her activities have included organizing teacher trainings and
parenting sessions, directing the Alternative Education in the post-conflict areas in
Mindanao, facilitating activities that influence policy reforms in local governance,
managing the construction of community learning centers, and implementing Early
Childhood Education, Functional Literacy and Livelihood Programs. She has also led
volunteer efforts to improve the welfare and education of disadvantaged children and
youth. Miss Reyes has been an evaluator of Marist schools in Singapore, Tsuen Wan and
Kowloon, Hong Kong, and a member of the Marist International Commission in Rome.
Aly Rose
Aly Rose is a Visiting Scholar and Guest Artist at New York University’s Tisch School of
the Arts, where she teaches Chinese Contemporary Dance and Political Art Studies. In
China, she is a renowned choreographer and dancer who starred in the China National Song
and Dance Operatic Troupe’s production of “Nanjing 1937,” hosted CCTV International’s
weekly program “Center Stage,” and choreographed “Phoenix” for the 2006 Dashanzi
International Art Festival. She worked with Warner Brothers to produce and create the world
premiere of John Clifford’s “Casablanca, the Dance.”
Before moving to Beijing, she lived in Guizhou, where she danced with and researched the Miao or Hmong
people. Miss Rose graduated with a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and received her M.F.A. in
choreography from the Beijing Dance Academy, becoming the first and only Westerner to earn this distinction.
Munni Saha
Munni Saha is a journalist in Bangladesh who has spent the last fifteen years working to
bring attention to such causes as women’s empowerment and literacy, human rights, civil
rights, child and woman trafficking, corruption, and HIV initiatives. She views journalism
as a tool for bringing peace to the society by providing vital information to all citizens.
She writes, “Peace is nothing but an art of improving the human condition to a self-reliant
level. Bangladesh is a country that truly lacks peace and prosperity. For this situation the
blame should go to illiteracy, prejudice, poverty, greed, corruption, and dirty politics. To
eradiate these black spots from our society I have been trying hard to
communicate to the society through my stories, write-ups, and articles. Peace is a process and can not be
ensured unless certain social issues are settled.”
Varun Sahni
Varun Sahni is the India Director of the Acumen Fund, a global social venture fund that invests
in enterprises that provide low-income communities with vital goods and services in the health,
water, housing, and energy sectors. Prior to joining the Acumen Fund, Mr. Sahni worked with
both for- profits, such as Hindustan Lever, and not-for-profits, such as CARE. He has also been
involved as an angel investor in a number of companies in the hospitality services and food and
beverage sectors across India. Mr. Sahni received an M.A. from Columbia University in Political Economy and a
B.A. from Mumbai University in Economics.
Siddarth Sanghi
Siddarth Sanghi is President and CEO of the Sanghi Group of Industries and holds directorships on the board of
several group companies. He has been individually involved with managing the operations of the synthetic fiber
and yarn business, including the procurement, production and marketing of different polyester products. He has
also played a key role in strategic planning for new ventures. Mr. Sanghi also serves on many boards and councils
and was one of the twelve Young India Entrepreneurs selected to meet U.S. President George W. Bush in
Hyderabad in 2006. Mr. Sanghi had led the Corporate Social Responsibility activities of the Sanghi Group during
major rescue and relief camps, including providing tents, food, and clothing for about 20,000 people during the
natural calamities that struck Gujarat in 2001. These activities also facilitated construction of several residential
units in the devastated areas and there are continuing efforts to ensure a safe water supply to villages, to organize
health camps and to provide education to the underprivileged. Mr. Sanghi holds a Master’s degree in Management.
Lobsang Sangay
Lobsang Sangay is a Research Fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard
Law School. He earned his Doctorate in law and his Master’s degree from Harvard Law
School, and his LLB and B.A. (with honors) from Delhi University, India. He was a recipient
of the 2004 Yong K. Kim 95 Prize of Excellence for his doctoral dissertation and received a
Fulbright Fellowship to study at Harvard Law School. Under his Track II Initiative, Dr.
Sangay has organized five unprecedented conferences that brought Chinese and Tibetan
scholars together, including a groundbreaking meeting between His Highness the Dalai
Lama and thirty-five Chinese scholars at Harvard University in 2003. As an
expert on Tibet, international human rights laws, democracy, and conflict resolution, he is frequently consulted
by the news media, including the BBC, Washington Post, Far Eastern Economic Review, and Boston Globe, and
has published articles about Tibetan issues in the Harvard Asia Quarterly and Journal of Democracy, among
others.
Malik Imtiaz Sarwar
Malik Imtiaz Sarwar is a leading Malaysian human rights lawyer and activist and the current President of the
National Human Rights Society (HAKAM). He has been actively involved in efforts to promote the rule of law
and constitutionalism, particularly in the face of worrying trends of Islamization and race politics in government
and wider society. He also actively promotes a vibrant discourse on civil rights, both in and outside court. In
August 2006, a poster declaring him to be a traitor to Islam and calling for his death began circulating in Malaysia.
Theary Seng
Theary Seng is the Director of the Center for Social Development (www.csdcambodia.org).
After four years of the Khmer Rouge hell, during which both of her parents were killed, she
went via the Thai refugee camps to the United States. She earned a B.S. from Georgetown
University and a JD from the University of Michigan Law School and holds membership in
the New York and American bar associations. She is the author of Daughter of the Killing
Fields (London, 2005). Ms. Seng founded the Women’s Association of Small and Medium
Businesses, sits on the board of Cambodian Living Arts, and is one of two judges on the
television series Youth Leadership Challenge.
Suryani Senja Alias
Suryani Senja Alias is a Senior Vice President in Research and Investment Strategy at Khazanah
Nasional, Malaysia’s government investment arm, where she does policy research and writes
briefs and speeches for the Prime Minister. She previously was part of a legal secretariat
assessing international law claims against Iraq stemming from the 1990 Gulf War for the U.N.
Compensation Commission in Geneva. She also spent a few years in London as a corporate
lawyer in the American law firm of Vinson & Elkins RLLP and as an equity analyst
at Banque Paribas. After returning to Asia, she became the Group General Counsel for a start-up aviation
company, AirAsia. She also headed a research project by Sisters in Islam on a pilot survey on the impact of
polygamy on the family institution in Malaysia and conducted research on Malaysian history at the Perdana
Leadership Foundation. Her latest personal project is creating a high-quality website to document Malaysian art
history. She obtained her law degree at the International Islamic University of Malaysia and an LLM at the London
School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Soungwoo Seo
Soungwoo Seo is Director of the Local Tax System Team of the Ministry of Government
Administration and Home Affairs in the Republic of Korea, which is in charge of national
administrative management, government innovation, and e-government. He previously held a
similar role in the Ministry’s International Cooperation Team. He passed the Senior Civil
Service Examination, one of the most competitive tests in Korea, in 1993 and subsequently
started his career as a government official at the Ministry of Government Administration and
Home Affairs. From 1995 to 2004, he served several departments as a director at the Chungcheonbuk-do
provincial government in Korea. From 2005 to 2006, he studied Public Policy Studies at KDI School and
University of Colorado, broadening his academic background in public service. In all of these positions, he has
demonstrated a commitment to efficient government administration, balanced regional development, and the wellbeing of the people he serves.
Narayan Sethuramon
Narayan Sethuramon is Managing Director of W.S. Industries Limited (WSI), a leading
Indian manufacturer of Porcelain Insulators for Electrical High Voltage Transmission and
Distribution Applications. His key achievements at WSI include increasing its global
market presence across forty-five countries, successfully restructuring the company’s
businesses, and implementing state-of-the-art Cost Management Practices. Mr.
Sethuramon is also actively involved with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He
is a member of the National Council and the CII-Family Business Network India Chapter
Core Group, as well as Immediate Past National Chairman of CII’s Young
Indians, an organization started in 2002 to engage youth and develop leaders for nation building. He is a recipient
of the CII President’s Award for outstanding contributions to CII for the year 2006-07. Mr. Sethuramon has a
Bachelor’s degree in Production Engineering from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India, and an M.S.
in Industrial Administration from Purdue University. He is married and has a three-year-old son.
Mandira Sharma
Mandira Sharma is the Founder of Advocacy Forum, which provides the means and
opportunity for young lawyers in Nepal to defend civil rights case. The Advocacy Forum
also investigates cases of human rights violations, conducts lobbying and advocacy, and
works to reform the country’s justice system. Ms. Sharma received an Ashoka
Fellowship for her innovative ideas for increasing people’s access to the justice system
and her efforts to prevent torture in Nepalese detention centers. She was also the
recipient of a Human Rights Watch Award for her contributions to improving
human rights in Nepal. Ms. Sharma was born in the western part of Nepal and received a degree in Law from
Tribhuwan University of Nepal and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex,
U.K.
Kum Hong Siew
Kum Hong Siew is a Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore. He has been
contributing news commentaries to a national daily newspaper for the past four years, and
served for two years in the Management Committee of a registered charity that helps
runaway youths in Singapore. He was also a practicing lawyer from 2001 to 2006. In 2005,
he co- founded Keystone Law Corporation, which was ranked as one of Singapore’s leading
law firms during its first year of existence. He subsequently became Senior Counsel for
Asia South for CA, Inc., and is currently Senior Legal Counsel for Yahoo! Southeast Asia.
Nigel Sim
In his role as Assistant Director of Corporate Communications and International Relations for Singapore’s
National Arts Council, Nigel Sim draws on more than ten years of experience in communications and the arts.
Since joining the Council in 2000, he has been responsible for managing its public relations and has developed
media outreach programs that have resulted in highly visible coverage for its initiatives. He has provided advice
to the Council’s Planning Division on matters of strategic planning and arts policy. He has also played a key role
in outlining a new arts development plan and has undertaken various research efforts, including a feasibility study
that led to the opening of Singapore’s first pre-tertiary arts school.
Evi Douren Siringoringo
Evi Douren Siringoringo is a medical doctor who also serves as Program Officer for Health and
Human Rights in Indonesia at Uplift International. In that position, she has been pivotal in initiating
and designing the programs of the Indonesian Representative Office. She is also providing input
on the amendment of the Indonesian Health Law to incorporate a rights-based approach through
the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM). She previously worked for the
Indonesian National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan), where she
helped to develop a support system for victims of gender- based violence. She has also served as a
maternal health consultant for UNICEF and in USAID’s Environmental
Services Program. Dr. Siringoringo is a powerful public speaker who has drawn attention to the issues close to
her heart, such as women’s rights and health rights for women and children, and has also written widely on these
issues. She is the winner of several awards, including a nationwide Young Scientific Championship in Chemistry.
Mai Siriphongphanh
Mai Siriphongphanh is the Regional General Manager for Digital Divide Data of Laos, where her management
and leadership skills have been crucial to the organization’s success. Born and raised in Laos, she received her
MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship at the Swinburne University of Technology in
Melbourne in December 2002. After completing management training with Digital Divide Data in Cambodia, she
set up its new office in Laos. In July 2004, she participated in a mini-MBA program called Global Social Benefit
Incubator organized by Santa Clara University in California.
Marc Solomon
Marc Solomon is Campaign Director of MassEquality, the statewide organization that seeks to protect equal
marriage rights in Massachusetts. He recently led the successful campaign to defeat a citizens’ petition to amend
the state constitution to reverse the right of same -sex couples to marry. Previously, Mr. Solomon was
MassEquality’s political director and a lobbyist for the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts. His
extensive public policy experience includes being Vice President of St. Louis 2004, a multi-million-dollar
community revitalization effort. He also served as legislative assistant to Senator John Danforth and as a researcher
for Bob Woodward’s The Commanders, about Washington decision-making during the Gulf War. The Rockefeller
Foundation named Mr. Solomon one of America’s Next Generation leaders in 1999 and invited him to participate
in its prestigious Next Generation Leadership fellowship program. He graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors
in Political Science and Economics from Yale and holds a Master’s in Public Administration from the JFK School
of Government at Harvard.
Apimongkol Sonakul
Apimongkol Sonakul is a Member of Parliament in Thailand. In this capacity, his
responsibilities include reform of the electricity supply industry, encouragement of private
sector investment, and the establishment of a power sector regulatory body. He is also a
Spokesman and Member of the Parliamentary Committee for Energy and a Deputy-Spokesman
for the Democratic Party. Previously, Apimongkol Sonakul was a Policy and Planning Analyst
in the energy policy and planning office of the Ministry of Energy. He
received an engineering degree from Oxford University and a Master of Arts in Business and Managerial
Economics from Chulalongkorn University.
Jeong-Hoon Song
Jeong- Hoon Song is the General Manager of Strategic Investment Division at the CJ Group
China Headquarters in Beijing. He has been responsible for New Business Development,
Investment, and Public Relations. Before joining the CJ Group, he was the head of the China
Practice Team for KPMG Seoul. His thirteen years of experience in Korea and China have
helped him establish wide networks in business, political, and academic circles in both
countries. He has a Ph.D. in Law from Peking University in China under the First Korea China Government Sponsored Scholar Exchange Program, as well as an M.A. and B.A. in
Politics from Yonsei University in Korea.
Seagull Song
Seagull Song was a Partner at King and Wood, the largest and most prestigious law firm in China, and currently
works as a foreign attorney for the U.S. law firm of Arnold & Porter. She has been practicing intellectual property
law for ten years in Hong Kong and mainland China. She is a frequent speaker at such events as the China InHouse Summit and the Hong Kong Law Society. She has been recognized as the “Leading Lawyer in the Field of
Intellectual Property Law” by Asia Law & Practice in both 2006 and 2007. Ms. Song obtained her law degree
from Hong Kong University and her LL.M from the University of California at Berkeley Law School.
Chao-Pin Su
Chao-Pin Su is a filmmaker, script writer, director and producer who has been
involved with eight feature movies and numerous music video and commercials. His
latest movie, Silk, was an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival 2006. It was
commercially released last September and became the highest-grossing Chineselanguage film in Taiwan last year. Mr. Su received a Master’s degree in
Communication Technology and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Chiao Tung
University and worked as a computer engineer for one year before entering the movie industry.
Shudarson Subedi
Shudarson Subedi is Founder, President and Policy Advocacy Adviser of Nepal Disable
Human Rights Center (DHRC- Nepal). He has worked tirelessly to mobilize the disability
human rights movement and to establish public interest litigation in Nepal on behalf of the
disabled. He has trained 1000 activists and set up 250 locally based radio listener clubs to
promote the rights of people with disabilities. He also works to educate society and to
integrate the non-disabled and disabled into a more inclusive society. Mr. Subedi was
elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2005 and received a Champions of Change award from the Nepal government in
2005.
Andru Subowo
Andru Subowo is the Managing Director of Bramadi Capital, a private investment holdings and
asset management company based in Jakarta, Indonesia. The company holds a diversified
investments portfolio both in listed and private equities, focusing on the finance, properties and
retail sectors in Southeast Asian. He served as Finance Director of PT Bramadi Pratama, a
financial consulting company, before joining the Board of Bramadi Capital in 2000. He
currently serves on the Board of Commissioners of Indosiar, one of Indonesia’s largest TV stations, and on the
Board of Directors of SK Mall, one of the largest shopping centers in Indonesia. He also serves as the Secretary
General of the Indonesia-USA Chamber of Commerce, as the Treasurer of the Indonesia-Philippines Business
Council, and as a chairperson of University of Southern California Alumni of Indonesia. He attended the first
APEC Young Leaders Forum in Monterey, Mexico. Mr. Subowo received both his Bachelor’s degree in
Economics and MBA degree in Finance from the University of Southern California (USC) in the United States,
where he also joined the Army ROTC.
Lia Sunarjio
Lia Sunarjio is General Manager at Young & Rubicam/Wunderman of Indonesia and has
over twelve years of experience in the marketing communications industry. She started her
career as a public relations executive in the hotel and tourism industry before shifting to the
advertising world. She joined FCB in 1996 and then EURO RSCG in 2000, where she
successfully opened the agency’s marketing services arm in 12 cities nationwide. She
became general manager for EURO RSCG Adwork! in 2002 at 29, which made her then
the youngest general manager in the Euro RSCG network worldwide. She assumed her
current position in 2005. In the same year, she co-founded a non-profit organization that
focuses on advocating the positive values of life to the younger generation. She was voted as best public relations
person in Bali by the Bali Post in 1999 and female executive of the year by Dewi magazine in 2006. Today, Ms.
Sunarjio, a cheerleader at heart, is embracing and loving life because she is able to do what she does best –
advertising, supporting a communications campaign that fights drug abuse, and watching her seven-year-old son
Raihan grow and dream of becoming a future Formula 1 Racer!
Jacqueline Surin
Jacqueline Ann Surin is Assistant News Editor at the Sun, Malaysia’s first and only free national newspaper. The
paper is published Monday to Friday and has a circulation of 265,000 copies and 2,200 drop-points nationwide.
She also writes a bi-weekly column for the Sun called “Shape of a Pocket.” Her series of columns in 2006 won
her the Excellence in Opinion Writing Award from the Society of Publishers in Asia in 2007. She was also named
by the London-based Article 19 as the Pioneering Women’s Voices Candidate for Malaysia in commemoration
of International Women’s Day in 2007. Her areas of interest and expertise include Islam, human rights, civil
liberties, and current national issues. In 2006, she was selected to KLUE magazine’s “20 under 40” list of
influential persons in Kuala Lumpur. Ms. Surin has also been a media trainer for the All Women’s Action
Society’s Writers for Women’s Rights Workshops since 2005. She has also performed in theatre productions in
Kuala Lumpur and in Berlin, and has had a joint art exhibition and contributed art work to a fundraiser for the
Women’s Aid Organisation.
Hendra Sutandinata
Hendra Sutandinata is President of MVCommerce, which he started in 2002 to establish mobile
phone-based and virtual-teller service infrastructures to help banks in developing countries bring
financial services to the general population, whether or not they have bank accounts. Mr.
Sutandinata started his career in 1987 with PC industry pioneer Tandon Computers in California.
After becoming Head of Product Marketing, he left to do a start-up in Indonesia, producing PCs
for U.S. brands. He later expanded it to include high-end own-brand PCs and a
reputable Banking Technology Consulting unit. Forced to close down the company after the Asian Financial
Crisis, he went on to assist the Chairman of an Asian Multinational Group to streamline a family business
organization. Mr. Sutandinata holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science in Electrical Engineering from Loyola
Marymount University and an MBA from the University of Southern California.
Lynne Sutherland
Lynne Sutherland is the Head of Retail Development for Australian and New Zealand
Banking Group Limited (ANZ) at the Bank of Tianjin, China, where she oversees the
development of a Retail Banking division within the former City Commercial Bank. Born in
New Zealand, Ms. Sutherland has an extensive Retail Banking career in New Zealand,
Australia, Indonesia, and now China, where she hopes to offer customers more choices in
managing their personal finances and to develop a world- class retail business. Prior to
moving to China, she was the General Manager of ANZ in Queensland, Australia. In addition
to managing this business successfully, she was involved with fundraising for the
Starlight Children’s Foundation and helping low-income families save for their children’s education by providing
them with financial literacy education and matched savings. While in Australia, Ms. Sutherland was a Director
on the ANZ National Board of Social Clubs, the Chair of ANZ’s Retail Banking Learning and Development
Board, and a member of the inaugural ANZ Community Giving Council. She has a degree in Horticultural Science
from Lincoln University and a GDM from the Australian Graduate School of Management.
Toshiyuki Takasaki
Toshiyuki Takasaki is Co-Founder, Vice President, and Chief Technology Officer of
NPO Pangaea, a Japan-based independent nongovernmental organization. The aim of
NPO Pangaea is to create an innovative ICT platform where children worldwide can
foster bonding and learn to respect cultural diversities, regardless of their language
and distance. He was inspired to launch this project after witnessing the events of
September 11th while working on communication and technology at the
MIT Media Lab. Mr. Takasaki aims to use his strong ICT insight and technical skills to continue expanding
NPO Pangaea to incorporate Peace Engineering.
Sarah Takesh
Sarah Takesh is Creative and Managing Director for Tarsian & Blinkley in Kabul,
Afghanistan, which she established in 2002. The company has since grown into the
single largest apparel operation in post-Taliban Afghanistan, employing 300 people,
producing thousands of units of garments per month, and serving as the showcase
industrial facility in the country’s newest industrial park. Ms. Takish received a B.A.
in Architecture from Columbia University and studied Fashion Design at the
Parsons School of Design, then worked for numerous fashion businesses in New York City. She departed from
fashion to become a founding employee at EluSys Therapeutics, a biotech firm, and later became Director of
Strategic Development for Sensatex, a New York City textile and wearable computing venture. She next obtained
an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, where her business plan for
Tarsian & Blinkley won the Global Social Venture Competition in 2003.
Cheng Yin Tan
Cheng Yin Tan, 32, is a Naval Officer for the Republic of Singapore and an accomplished all-around
athlete. She is a capable runner, cyclist, adventure racer, and has won numerous triathlons and
biathlon races. She completed the very challenging Southern Traverse expedition race in 2003, the
tough Australia XPD race in 2006, and the Adventure Race Worlds Championship in 2007. She is
also a qualified lifeguard, and a former outdoor instructor.
Sze-Wee Tan
Dr. Sze-Wee Tan is Managing Director and CEO for the Rockeby Group. Prior to joining
Rockeby, he was the Asia-Pacific Associate Regional Medical Director for Mead Johnson
Nutritionals from 1997 to 2001. He is the official spokesperson and council member of the
Singapore Medical Association and Chairman of the Singapore Medical Association Private
Limited. He is also Vice Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore’s
Executive Committee, a member of the Broadcasting Appeals Advisory Committee of the
Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, a member of the Singapore EDB’s
Biomedical Sciences Group’s MedTech Concepts Advisory Panel, a council member of the
th
54 Council of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry, and a member of the Board of
Governors of the IP Academy of Singapore. He was a former Nominated Member of Parliament of Singapore.
Dr. Tan earned medical degrees from the National University of Singapore, and an MBA from Warwick
University, U.K. He is an affiliate member of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Royal College of
Physicians, U.K.
Somkiat Tangkitvanich
Somkiat Tangkitvanich is a Research Director for Information Economy at the Thailand
Development Research Institute, a respected think -tank in Bangkok. His research topics
include media systems, telecommunications, and international trade. During the past decade,
he has led teams that have successfully conducted over sixty policy research projects. He is
the main architect of the laws governing the first Public Broadcasting television network in
Thailand, which were recently approved by the Cabinet. He also sits on a governmental
committee that is drafting the Broadcasting Business Act and on a parliamentary committee
that is revising the telecom laws. He chairs the working group on drafting the privatization
law under the Ministry of Finance. Dr. Tangkitvanich was named
“Man of the Year” by Than Sethakit Newspaper in 2003 and awarded the “Thailand Anti-Corruption Award” in
2004 for his work on telecom concessions. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Tokyo Institute
of Technology.
Nahathai Thewphaingarm
Dr. Nahathai Thewphaingarm owns a prestigious private school in Bangkok and was until
April 2006 a member of the House of Representatives of the Royal Thai Parliament. Her
previous positions include Deputy Spokeswoman of the Thai Government, Secretary of the
Deputy Ministers of Education and Public Health, Advisor to the Ministers of Public Health,
Information Technology, and Education, and Spokesperson for the Ministries of Education
and Commerce. Dr. Thewphaingarm used to host two talk shows and was the president of
women’s football for the Thai National Football Association. She holds a Ph.D. and
Master’s degree in Educational Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and a B.A. from Chalulonkorn University.
Albert Tijam
Albert Tijam is a Supervising Legislative Officer II for the House of Representatives
Electoral Tribunal of the Philippines. Born in 1980, he earned a B.A. in Public
Administration from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and is currently
writing his thesis for an M.A. in History from the same university. He previously
worked as a Social Projects Assistant for Mindanao Off-Grid Renewable Energy
Program and with the USAID-funded Winrock International Implemented Alliance.
He has been an active student-leader throughout his stay in university.
Francismelville Tinio
Francismelville Tinio is a lawyer by profession, working for the Villarin and Tinio
Law Offices, and has also been an Elective Municipal Councilor in Binalonan,
Pangasinan, the Philippines, since 2001. He has held the Chairmanships of the
committees on Education and Culture, Ordinances and Legal Matters, Rules and
Privileges, Human Rights, Good Government, and Public Accountability. He has held
the Vice Chairmanship in such other committees as Environment, Tourism,
Market and Slaughterhouse, and Budget and Appropriations. He has also served as Chairman of the People’s Law
Enforcement Board (PLEB) and sponsored legislation on education, culture, environment, human rights, and
social services. He is especially proud of his sponsorship of a legislative measure designating every Monday as a
Free Legal Aid Day, on which poor and destitute residents have the chance to fight for their rights and seek justice
even if unable to afford representation. He attended San Beda College and earned his Bachelor’s of Law at the
University of Santo Tomas, Espana, Manila.
Chung To
Chung To is Founder and Chairperson of the Chi Heng Foundation, a charitable organization
founded in 1998 in Hong Kong, China. Utilizing innovative and pragmatic approaches, the
Chi Heng Foundation has excelled in education and care for children orphaned by AIDS and
prevention of AIDS among vulnerable groups. Over the past five years, he has worked
tirelessly in Central China for children orphaned when their parents contracted the HIV virus
via the unsanitary blood trade of the 1990s. He has developed a systematic and sustainable
program that currently sponsors the education and care of over 4,000 AIDS orphans in five
provinces in China and has received support from numerous
organizations. Prior to moving to Hong Kong in 1995, he resided in the United States for 13 years, where he
received a Bachelor’s degree at Columbia University and a Master’s degree at Harvard University. Chung To
previously worked in investment banking for ten years. He has been the recipient of many awards, including “Ten
Outstanding Young Persons” of Hong Kong in 2003 and of the World in 2006.
Damcelle Torres-Cortes
Damcelle Torres-Cortes is a Program Officer managing the Asia Foundation’s legal
reform program. A lawyer, she volunteers on a weekly radio program popularizing
alternative dispute resolution (ADR). She is co-author of two books on gender
jurisprudence, and has engaged in intellectual property and litigation practice. She is
also interested in laws on the rights of women and children. Previously, she also served
as Senate Legislative Officer, contributing to the drafting of the Juvenile Justice Law
and the review of ADR Law Rules, and as Commissioner for the Youth of the National
Commission on the Role of Filipino Women.
Sandiaga Uno
Sandiaga Uno currently holds directorships with PT Adaro Indonesia (Coal Mine – South
Kalimantan), PT Indonesia Bulk Terminal (Coal Terminal – South Kalimantan), PT Mitra
Global Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telecom Operator – Central Java) and Interra Resources
Limited (Oil & Gas). He also serves as Commissioner of PT Recapital Advisors, a leading
investment house he co-founded in 1997 with Rosan Perkasa, PT Kemang Jaya Raya
(Grandkemang Hotel – Jakarta), PT Global Financindo Tbk. (Diversified Financial Services)
and PT Alberta Investment Management (equity stakes in Pizza Hut Indonesia and PT
Sriboga Ratu Raya – Flour Mills in Central Java). He graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Business
Administration from the Wichita State University in 1990 and obtained a Masters of Business Administration
from George Washington University in 1992. He served as Finance and Accounting Officer in the Summa Group
of Companies in Indonesia, Manager/Financial Analyst in Seapower Asia Investment Limited (now Pacific
Century Regional Developments Limited) in Singapore, Chief Financial Officer of NTI Resources Limited in
Calgary, Canada. Since 1998, he has been the Managing Director of Saratoga Capital, a private equity/direct
investment firm he co-founded with Edwin Soeryadjaya in 1998. In April 2005, he was elected as the Chairman
of the Indonesian Young Entrepreneurs Association. He also holds the position of Chairman of the Permanent
Committee for Small & Medium Enterprises of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) since
March 2004. At the Employers’ Association of Indonesia (Apindo), he handles the Small Medium Enterprises
Division since 2004. In 2004, he was appointed as the Team Manager for the Indonesian Women Basketball Team
for the 2005 SEA Games in Manila.
Ada Tse
Ada Tse is President and CEO of American International Group Global Investment Group –
Asia (AIGGIG Asia), where she is responsible for investment and asset management in the
Asia Pacific region. She also heads the AIGGIG Asia ex-Japan direct investment practice and
is Chief Executive Officer of the flagship AIG Asian Opportunity Funds. Prior to joining
AIGGIG Asia in 1996, Ms. Tse was engaged in financial advisory services and equity capital
markets work at Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York and Hong Kong, and was an attorney at
Sullivan and Cornwell in New York. Ms. Tse received a B.A. with honors in Applied
Mathematics from Harvard and a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School,
and also attended the Stanford Business School Executive Program. Ms. Tse serves as an Advisory Committee
Member of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, advising the SFC on its regulatory objectives and
functions. She is a Hong Kong Chapter Member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and a member of the
Friends’ Committee of the Asian Cultural Council.
Laure Wang
Laure L. Wang is a Co -Founder and Managing Director of Asia Alternatives, a $515M Asia
private equity fund of funds. She is on the firm’s Investment Committee and co-leads its
Hong Kong office, which serves as its base for fund and direct investing, market research,
and portfolio management. Prior to launching Asia Alternatives, Ms. Wang was a General
Partner of Pacific Venture Partners (PVP), a pan-Asian venture capital firm with over
US$800 million under management. She was one of five members on PVP’s investment
committee and co-headed the China and U.S. operations, while also leading and managing
technology investments. Prior to joining PVP, Ms. Wang was a Vice President
at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in the Principal Investment Area of the Merchant Banking Division and also worked
for Warburg Pincus in Hong Kong. She received an MBA from Harvard Business School and holds a B.A. in
Economics and International Relations with honors from Stanford University. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese
and has a working knowledge of Japanese and French.
Dini Widiastuti
Dini Widiastuti, an Indonesian national who resides in the U.K., currently works for ARTICLE 19, and has
previously worked for Oxfam, the National Democratic Institute, and the ASEAN Secretariat. She has a lot of
experience working for nongovernmental organizations in the areas of human rights, education, and development.
Her special interest is linking freedom of expression/information to development issues. She was trained as a
development economist at the University of Indonesia. She was awarded the British Chevening Scholarship to
pursue an M.A. in Southeast Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She was the President
of AIESC Indonesia, 1995-1996.
Tim Wu
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School. He is the co-author of Who Controls the
Internet? (Oxford U. Press 2006), and a writer for Slate Magazine. In 2006 Wu was
recognized as one 50 leaders in science and technology by Scientific American magazine
for his work on Network Neutrality theory. Tim Wu previously worked for Riverstone
Networks in the telecommunications industry in Silicon Valley, and was a law clerk for
Judge Richard Posner and Justice Stephen Breyer. He graduated from McGill University
(B.Sc), and Harvard Law School, and has taught at the University of
Virginia, the University of Chicago, and Stanford Law School. Wu has written for various legal publications, and
also the Washington Post, Forbes Magazine, Slate Magazine, Playboy, and others. He is on the advisory board of
Free Press, Public Knowledge, and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and once worked at
Hoo’s Dumplings.
Danwen Xing
Danwen Xing is an artist who was born in Xi’an, China, and currently lives and works in Beijing. As a teenager,
she studied painting at the primary art school affiliated to the Xi’an Academy of Fine Art from 1982- 1986. She
continued painting and did her BFA at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing from 1989- 1992. In the late
80s, she discovered photography and was immediately drawn to this medium. She became one of the few Chinese
artists of the late 80s and 90s to explore the boundaries of photography as an art form, using her camera to raise
challenging questions about Chinese society, humanity, female identity, and her generation. With an ACC grant
and fellowship, she went to New York, where she did her MFA at the School of Visual Arts from 1998-2001.
This new perspective improved and enriched her artistic experience and her art has since expanded into the fields
of video and multi-media installations. She exhibits domestically and internationally and her works are collected
widely by museums and private collectors. Her artistic practice is rich and varied, with subjects that include
cultural dislocation, the conflicts between globalization and traditions, problematic environmental issues, and the
themes of desire and reality and fiction, truth, and illusion.
Jing Xu
Jing Xu teaches at the South-Central University of Nationalities, after previously teaching at Zhejiang Sci-Tech
University. She studied art at the HuBei Institute of Fine Art. Her work entitled “The Stream of Flowers” was
honored in the “From Lausanne to Beijing International Tapestry Art Biennale Catalogue.”
Tiantian Xu
Tiantian Xu is a Founding Principal of the Design and Architecture Beijing office (DnA
Beijing), an inter-disciplinary practice that incorporates city planning, urban design, and
architectural design. It has been involved in projects such as the Inter Modal Transportation
Point in Yantai City, the Song Zhuang Artist Village in Beijing, and the Ink Painting Museum
in Inner Mongolia, each of which addresses the relationship between architecture and urbanism
in contemporary Chinese culture. Tiantian Xu has taught at the Central Academy of Fine Arts
(CAFA) School of Architecture. She has also worked for a number of firms in the U.S. and the
Netherlands. Her current research project, Nomadic City, is a case
study on contemporary migratory urbanization in Erdos City, Inner Mongolia. Tiantian Xu received her Master’s
of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor’s of Architecture from
Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Keiko Yamamoto
Keiko Yamamoto is a reporter for NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), Japan’s public
broadcaster and one of the biggest media organizations in Asia, which has fifty-four stations
across Japan and correspondents in twenty-nine locations around the world. Her areas of
specialization include education and demographic trends, such as the decreasing birthrate
and aging society. She co-produced the NHK debate series “Where is Japan Heading?,”
which won the NHK President’s award in 2006 for addressing pressing social issues such as
Japan’s declining birth rate, gender inequality, and economic disparities. Ms. Yamamoto
founded a female journalist’s association in 2001, and has worked to introduce and foster
such new concepts to Japanese society as the work-life balance and
supporting non -profit organizations through the positive use of media. She received a B.A. in Education in
1993 and an M.A. in International Development in 1995 from Nagoya University, Japan.
Tao Yang
Tao Yang is the President of Yang’s Scientific Research Institute, USA, a full professor of
Xiamen University, China, and the Chief Scientist and founder of two Chinese high-tech
companies. He is the founding father of computational verb theory, which was now taught in
classrooms all over the world. He has one US patent and is the author of 10 books and over
100 technical journal papers, which had over 1200 SCI citations. He is the editor-in -chief of
International Journal of Computational Cognition(ISSN 1542-5908). He has more than 14
years of experiences involving nonlinear dynamic systems (especially chaotic systems),
nonlinear electronics, nano-electronics, smart vision computers, AI, information sciences,
speech recognition, automatic control, telecommunication systems and natural language
processing. From 1993 to 1995 he was a teacher in Shanghai University, China. From 1995 to 2001, he was a
visiting scholar and associate research specialist in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Sciences, University of California at Berkeley(UCB). He was a visiting professor of the Physics Department of
the University of Cagliari, Italy in 2007. He is the brain behind many exciting technologies to personalize
cognitive vision system, cognitive economics and the measurable linguistics. He is now leading the R&D teams
in one US high-tech company and two high-tech Chinese companies to develop cognitive vision systems for the
coming generation of robots.
Tsering Yangkey
Tsering Yangkey is the Founder and Director of the Tesi Environmental Awareness
Movement, a non-profit environmental organization that seeks to raise the ecological
consciousness of the Tibetan people. From 1999 to 2004, she served as the Head of the
Environment and Development Desk of the Central Tibetan Administration. Ms. Yangkey
has a B.A. in Biology from Berea College in Kentucky and an M.S. in Environmental
Pollution Control from Pennsylvania State University. She has done internships in the
States at the International Crane Foundation and the Blandy Arboretum of the University
of Virginia. Ms. Yangkey has attended numerous international
conferences, including the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the United Nations Commissions
on Human Rights, and the World Social Forum.
Peyman Yazdanian
Peyman Yazdanian is a pianist and composer who has released three albums and
composed music for more than thirty Iranian and foreign films (including ones from
Italy, France, Germany, China, and the U.S.). He has performed classical concerts
and played his own compositions in Iran, France, and Italy. He was the winner of the
1st prize at the C.M.F. classical piano competition in Paris in 2000. At the 5th Olympia
Film Festival in 2002, he was the recipient of the best original soundtrack
award for his compositions for the feature film “Little Bird Freak.” He is an active member of the film composer
union in Iran and a member of SACEM in France. Mr. Yazdanian holds a degree in Industrial Engineering (System
Analysis) from Sharif University of Tehran.
Weihua Yi
Weihua Yi is the Deputy Director of the Government Procurement Center (GPC) of Zhuhai,
which manages purchases of over 100 million U.S. dollars per year for a city with a population
of 1.3 million. Zhuhai was one of the vanguard cities in China in using E-procurement. The
city’s GPC was the first one in China to be ISO certified and was honored as the “Guangdong
Province E-Government Exemplary Unit.” Her research paper “Institutional Transplantation
and Environment Adaptation: A Case Study of the Zhuhai Government Procurement Center”
was published by the World of Management of Development Research Center of the State
Council of the People’s Republic of China.
Weihua Yi earned her Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University and now leads a team
that seeks to improve the efficiency of the procurement practices of China’s government.
Jackie Ying
Jackie Ying has been Executive Director of Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and
Nanotechnology since 2003. She was born in Taipei, and raised in Singapore. She received
her B.E. from The Cooper Union and her Ph.D. from Princeton University, then was an
NSF-NATO Post-Doctoral Fellow and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the
Institute for New Materials, Germany. She joined the Chemical Engineering faculty of MIT
in 1992, and was promoted to Professor in 2001. She has received numerous awards for her
research in nanostructured materials, including the American Ceramic Society Ross C.
Purdy Award, the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, the Office of
Naval Research and National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, the Camille Dreyfus TeacherScholar Award, the Royal Academy of Engineering ICI Faculty Fellowship, the American Chemical Society
Faculty Fellowship Award in Solid-State Chemistry, the Technology Review TR100 Young Innovator Award,
and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Allan P. Colburn Award. Professor Ying was elected a World
Economic Forum Global Young Leader, and a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists.
Yan Yan Yip
Yan Yan Yip is the Civic Participation Programme Manager of Civic Exchange, a
non-profit public policy think -tank in Hong Kong. Before joining Civic Exchange in
2001, she was an assistant to a Hong Kong legislator and a political party assistant.
She has worked on issues related to political development and community engagement
and is also experienced in organizing and facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogues. She
is affiliated with various nongovernmental organizations in Hong
Kong that address women’s issues and feminist philanthropy, environmental issues, and child healthcare. She
sings and dances in her spare time. She has an M. Sc. in International Relations from London School of
Economics, U.K.
Kim Eng Yong
Kim Eng Yong is President of the People’s Center for Development and Peace (PDP -Center). Its work focuses
on developing anti-corruption laws and a National Alcohol Policy. Previously he was the President of the Khmer
Youth Association from 1994-2005. Under his leadership, the Khmer Youth Association became the biggest youth
organization in Cambodia and worked on such issues as human rights, democracy, drug prevention, youth
reproductive health, peace building, and young women’s participation in decision-making.
Fan Yun
Yun Fan received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University in 2000 and is now an Assistant
Professor of Sociology at National Taiwan University. She has been conducting research on
Taiwan’s women’s movement, labor movement and environmental movement during the
democratic transition. Her teaching and research interests include gender politics, social
movements and civil society. Besides her academic work, she is a trustee of the Awakening
Foundation and has been actively involved in programs aimed at strengthening
Taiwan’s civil society.
Dashorj Zorigt
Dashorj Zorigt is CEO of the Government of Mongolia’s newly established national mining
company, Erdenes MGL, which will act as the government’s shareholder on major strategic
mining projects and is expected to become an industry flagship. Mr. Zorigt rose quickly
through the ranks in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, becoming Deputy Director of Policy
Planning Department at the age of twenty-seven. In that position, he played a key role in
shifting Mongolia’s policy focus toward the Asia Pacific region and preparing Mongolia for
assuming an active role in the ASEAN Regional Forum. Later he served as Director General
of the Economic Cooperation Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Finance and
Economy and the Policy Planning department in the Ministry of Industry and Trade. He was instrumental in
Mongolia’s active pursuit of bilateral free trade agreements with its major trading partners in the Asia Pacific
region.