Liz Canner is an award-winning media artist and independent filmmaker who has created multiple video art installations and six documentaries. She uses cutting-edge technologies to explore often-neglected social issues. Her most recent project, "Symphony of a City," a public cyber documentary, focused on community building and the housing crisis. Her documentary, "Deadly Embrace: Nicaragua, The World Bank and The IMF," was an important organizing and educational tool for the movement to create sustainable globalization. Her work has been broadcast on television both domestically on various PBS stations and Free Speech TV, and internationally in 9 countries. Most importantly, her documentaries are used as an organizing and educational tool by unions, grassroots groups, student organizations, and religious institutions. Liz grew up on the banks of a river in a small rural town in Massachusetts. She earned a bachelor's degree at Brown University. In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, biking and culture jamming.

Tariq Cheema is the cofounder of Doctors Worldwide, an international organization that provides medical relief to the victims of natural and man-made disasters. Prior to this position, he was the Associate Director of the Islamic Medical Association of North America, the largest Muslim physician organization in the North American region. He has represented NIAAT, a global anti-tobacco coalition, at the World Health Organization’s intergovernmental negotiations on Tobacco Control. Most of his experience has been in the planning and management of programs focused on health, human development, social and economic justice.

He received his M.D. from the University of Istanbul and has completed his graduate studies in philanthropy and non-profit sector at Loyola University Chicago.

He is one of the twenty-four individuals selected nationally to receive the Rockefeller Foundation’s Next Generation Leadership Fellowship in 2002. He is awarded Entrepreneurship Recognition Award by Kellogg School of Management. He is also the recipient of Asian American Coalition of Chicago’s 2004 Community Service Award.

Joseph W. Daniels, Jr., is the Senior Pastor of the Emory United Methodist Church, a 350-member multiethnic congregation in Northwest Washington, D.C., where he has served for the past ten years. During Joseph’s leadership at Emory, the church has been awarded the “Kim Jefferson Northeast Jurisdiction Award” for effective urban ministry representing the United Methodist Church and has been selected as one of the 25 initiative churches in the “Strengthening the Black Church for the 21st Century” effort of the United Methodist Church. For the past five years, he has served as a delegate in mission service to churches in Zimbabwe and South Africa, providing training for pastors and laity in the area of congregational and community development. Joseph’s commitment to a spirit of “peace on earth” includes not only the city of Washington, D.C. and the U. S., but also the world.

Joseph holds a doctor of ministry degree from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. he is also a graduate of the Howard University School of Divinity, and has earned a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the areas of public communication, psychology, and journalism and public affairs from the American University in Washington, D.C.

Ron Hirasawa is a marketing and strategy consultant. He practices what he calls lean consulting, an approach that maximizes the efficiency of client service while minimizing costs, tailoring project resources for each client project. Ron is skilled at developing and improving core business processes, with excellent marketing communications program development ability.

Prior to his consulting assignments, he was President, C.O.O., Vice-Chairman and the architect of a $100 million Midwest regional snack foods entity. Mr. Hirasawa previously served as founder, President, and Chairman of Ultima Foods. Ron was the Founder, President and Chairman of American Marketing Services Corporation, a consulting company. He worked in sales, marketing, and advertising for P&G, Johnson Wax, United Brands, Leo Burnett, and Don Tennant companies.

He served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam Conflict, reaching the rank of Captain. Mr. Hirasawa holds a B.S. in Industrial Management from the Wharton School of Business and an MBA in Marketing from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, TX. He is also a Professor at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, where he lectures on Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management, and Leadership.

Raj Jayadev is the coordinator and co-founder of Silicon Valley De-Bug – a project of Pacific News Service. De-Bug is an organizing and media collective of young workers on the lower wage end of Silicon Valley. He is frequently asked to speak at colleges and conferences on labor issues and community organizing. He was honored by the UTNE Reader as one of “Thirty Visionaries Under Thirty,” to be published September 2002.

Raj writes frequently for the Pacific News Service national wire regarding labor issues, Silicon Valley, and the Indian American experience.

Raj is first generation South Asian Indian American raised in San Jose, California. He received his bachelor’s degree from UCLA.

Robert Kallen founded RSK Strategies, LLC, which provides expertise and capital to small and growing companies specializing in the food and education sectors. At one time, he was Vice President of Operations and General Counsel for Bake Line Products, Inc. (a private-label cookie manufacturing company with national distribution and annual sales of over $100 million). Bob was also a Staff Attorney at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. and at the Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest.

Bob has taught for over 18 years and is currently an adjunct professor of law and economics at DePaul University and the lake Forest Graduate School of management. Additionally, Bob worked on the 1992 Clinton/Gore transition team for economics.

He received a B.A. in history and economics from the University of Illinois, and a M.A. in economics and a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. Bob is married to Anita M. Rowe, and they have two children, Elyse and Jeffrey.

Adrienne Kostreva is a resourceful generalist human resources leader and contributor with diverse experience in human resources management, consulting, multi-location HR field management, non-profit and for-profit, with cross-cultural and global experience. She is experienced in developing strategic business goals and financial management. Her competencies include, HR Strategy, Change Management, HR Systems, Policy/Program Design, Performance Management, Employee Relations, Compensation benefits and human capital development.

She has consulted in the areas of Affirmative Action, Equal Employment Opportunity, and diversity and recruitment issues and has created a fully integrated HR function. She is bilingual in French and holds an M.B.A., with Honors from Roosevelt University in Chicago, M.S. in Human Resources Program & Global HR from Loyola University of Chicago.

Sonya Lopez, LCSW, Texas State University-San Marcos, Faculty, Early Childhood Intervention State Trainer, Nurturing Program Certified National Trainer / Consultant with Family Development Resources, Inc. Recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Award 2002-2003 Cohort, December 1999 recipient of T. Berry Brazelton Infant Mental Health Special Recognition Award for Texas. Ms. Lopez is Director for an interdisciplinary mental health center. She provides training and consults on a variety of issues in reference to child abuse and neglect prevention, infant mental health, child behavior, early childhood development, family systems, and many other social service staff development needs. She received her Masters form Our Lady of the Lake University in Clinical Social Work and a certification in counseling families and children exposed to violence. Ms. Lopez has coordinated and facilitated Violence Prevention ad Intervention Programs for a number of school districts, Even Start, Head Start, and Early Head Start Programs, Early Childhood Intervention and many other direct service agencies. She comes with experience in mental health, group work, child protective services, and violence prevention education programs; Ms. Lopez has training in a number of parent education curriculums and consults with a number of agencies to assist them in establishing a program/curriculum that best meets their community and client needs.

Angela Massey is a banker with expertise in retail as well as commercial banking. Prior to joining the banking sector, she was a financial representative at Northwestern Mutual Financial Network. She is a partner of NEG, an association management organization, and serving small and growing non-profit organizations. She helps organizations align their information strategies with business strategies to optimize their financial net worth. She is currently working with a group of community leaders and professionals to establish a credit union for the empowerment of South Asian Communities living in Chicago land.

After graduating from Northern Illinois University with her bachelors in Management and Marketing she went on to furthering her education in information technology and graduated with masters in Management and Information Systems.

Hilary Morgan is the Creator and Director of Homeward Bound, a transitional housing program for chronic homeless street alcoholics. One of its kind in the nation, Homeward Bound’s approach combines client choice and self-advocacy with unprecedented long-term success. Hilary also created several successful collaborations that resulted in new programs for the community. She received two Best Practices Awards for innovation from the US Department of Housing and Urgan Development (HUD).

Hilary began her career as a musician on the streets of New York City. After eight years as a professional musician and two years on Wall Street, Hilary traveled and lived in Asia, Europe and Australia. Her 16-year commitment to working with indigent populations includes work with Indochinese Refugees in the Philippines, the mentally ill in Hawaii and the homeless in Alaska. She currently serves on the Alaska State Council of the Arts and is Chair of the Housing and Neighborhood Development Commission for the city of Anchorage.

Hilary was born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. She leads and active life mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, backcountry skiing, snow machining and scuba ding. Her first CD, Follow Your Dreams, was released in 1999 and features her award winning song, Come What May.

David Muhammad is Program Director of the Mentoring Center, directing two youth development programs: The Positive Minds Group, a weekly program servicing highly at-risk youth ages 14-25; and the African American Males Transition Program, a 21-week course with youth incarcerated in the California Youth Authority. After studying journalism at Howard University, David returned to San Francisco and began writing for Pacific News Service (PNS) in San Francisco. He also began directing the Alameda County writing workshops for the Beat Within, a weekly newsletter of writings and drawings of incarcerated youth published by PNS.

Dvaid earned a B.A. in journalism from Howard University in Washington, D.C. In addition to being a teacher, journalist, mentor, and community leader, he is a husband and father.

Antonio Pedroso has over 30 years of international operations and consulting experience, primarily in the mining, manufacturing, and distribution industries. He has managed manufacturing operations in the United States, Scotland, and China. Antonio has a strong track record in building new ventures and turning existing organizations around.

In addition to his industry expertise, he has extensive experience in the government and nonprofit sectors, particularly related to development programs.

Antonio has worked with the following organizations: ARC Global Technologies, Barat Education Foundation, Ceara Development Agency, Development Corporation - National Cooperative Bank, Group Marbres du Condado, Jovino Group, IMD Solutions, Laird Technologies, Portuguese Trade Commission, Transceramica, and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

Antonio speaks five languages and holds a MBA from the University of Lisbon, Portugal.

John Rodriguez is Cofounder and Chairman of the Latino Advocacy Coalition, a Latino-based systems advocacy organization. The Coalition is dedicated to capacity building amongst Latinos within sectors such as faith, education, government and business. Its mission is to harness social, intellectual and financial capital to influence and contribute to both decision making and policy making within social sectors.

John was formerly a consultant with the Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group (KJCG) in Troy, New York, where his work focused on strategic culture change that leveraged diversity through inclusion. Prior to joining KJCG, John held executive level positions within the marketing communications and advertising industries where he used the principles of leadership participation to design niche and multicultural communication and marketing programs for some of the world’s leading brands.

A certified Achieve Global/ Zenger Miller trainer, John holds a bachelor’s degree in photographic advertising from Rochester Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in communications form the State University of New York College at Brockport. He lives in Rochester, New York with his life partner and spouse Nydia Padilla Rodriguez and has a daughter, Melony.

Joel Schorn has over 10 years experience in nonprofit and for-profit publishing, editing, and writing. As a writer, his work includes articles, pamphlets, and a book. He has worked as an editor for a national magazine, and is skilled in desktop publishing, project management and editorial planning, and product development. He is the graduate of a program in nonprofit management and philanthropy.

Wendy Smith has 18 years of experience in nonprofit leadership, management, and marketing, as well as program and fund development and board relations. She worked for the Infant Welfare Society of Evanston, an historic nonprofit agency in Illinois, for more than 15 years during which she helped expand the organization’s capacity and breadth of services. Under her leadership, the agency’s reputation for outstanding quality of services led it to become a model for others in the field. Wendy launched the agency’s development department and raised over $2.5 million in its first five years. She is an experienced grant researcher and proposal writer and has successfully solicited foundations and corporations and obtained numerous grants from state and federal government agencies.

Wendy has conducted many workshops and presentations for adult professionals. She was an adjunct faculty member at Oakton Community College for two years. Wendy holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Illinois and a master’s degree in child development from Erikson Institute in Chicago.

Sylvia M. Sykes, MS, CRC, LCPC, brings over 15 years of experience in the areas of juvenile justice, child welfare, career counseling and training, and risk management. She holds a Master’s Degree in Rehabilitation counseling from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and a Graduate Certificate in Philanthropy and Non-Profit Sector from Loyola University.

As a Cuban-American, Sylvia is especially concerned with issues facing Latinos. Since1999, Sylvia has been working as a consultant to non-profit agencies throughout Chicago land. She has successfully written and procured grants, developed and implemented programs, and organized community summits and task forces that focus on Latinos.