Andy Bales

Rev. Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles, has dedicated his life to serving “his homeless friends.”  He has over 25 years of community development outreach and service experience in California and Iowa combined.   Rev., Andy has played a pivotal role in creating permanent supportive housing for senior women, reshaping hospital and governmental policies related to the practice of homeless patient dumping, and expanding transitional housing options for vulnerable homeless women and children throughout Los Angeles.

Idris Al-Oboudi

Idris is a nationally recognized Recreation and Parks professional and public speaker. A Highly motivating, energetic, passionate leader with vision and a pragmatic approach to recreation issues and needs, has been working in the field of Recreation for the Past 28 years. He is currently the Manager of Parks and Recreation for the City of Manhattan Beach California. Idris is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards and State / National and International notoriety and acclaim.

Mr. Al-Oboudi is a frequent contributor to leadership workshops and meetings on recreation issues in Local Collages, Universities, and California Cities, community organizations, CPRS, NRPA and nation wide organizations. Mr. Al-Oboudi Developed a proto type frame work for Vision Insight Planning and Programming (Purpose Driven Programming). This tool was further developed and adopted in Programming for Community and youth recreation, cultural and social activities (Purpose Driven Programming) for the Islamic Community in the USA and the World. This is the First Vision Insight Planning programming tool developed for Muslim Organizations world wide. This ground braking work is a prelude to a comprehensive Initiative Mr. Al-Oboudi is Envisioning, Espousing and Creating, for the Muslim Community in the USA.

Brian Cooper

Brian is the CEO of A Glimmer of Hope but he prefers the title Chief Dot Connector. His responsibilities are to lead the strategy, growth and execution of our operations.

A Glimmer of Hope is an entrepreneurial social-profit that helps lift women and children in Sub-Saharan Africa from extreme poverty to prosperity by building water wells, health clinics, schools and providing microfinance loans. Glimmer developed an innovative and very efficient model that’s recognized for improving millions of lives over the last decade and was recently ranked #6 globally on Barron’s list of The Best 25 Givers, based on effectiveness and impact.

Before becoming a social entrepreneur, Brian was a serial entrepreneur having founded and led software companies for 20 years. He also spent several years as an angel investor, investing in early stage companies and mentoring them. In 1998, Brian founded Lombardi Software, which was acquired by IBM in January of this year as part of their effort to lead the multi-billion dollar business process management market.

Eugene Cho

Eugene Cho is the co-founder (along with his wife, Minhee) of One Day’s Wages – a grassroots movement dedicated to ending extreme global poverty that was birthed on October 20, 2009. The vision of ODW is to inspire people around the world to invest 0.4% of their wages (their one day’s wages) to the fight against extreme global poverty. He is also the the founder and lead pastor of Quest Church – an eight year year old multicultural, multigenerational, and urban faith community in Seattle and the founder and executive director of Q Cafe, an innovative nonprofit neighborhood café and music venue.

Lee Fox

Passionate entrepreneur, team builder and humanitarian, Lee Fox is the founder of KooDooZ a “cause-based” social networking site for kids.  Her mission is to turn the good will and passions of youth – especially those under the age of 16 – into skills and strategies for creating change.  Lee sits on council for the Santa Monica Boys & Girls Club, alongside her husband, and volunteers, coaches and mentors youth-led initiatives that fit with the interests of her three children.  Having served as CEO (internet/mobile), VP of Marketing (professional services), and Content Creator / Writer (consumer media), Lee has spent the last two decades walking a tightrope of innovation at the intersections of entertainment, technology and new media.  Lee actively sits on for-profit and non-profit boards and served as Chair for the Los Angeles Tech America Council, the nation’s largest non-profit technology trade association.

Nathan George

Convicted of the urgency of practical action on behalf of the global poor and the necessity of engaging the church in America, Nathan and Catherine George founded a fair trade company, Trade as One. Based in Fremont, CA, the company sells products made by victims of human trafficking, HIV / AIDS and the poorest of the poor. It sees job creation among the global poor as a missional issue. Trade as One believes that the church can speak prophetically to the marketplace and lead by example in showing how conscious purchasing can be a powerful force for systemic change. Nathan has worked in the software industry for twenty years. Three years ago he moved from the UK with his wife and three boys to Santa Cruz California to start Trade as One.

Jake Harriman

Jake earned his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in June 2008. He graduated with distinction earning a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1998. Upon graduation, he served seven and a half years as an infantry and special operations platoon commander. During that time, he led Marines in chaotic, ever-changing environments on four operational deployments throughout the United States, the Pacific Rim, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Southwest Asia/Middle East, including two combat tours in Iraq. He was awarded the Bronze Star for actions in combat during his second tour in Iraq. Jake has international experience working throughout Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia/Middle East, Africa, Europe, North and South America, and Australia/South Pacific. He has specific economic development and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief experience in Kenya, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Mexico. As a result of witnessing extreme poverty in various contexts around the globe, in October 2007 he co-founded Nuru International, a non-profit dedicated to holistic, sustainable development among the world’s rural extreme poor.

Scott Harrison

In 2004, Scott served as a photojournalist for Mercy Ships in Liberia, West Africa. There he became familiar with the life-threatening effects of contaminated water and upon moving back to his home in New York City in 2006, he founded charity: water. Scott’s work has been featured over 300 times in the media including The New York Times, USA Today, NY Daily News, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX News, Elle Magazine, People Magazine and more. He has given lectures and presentations to companies like Google, Twitter, SalesForce, Saks Fifth Avenue and Creative Artists Agency, and has spoken at many elementary schools, middle schools and universities around the country.

Beth Kanter

Beth is the author of Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media (http://beth.typepad.com), one of the longest running and most popular blogs for nonprofits. Beth has authored chapters in several books, including “Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders,” edited by NTEN both published in 2009. A much in demand speaker and trainer, she was the keynote speaker for the Cambodian Bloggers Conference in Phnom Penh, The Connecting Up Conference in Brisbane, Australia, Minnesota Council on Nonprofits, Making Media Conference in Chicago and others. She has presented about nonprofits and social media at some of the leading social media industry conferences including O’Reilly’s Graphing Social Patterns, Gnomedex, SWSX, Blogher, and Podcamp.

Wade Kawasaki

Wade is a servant leader, entrepreneur and church planter. His entrepreneurial heart & experience is demonstrated best by the ability of capturing ideas from the “ground up” into reality along with taking existing plans into fruition. He is a proponent of Board Source and apprised of current methods through their continuing education “Governance as Leadership” Advanced Practitioner Training Program. His positive energy,
proven strategic thinking, planning, infrastructure building, governance training/formation, leadership development and executive coaching counsel has assisted many non-profit and for profit organizations with achieving their visions and goals.

Keith Kall

Keith Kall is a die-in-the-wool capitalist who believes in using the best attributes of the “free market” to try to help improve the lives of the poor, the thirsty, the oppressed and the suffering. He is passionate about integrating business, innovation and appropriate technology into community development work to provide new solutions to old problems. In his current position, as an executive director for Corporate Engagement at World Vision, Keith is bridging the gap between the private and public sector to build joint-equity partnerships with corporations to help serve impoverished communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has travelled to more than 40 countries and lived/worked in 3. Keith and his beautiful wife, Jane, live in Orange County, California.

Ben Keesey

Ben Keesey serves as Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Invisible Children, Inc. Since 2005, Invisible Children has reached over 3 million people and built a network of over 750,000 supporters, primarily high school and college students. Through this youth based network IC has raised over $25 million dollars for its development programs in Uganda and international awareness campaign end Africa’s longest war. Through a staff of 80, IC has invested over $5 million dollars to rebuild 11 secondary schools in northern Uganda and provided full scholarships and mentors for 690 secondary school students and 140 University School Students. In 2009 the Invisible Children story was covered by over 230 media outlets and generated over 63,000,000 audience impressions including The Oprah Winfrey Show, BBC America, BBC World News, CNN International, MTV, E! News, and the Huffington Post.

Nisa Islam Mohammad

Nisa I. Mohammad is the founder and executive director of Wedded Bliss Foundation, a community based organization helping teens, singles and couples develop healthy relationships and healthy marriages to better the outcomes for children. This work is her vision to help the most under served populations around the country with the message that marriage matters. This includes training professionals, education classes and organizing Black Marriage Day events around the country.

Jonathan Olinger

Jonathan Olinger is the founder and Executive Director of Discover The Journey (DTJ), which creates media about children in-crisis and links intervention partners to the crisis until change is realized. Jonathan is producing a documentary with CNN focusing on Haiti’s orphans both before and after the earthquake which he has been working on since 2007, which will air on CNN and CNN International May 8, 9. Jonathan is also co-directing a DTJ documentary which is in post production about child soldiers in the Congo and their quest to become peacemakers. Jonathan is inspired by the ancient proverb which bids us to, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, and to ensure justice for those who are suffering.” Over the past five years, Jonathan has traveled to over 40 nations filming stories of injustices facing children in crisis across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central America and the Caribbean including Burma, Zimbabwe, DR Congo, Haiti and Iraq. Walking and working with child soldiers, impoverished children, refugee and IDP children, trafficked children, child laborers, vulnerable girl children, street children and orphaned and abandoned children, Jonathan brings a global perspective of the greatest crisis the world has yet to see — millions of the world’s children living in crisis.

Isak Pretorius

Born and raised in South Africa, Isak is intimately acquainted with the perennial problems that continue to plague the continent of Africa. The son of one of Africa’s great social entrepreneurs, Peter Pretorius, Isak has traveled to the remote corners of Africa’s communities and heartlands. These experiences have helped shape his passion to address the diverse needs of Africa’s children and communities which is at the heart of his life’s work.

The organization he now leads, Joint Aid Management (JAM-USA), now serves meals to an estimated 500,000 children in Africa each day. Isak is stewarding this platform by working to lead a new way of addresses challenges in Africa through the combination of social and economic development activities. Understanding the problems of poverty from the ground up, he has been able to make the difficult connection between compassion and capitalism. Not guided by a charity mentality, Isak is concerned rather with utilizing resources to connect the poor to world markets. The reality of a poverty-free future for Africa’s children depends on this connection being made in a serious and meaningful way. For 12 years he has worked to find the delicate balance between humanitarian relief and ‘thrivable’ development that comes from viable commercial enterprise.

Hannah Song

Hannah Song is the President of LiNK, or Liberty in North Korea, an international NGO devoted to human rights in North Korea, and the protection of North Korean refugees.  Ms. Song joined LiNK in 2004 as Deputy Director, dividing her time between managing day to day operations and coordinating overseas programs, safe houses and shelters, underground railroad activities, and fact-finding missions.  Focusing on refugee needs, Ms. Song established LiNK’s shelter in Southeast Asia and implemented LiNK’s refugee resettlement initiative, Liberty House, in the U.S and in South Korea. In 2008, Ms. Song became President, now managing the organization out of the headquarters office in California.  She continues to direct all advocacy, overseas, and field operations while working closely with her exceptional staff to build an unprecedented movement that advocates for the lives of the North Korean people.

Lotay Yang

Lotay Yang brings over 15 years of professional experience at Fortune 500 Financial Institutions. Mr. Yang has served at a Vice President level or higher at several firms including Boston based Fidelity Investments and Chicago based Northern Trust.

In addition to serving as a Founder and Chairman of the Black Card Circle Foundation, Mr. Yang also volunteers his personal time as the elected President of New Horizons Foundation. New Horizons empowers the developmentally disabled by providing assisted living, educational workshops, and occupational services. New Horizons receives over $12 million a year in government funding and recently celebrated it’s 50th Anniversay in the community.

Mr. Yang earned a double Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he remains active as a Chancellor’s Associate and member of the Anderson School of Management’s Dean’s Society. He also earned the California state Personal Financial Planning (PFP) designation and studied law at Loyola Law School.