Chawanad (Nad) Luansang was the founder and director of the Bangkok-based Openspace Community Architects, an organization which revolutionized the approach to rural and urban community revitalization by empowering villagers and slum-dwellers to lead, facilitate and expand their community activism beyond the revitalization process. Through successful roll-outs rural communities across Thailand, and meticulous documentation through film, web and print-based media, Nad and Openspace worked to fine-tune a scalable model that centered on a participatory, collaborative community design process. An Ahsoka Fellow in 2008 in the field of civic engagement he works for the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) and has been active in establishing ACCA (Asian Coalition for Community Action). ACCA is engaged in slum upgrading in 107 Asian cities in and has developed the Young Professionals Program, created to give opportunities to young professionals to work with urban poor communities.
Bee Guardian Foundation (BGF) is a non-profit organisation established in 2009, by young award-winning social entrepreneurs, to protect the world’s diverse bee species. Bees are keystone species within the Earth’s eco-system and are essential for maintaining biodiversity.
Bees pollinate at least one third of the food we eat, the cotton we wear and many of the medicinal plants on which we depend. Yet most people have only heard of the honeybee as being important. The honeybee is only one of 20,000 threatened bee species worldwide. We currently have 256 bee species within the UK many of which are threatened and are disappearing. Bees and flowering plants have co-evolved, so in order to maintain plant diversity we must maintain bee diversity.BGF works to raise awareness about the importance of maintaining and protecting bee and pollinator diversity, and to engage, empower and inspire individuals and groups.
Aaron is spending the next year exploring two deep interests: the spaces that people live in, and how we live together. As part of that exploration he is undertaking a series of his own experiments, as well as working with the Guggenheim Foundation on an urban design laboratory that will be taking place in Mumbai. Aaron spent the last 4 years on sabbatical. !Previously, he was a co-founder of CanadaHelps, a charity which engages Canadians to support causes in their community and around the world. CanadaHelps raises C$ 80 million a year for social sector organizations across Canada, engaging hundreds of thousands of people. ! He was also a co-founder of Vartana, which sought to meet finance needs of social and environmental organizations. While it garnered significant support from leading stakeholders, the initiative ultimately did not achieve its vision of launching a new financial institution for the social sector. !He completed a degree with a minor in Economics from Queen's University and studied at Oxford University.
Deza was inspired by her own experiences as a woman living with a disability in a Western country. Handicap is a major social issue which, for many people, is still difficult to deal with. Thus, it’s generally seen in the angle of victimization or heroism in communications. Yet, nowadays, it seems important to me to show disabled people in all their humanity; so to help achieve a better integration. As art is a means to put us face to ourselves and to the universe surrounding us, Deza started E&H LAB, an agency that designs art concepts to push evolution in social perceptions. E&H LAB does awareness campaigns for example through photo exhibitions for a new way of looking at disabled people: an aesthetic, dynamic and positive image will enable the establishment of new social connections.
Worldview Impact is a social enterprise that is creating a sustainable business for a sustainable future by mitigating climate change at grassroots level through the creation of sustainable livelihood in order to reduce poverty. Bremley´s global team is currently working on addressing social, economic and environmental issues by using the triple bottom line business approach working with local partners in nine pilot countries. They are engaging consumers and producers in developed countries on issues concerning climate change and poverty by encouraging them to lead more sustainable lifestyles and produce greener products, thereby reducing their individual and corporate carbon footprints.
