[slcc] Speaker/Moderator Bios
Below are brief biographies of some of the panelists and moderators in the Second Life Community Convention's Non-profit and Philanthropy Thread:
Adam Aberman. Prior to becoming Youth Venture’s Director of Global Digital Strategy, Adam was the Executive Director and Founder (and currently Board Member) of icouldbe.org, the non-profit Internet-based career mentoring program that has served over 5,000 teens nationwide and in Tanzania www.icouldbe.org. Adam is also the Principal and Founder of The Learning Collective, a consulting organization that strengthens practices of youth-serving organizations. Prior to establishing icouldbe.org, Adam was a Regional Coordinator for the New York City Department of Education. Adam began his career in education as a Spanish bilingual public school teacher in Los Angeles. Adam received a B.A. from Vassar College and a Master's in Public Policy, with an emphasis on Education, from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Outside of work Adam enjoys hanging out with his lovely wife, Karlene, his fantastic newborn daughter, Phoenix, and his meaty dog, Sausage, and doing yard work & oil painting at their home in the West Adams district of Los Angeles.
Nafiza Akter is a rising star at the Academy of American Studies in Queens, New York. She has been an avid participant in multiple Global Kids after school programs, and she worked on the annual Global Kids youth conference in March 2007. Nafiza is a member of the Virtual Video Project, attended Global Kid's Summer Institute at the Council on Foreign Relations, and assisted on the Convention on the Rights of the Child Summer Machinima Camp.
Anna Berthold, Technical Producer - Virtual Worlds/Candidate for a Master's in Public Diplomacy at USC
Anna Berthold is the Technical Producer of the Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds Project at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Anna's background is in the fields of international conflict and new technology. She received her B.A. in International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Southern California.
From 2003-2006, Anna conducted extensive research on the genocide in Darfur with special emphasis on the moral and legal responsibility of the international community to intervene. During that time she also received certificates in International Humanitarian Law, International Tracing, International Relief and Development, Disaster Relief, and International Services from the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Academy.
In 2005 Anna worked as a terrorism research analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington D.C. where she monitored, analyzed and reported daily international terrorist activity and other issues of importance to U.S. defense. While at CDI, Anna published a number of articles regarding military and security concerns in Afghanistan and reported on the Afghan Parliamentary Elections.
In 2005, having spent the previous six years doing freelance web design and programming on the side, Anna founded ALaraB Productions, a company specializing in web and graphic design, 3D modeling, animation and videography.
Anna is currently enrolled in the Master of Public Diplomacy Program at USC which encapsulates her various research interests in human rights, conflict resolution, terrorism, and new technology into one field of study. In January 2007, in order to further incorporate her passion for new technology, Anna took on her current role as Technical Producer of the Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds Project at USC's Center on Public Diplomacy.
Lucky Figtree is a sixteen year old high school student who became a member of the Teen Second Life community in early January of 2006. When Global Kids opened in the teen grid, she quickly became involved. She's attended both of their online summer camps, and completed a year of the Digital Media Youth Advisory. Apart from Global Kids, she helps with managing the two private islands Eden and Alcove for Alex Harbinger, and most recently, she's opened her own animation shop, 'Luckamations'.
Tori Horton is the Project Manager for the USC Center on Public Diplomacy Virtual Worlds and the Public Good project, which analyzes the opportunity for virtual worlds to provide a new and natural platform for philanthropy through digital communication and cross-cultural interaction that occurs in these worlds. Support for this project comes from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Tori has worked at the Center for over two years, first as an Assistant to the Director and then as Assistant Director of Budget and Administration. Tori is in her second year as a student in the Public Diplomacy Master's Program. Her areas of interest include narrative, nation branding, and culture exchange.
In 2005, she directed a German student exchange program in the Pasadena area to facilitate cultural dialogue between German students and American host families.
Prior to her time at USC Tori earned her undergraduate degree in Humanities and English from Brigham Young University. While attending BYU, she worked as a youth guidance counselor, served as a PRSSA public relations officer, and lived abroad on a student education program in Vienna, Austria. Her time abroad involved studying German and teaching English to Iranian families. Tori's public relations experience covers both the profit and non-profit sectors.
Bradford H. Lewis, ACSW (SL: Bradford Raymaker) is a Program Officer for Learn and Serve America at the Corporation for National and Community Service, an independent federal agency where he has served for over 13 years. He manages a grant portfolio in the North Central region of the United States as well as working on youth voice, community-based issues and technology initiatives. As a member of the Steering Committee for the National Service-Learning Conference, he helped to bring Second Life residents into the conference this past year through two-way streaming, and is planning for inclusion of mixed-reality workshop sessions in this year’s conference. He has been a panelist or speaker at Games for Change and Games for Health and is active on the Serious Games listserv. Mr. Lewis received his Master’s Degree in Social Work (MSW) from Columbia University in 1983 and then worked in New York City and Connecticut for the next 10 years. Positions he held included directing youth leadership/after-school/service-learning programs, teen travel/residential summer camps, and Assistant Executive Director of a community YM-YWHA. He also served as a Governor's appointee on the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and more recently as Adjunct Faculty at the University of Maryland Graduate School of Social Work and Field Instructor for the Howard University Graduate School of Social Work.
Pathfinder Linden (aka John Lester) joined Linden Lab in 2005, bringing experience in online community development as well as a background in the fields of healthcare and education. Previously he was the Information Technology Director in the Neurology Service at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he pioneered the use of the web in 1993 to create online communities for supporting patients dealing with neurological disorders. He also held an academic appointment at Harvard Medical School, where he created online collaborative environments for professors and students to advance the case-based teaching method in medical education. John currently serves as the regional supervisor for the Boston offices of Linden Lab.
Barry Joseph, Global Kids, Inc., Director of the Online Leadership Program, holds a BA from Northwestern University and an MA in American Studies from New York University. Barry came to Global Kids in 2000 through the New Voices Fellowship of the Academy for Educational Development, funded by the Ford Foundation. He has developed innovative programs in the areas of youth-led online dialogues, video games as a form of youth media, and the educational potential of virtual worlds, combining youth development practices with the development of high profile digital media projects that develop 21st Century Skills. He has also worked with GK's development program to secure funding from a number of foundation’s and corporations. Barry has served on the steering committee of the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning initiative and his writing will appear in the Foundation's Ecology of Games volume in 2007. He has spoken at numerous conferences and published articles in a wide variety of publications.
Allyson Knox manages Microsoft’s US Partners in Learning Michigan, Massachusetts, and Mid Tier grants. Prior to Microsoft, she worked at the US Chamber of Commerce as a senior program manager in workforce development. A Michigan native, she worked at the regional and state levels in Michigan on issues and programs related to economic and workforce development. As a research associate at Michigan State University she wrote about the development of The Young Spartan Program - a university-urban school district partnership. She received her BA in English from the University of Michigan, MA in Adult Learning from Michigan State University, and Ed M in Technology in Education from Harvard University.
Mercury Metropolitan is a 17 year-old male who first joined Second Life in June 2005, and resides on the "Teen Grid." He has been working for Global Kids as a remote intern since summer of '06, and has since proved to be an invaluable resource - offering his knowledge and expertise about the virtual environment, and playing an integral role in the development of several educational programs and events on the Global Kids estate. On his spare time, Mercury serves as a resident volunteer - helping to orient new residents with the user interface, and also holds a voluntary position as moderator of the Teen Second Life forums.
Chinwe Onyekere, M.P.H., is a program officer on the Pioneer Portfolio. Before joining RWJF in June 2002, she was a researcher for a joint Harvard Medical School and Weill Medical College of Cornell University project, "Cultural Competence in Health Care." For this project, she investigated the emerging frameworks of and practical approaches to cultural competence.
Onyekere also has research and program experience in health care disparities, pediatric chronic care issues, social determinates of health, and international health. She has worked on projects with the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health, Management Sciences for Health, and Children's Hospital in Boston.
Onyekere received a master's degree in public health from Columbia University, Division of Sociomedical Sciences, and a B.A. in political science from Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
Angela Paez is 17 years old. She is currently training to be an aviation technician at Aviation High School in New York City.
Benjamin Stokes is a Program Officer at the MacArthur Foundation. He works on the five-year, $50 million initiative that examines how digital media is changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Previously, Benjamin co-founded Games for Change (G4C), the central organization advancing games media for positive social change.
Alex Struminger works with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on strategies for producing, promoting and distributing the organization's messages and media products through "new media" and broadcast channels. Recent projects include the "World Fit for Children" event in December 2006, which was the largest United Nations event to be held in Second Life, and the first UN event to be held in Teen Second Life.
Mr. Struminger has been executive producer of multimedia web sites, videos and online promotional campaigns. He also has a deep understanding of technology, Web 2.0, and the convergence between off-line and on-line initiatives. In addition to his work with UNICEF, Mr. Struminger has consulted on technology projects for AT&T, the US Department of Commerce, Intel, Accenture and the City University of New York (CUNY). He has lectured on "new media" and information architecture at the CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development, the University of Hartford and the Rhode Island School of Design. He has been an invited speaker at the World Wide Web Artist Consortium (WWWAC) in New York, the Center of Nonprofit Excellence in Charlottesville, VA, and at UNICEF's global new media summit in New York.
Susan Tenby, Senior Manager of Community Development, TechSoup, devised and has managed the TechSoup community forums since 2000 and is responsible for the strategy and direction for the organization's community initiatives. She launched The Nonprofit Commons sim in Second Life, with the Nonprofit Second Life volunteer community (NPSL) on land and buildings, donated by Anshe Chung Studios, in 2006. This non-profits-only sim hosts 32 organizations for free, lowering the barrier of access to this virtual world. The group has a blog, wiki and shared community tagging project using the tag "NPSL" on del.icio.us, Technorati, Flickr and others. They hold regular, weekly in-world meetings that teach SL best-practices to nonprofits. Susan runs monthly online community meet-ups in San Francisco; organizes and speaks at conferences on Nonprofits in Second Life such as Games for Change on Virtual Activism in June '07 and Using Second Life as an Innovative Marketing Tool at Supernova, 2007. After SLCC, Susan will be speaking on a panel she organized at the California Association of Nonprofits. Susan also writes about online community building and has been interviewed in several publications with International reach about her work in SL.
Connie M. Yowell is the Director of Education in the Foundation's Program on Human and Community Development. In this role, she focuses on grants relating to public education, and on the implications for education of young people's use of digital media.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Yowell was an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where her work included the study of reasons why Latino youth drop out of high school. Previously she worked as a Policy Analyst in the Office of Policy and Planning of the U.S. Department of Education. Before that Yowell was a Research Assistant at the University of California at San Francisco and at Stanford University.
Yowell earned her bachelor's degree from Yale and her Ph.D. from Stanford University.
