Career: First Prime Minister of Tibetan Government in Exile. Eminent Buddhist Philosopher, Scientist and Politician. Counselor at World Peace University (USA) and at Institution for Asian Democracy (NYC) and many others. Close confident of HH the Dalai Lama.
Interests: Non-Violence,  Education, Present Generations, Social Change, Morality and Mental Development
Hometown: Born in Kham (today China), fled 1959, living in Dharamshala (India)

Professor Samdhong Rinpoche was born as Samdhong Lobsang Tenzin in 1939, in the Tibetan province of Kham. At age of five, he was recognized and enthroned as the reincarnation of the fourth Samdhong Rinpoche. He began his monastic studies at age 12 at the University of Drepung in Tibet and eventually obtained a Doctorate in Buddhist sciences at Gyutö Monastery, Dalhousie, India in 1970. In 1959, Rinpoche fled to India to escape the repressive Chinese government in Tibet. There, he was commissioned by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to serve as a teacher to monks in exile. He was appointed director of the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Varanasi in 1988 and remained there until 2001. On July 29, 2001, Rinpoche was named Kalön Tripa, or Prime Minister of the Tibetan Exile Government, the first political leader to be directly elected by the people in exile. He is an eminent and distinguished scholar, teacher and philosopher, and a life-long campaigner for Gandhian principles especially that of non-violence or peaceful resistance.

99Faces interviewed him in Berlin, Germany, after giving a lecture on ‘Tendrel – Mind and Reality” for students of the Tarab Institute International.

Tibet & Tibetan Parliament in Exile: The territory of Tibet is under the administration of and occupation by the People’s Republic of China, a situation that the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) considers an illegitimate military occupation. The position of the CTA is that Tibet is a distinct nation with a long history of independence. The position of the People’s Republic of China, however, is that the central government of China has continuously exercised sovereignty over Tibet for over 700 years, that Tibet has never been an independent state, and that Tibet’s de facto independence between 1912 and 1951 was “nothing but a fiction of the imperialists who committed aggression against China in modern history”. The current policy of the Dalai Lama is that he does not seek full independence for Tibet, but would accept Tibet as a genuine autonomous region within the People’s Republic of China.

More:

Biography Samdhong Rinpoche 

Book Review – UNCOMPROMISING TRUTH FOR A COMPROMISED WORLD: TIBETAN BUDDHISM AND TODAY’S WORLD

Tibet at a glance

A new generation Exile

Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration

Samdhong Rinpoche on Facebook

Unity in Duality on Facebook

Video:

Concluding Session of 2010 ICTB with Keynote Address by Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche

Why meditate – Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche

Unity in Duality – An introduction, Part 1

Career: Artist, Writer, Photographer, Book & Exhibition “DIGNITY” for Amnesty International’s 50th anniversary
Interests: Indigenous People, Tribes, Human Rights
Hometown: Los Angeles (CA), USA

Dana Gluckstein is a celebrated, award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in countless campaigns, newspapers & magazines. Gluckstein graduated from Stanford University, where she studied psychology, painting & photography.In her 30-year career, she has captured cultural luminaries from Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev to Muhammad Ali, but perhaps her most important work has been her personal mission, photographing indigenous communities around the globe- a work collected in the book, Dignity: In Honor of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Her portraits are held in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles Countys Museum of Art and Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Dignity: In Honour of The Rights of Indigenous People honors Indigenous Peoples worldwide and celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Amnesty International, the Nobel Prize-winning human rights organization. Gluckstein, whether photographing a Haitian healer or a San Bushman elder, succeeds in distilling the universality of experience that links us all without diminishing the dignity of the individual. Dignity includes more than 90 of Gluckstein´s  black-and-white duotone portraits, made over three decades. The photographs express the theme of tribes in transition by capturing the fleeting period of world history where traditional and contemporary cultures collide.

Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters, members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories who campaign to end grave abuses of human rights. Amnesty started campaigning in 1961, and has worked around the globe to stop the abuse of human rights. Currently, they have more than 2.2 million members, supporters and subscribers in over 150 countries and territories, in every region of the world. Their vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. They  are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion and are funded mainly by our membership and public donations. In the context that U.S. government along with Canada (only two countries in U.N.) have not accepted the Declaration, there is a petition through Amnesty International for the adoption of the declaration.

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the General Assembly in September 2007. The Declaration is the most comprehensive statement of the rights of indigenous peoples ever developed, giving prominence to collective rights to a degree unprecedented in international human rights law. It is a culmination of over twenty years of work, that began in earnest at the Working Group which began the drafting of the declaration in 1985. The first draft was completed in 1993, and in 1995, the Commission on Human Rights set up its own working group to review the draft adopted by the human rights experts of the Working Group and the Sub-Commission. More than 100 indigenous organizations participated in the Working Group of the Commission annually.

More:
www.danagluckstein.com
www.amnesty.org
www.un.org

Dignity on
Facebook: http://en-gb.facebook.com/dignitybook
Twitter: @DIGNITYbook

Other articles/links/videos:
Culture/Movies-TV-Music-Books/True-Grace" target="_blank">Elle: True Grace (2010/11)
Planet-mag: dignity-dana-gluckstein (2010/10)
Huffington Post: International Day of  Indigenous Peoples: Are We Listening To Their Wisdom? (2010/08)
The Daily Beast: Portraits From the Corner of the Earth.

Video: Desmond Tutu and Hugh Maskela unite for Dignity
Video: Dana Gluckstein Interview Part 1

Career: Executive Director Ushahidi, TED Senior Fellow, Blogger
Interests: Photography, Architecture, Mobile Sensors, African Futurism
Hometown: Eldoret, Kenya

Juliana Rotich is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Ushahidi, the crowdsourcing platform that leverages mobile phones and the internet to change the way information flows. Ushahidi is a web based reporting system that utilizes crowdsourced data to formulate visual map information of a crisis on a real-time basis. In the Kenyan scenario it was used to map out incidents of violence. Ushahidi then grew to be an open source platform that has been used in various situations such as the Haiti and Chile earthquakes, the Palestine conflict crisis, Japan’s Earthquake and the Lybian conflict.
Prior to Ushahidi Juliana has worked in the telecommunications industry for over ten years.  She is originally from Kenya, with a Computer Science degree from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She is a technology, budding African Futurist and TED Senior Fellow. She co- founded Mobisoko, a mobile marketplace for language and location relevant apps in Africa. She also writes the well-respected ‘Afromusing’ blog, typically with a focus on African tech and renewable energy. She often speaks at international conferences about technology, innovation, media, open source, crisis mapping and Africa; Past conferences she has spoken at include Lift, DEMO, TTI Vanguard, TransMediale, WSIS, DLD Women, Guardian Activate World Economic Forum -Davos, and ARS Electronica. She was named one of the Top 100 women by the Guardian newspaper and top 2 women in Technology 2011.

Ushahidi is a non-profit tech company that specializes in developing free & open source software for information collection, visualization &  interactive mapping to  democratizing information, increasing transparency & lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories (Crowdmap, SwiftRiver). “Ushahidi” means “testimony” in Swahili, and was a website initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout in 2008.  Since then Ushaidi has grown to a focused organization and now consists of a strong team of volunteer developers primarily in Africa, but also Europe, South America and the U.S. It is a disruptive organization that is willing to take risks in the pursuit of changing the traditional way that information flows.

Crowdmap is designed and built by the people behind Ushahidi. As the Ushahidi platform has evolved, so have its uses. Crowdmap allows you to set up your own deployment of Ushahidi without having to install it on your own web server. It is the fastest, simplest installation of the Ushahidi platform. Within minutes you’ll be up and running with your own installation, mapping reports events and visualizing information.

SwiftRiver is a free open source platform that helps people make sense of information in a short amount of time. The platform was born out of the need to understand and act upon a wave of massive amounts of crisis data that tends to overwhelm in the first 24 hours of a disaster.  In practice, SwiftRiver enables the filtering and verification of real-time data from channels such as Twitter, SMS, Email and RSS feeds. This free tool is especially useful for organizations that need to sort their data by authority and accuracy, as opposed to popularity. These organizations include media, emergency response groups, election monitors and more. This might include journalists and other media institutions, emergency response groups, election monitors and more.

Juliana´s TED Story: “I met two of the three co-founders of Ushahidi at TEDGlobal 2007, a conference that was a seminal moment for Africa, and for me. TED not only brought together online friends and kindred spirits, thereby seeding what later became Ushahidi, but it also changed my whole perspective about Africa, and the world. Since 2007, my life has taken an arc that I could not be happier about. I hosted the second annual TEDxNairobi, where the ideas worth spreading that TED lit in the TED Fellow’s minds, get passed on to others in the Kenyan community. As a TED Senior Fellow, I have had the incredible opportunity to make friends from around the world, and within the TED community, friendships that I treasure as we continue this journey of sharing knowledge and living our lives as active change agents in this world.”

More:
LinkedIn: Juliana
http://www.ted.com/fellows/view/id/31 (2011/03/16)

www.ushahidi.com
Twitter:@ushahidi
vimeo: Ushahidi
Facebook: Ushahidi
Crunchbase: Ushahidi
Wikipedia: Ushahidi

www.crowdmap.com
Twitter:@crowdmap
Facebook: Crowdmap

Swiftriver
Twitter:@swiftriver
Facebook: Swiftriver

www.afromusing.com
Twitter:@afromusing

Other articles/links/videos:

Japan:

Die Zeit: Ushahidi: Wissen, was wo in Japan passiert (2011/03/16)
GOOD: Earthquake in Japan: Help Google and Ushahidi Rescue Trapped Citizens and Reunite Families (2011/03/11)
Scienceray: Google and Ushahidi Serving Japan (2011/03/16)
Jonathan Stray: UN asks Ushahidi to produce Crisis Map of Lybia (2011/03/08)
Global Pulse: Crisismappers Extend UN Capacity in Lybia (2011/03/04)
Guardian.co.uk: Top 100 women: Technology – Juliana Rotich (2011/03/08)
Video: Interview Juliana Rotich on DLD (2011)
Global Voices: Japan: Earthquake Crisis Mapping on Ushahidi (2011/03/15)
Ushahidi: Crisis Mapping Japan´s Earthquake and How You Can Help (2011/03)
Geocommons: Japan Radiation Report Data Stream from Ushahidi (2011/03)
Davos: Ushahidi Grows Its Global Crowd-sourcing Platform, Slams Twitter Censorship (TCTV) (01/12)

Davos: Ushahidi Grows Its Global Crowd-sourcing Platform, Slams Twitter Censorship [TCTV]

Egypt:

Ushahidi: Crowdmapping Egypt (2011/01/25)
Diary of a Crisis Mapper: Ushahidi Egypt: When Open Data is Not so Open, or When People Just Don´t Get it (2010/11/20)

Ushahidi´s Juliana Rotich introduces Crisis Mapping in short:

Career: Theoretical Physicist. Professor at Yale, Harvard, Case Western Reserve and Arizona State University. Bestseller author e.g. “The Physics of Star Trek”.
Interests: Mountain Bike, Fly Fish, Scuba Dive
Hometown: Phoenix (AZ), USA

“I became a scientist in part because I read books by other scientists, such as Albert Einstein, George Gamow, Sir James Jeans, etc, when I was a child, and my popular writing returns the favor. One of my greatest joys is when a young person comes up to me and tells me that one of my books motivated them to become a scientist.

I believe science is not only a vital part of our culture, but is fun, and I try and convey that in my books and lectures. I am honored that Scientific American referred to me as a rare scientific public intellectual, and that all three major US Physics Societies: the American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the American Institute of Physics, have seen fit to honor me with their highest awards for research and writing.

My research focuses on the beginning and end of the Universe. Among my contributions to the field of cosmology, I helped lead the search for dark matter, and first proposed the existence of dark energy in 1995.”

(LMK, Amazon Biography)

Lawrence Maxwell Krauss is an American Theoretical Physicist. In 1982, he received undergraduate degrees in mathematics and physics from Carleton University and his Ph.D. from the MIT. In 1985, he became assistant professor at Yale University and Associate Professor (1988). From 1993 to 2005, he was professor of astronomy and Chairman of Physics Department at Case Western Reserve University.
In August 2008, he joined the faculty at Arizona State University as Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, and the Department of Physics in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, and Director of University’s Origins Initiative. In 2009, he helped inaugurate this initiative with the Origins Symposium in which 80 of the world’s leading scientists participated, and 3000 people attended. He currently serves on advisory board of Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) and was elected to the Board of Directors of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
He regularly appears in national media for public outreach in science and has written many editorials, e.g. New York Times.

More:
Facebook Fanpage
Lawrence M. Krauss Faculty Website

Wikipedia: Lawrence M. Krauss
Media Bio of Lawrence Krauss

Lawrence’s books on Amazon
Lawrences books, publications, lectures an other media and public appearances

Other articles/links/videos:
Video: “A Universe From Nothing” by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

Career: Curator & Host INK Conference (formerly TED India), Founder & CEO Ixoraa Media, Founder Digital Equalizer Program, Partner at Global Catalyst Partners
Interests: Collecting People, Human Spirit, Matching Indo and U.S Business
Hometown: Milpitas (CA), USA; New Delhi, India

Lakshmi Pratury is Founder and CEO of Ixoraa Media whose mission is to strengthen ties between the US and India through corporate, cultural, and media events. As a social entrepreneur, Lakshmi was a leading force at the American India Foundation (AIF), that raised over $30M in five years to channel towards development activities in India. She also started ‘Schools Online India’ (later ‘Digital Equalizer’) where she brought internet access to underprivileged children. Earlier, she was partner at Global Catalyst Partners (GCP) and was the first to turn the VC firm’s attention onto India. Lakshmi was co-host of the first ever TED conference in Asia – the TEDIndia. She continues sharing untold stories with the annual INK Conference, in association with TED.

The Ink Conference is an annual conference that aims to fuel innovation and foster knowledge by bringing together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers from a range of disciplines such as art, architecture, dance, design, music, science, social entrepreneurship, sports and technology. The first INK was in December 2010 in Delhi and will be featured annually.

Ixoraa Media is dedicated to bringing together extraordinary talent across generations and disciplines to focus on shaping the thinking, policy, and progress in the Indo–U.S. corridor. Ixoraa Media bandwidth ranges from technology projects with the private office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to music concerts. Ixora Media was host of TEDIndia, which attracted a global audience and featured thought leaders from India. Currently it is hosting The INK Conference in association with TED.

More:
www.theinkconference.com
www.ted.com
www.ixoraamedia.com

The INK Conference on Facebook
TED on Facebook
Twitter: @TEDTalks

Lakshmi on LinkedIn
Twitter: @LakshmiPratury
Lakshmi on Facebook

Other articles/links/videos:
Videos talks from INK Conference – The INKTalks: www.inktalks.com
Your Story: Lakshmi Pratury on INK conference: “We want to showcase innovation of thought” (10/2010)
Blogadda: Interview with Lakshmi Pratury (2010)

Short intro to The Ink Conference:

Career: Head of Marketing, The Global Fund
Interests: Travel, Social Change, Cross Country Skiing Marathon
Hometown: Mexican living in Geneva, Switzerland

Claudia Gonzalez is Head of Marketing of The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, where she manages the Born HIV Free campaign that aims to eliminate the transmission of HIV from mother to children by 2015.
One of the world’s most acknowledge non-profit marketers having had top position in United Nations Refugee Agency and the World Economic Forum, she is a strategist with 15 year experience in integrated communications specialized in social media, celebrities and branding.
Claudia was previously a Diplomat for her home country Mexico and was a press correspondent for a number of years in different countries. Her academic background includes a Masters from LSE on Media and Communications. She speaks 6 languages, has two kids, enjoys sports, travel and social change.

The Global Fund was established in January 2002 to dramatically increase global financing for interventions against  AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. It is the largest international funder of programs to combat malaria and tuberculosis, providing two-thirds of all financing, and provides 20% of all international funding to combat HIV/AIDS. The Fund asserts that as of June 2007, 1.9 million lives have been saved thanks to efforts in 136 countries supported by the Global Fund.

UNHCR: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, established 1950, also known as The UN Refugee Agencyis a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. The UNHCR has won two Nobel Peace Prizes.

More:
www.theglobalfund.org
www.unhcr.org
Twitter: @refugees
www.bornhivfree.org
www.joinred.com

Other articles/links/videos:
Video & Interview: DLD Conference 2010
Article: Press Release about AIDS campaign
Article: Arstechnica – Google Earth takes you inside Refugee-Camps

Short intro to The Global Fund:

Career: Film Director and Producer (i.e.”Elizabeth”, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”, “Bandit Queen”) but simply calls himself “Adventurer”
Interests: Water, Nature, Social Business, Humanity, Future of our Planet
Hometown: Mumbai, India; born Lahore, British India (nowadays Pakistan);lived many years in New York City, USA

Shekhar Kapur, born 6 December 1945 in British India (in an area which became part of Pakistan) is a renowned filmmaker from India. His works include Elizabeth (1998), a semi-historical account of the early reign of Queen Elizabeth I; it was nominated for 8 Oscars. In 2000, he was awarded the Padma Shri. Some scenes of the movie Joshilaay (1989) which starred Sunny Deol, Anil Kapoor, Sridevi and Meenakshi Sheshadari were directed by Kapur. He was accused of being Anti-British by British tabloids, by the way he portrayed the British Army and the Empire in the movie The Four Feathers. Kapur also executive produced the Hollywood film The Guru and Bollywood-themed Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Bombay Dreams, which has been running in the West End, London since 2002, and on Broadway in New York City since 2004. Projects include Long Walk to Freedom, Water, The Last Full Measure, and Golden Age, a sequel to Elizabeth.

In June 2005, Kapur and his friend, guru Deepak Chopra launched a discussion blog with a select group of their friends and family. The purpose of the blog is to promote original discussion by voices from South Asia, and especially India. Kapur posts regularly on the blog, often writing short personal poems. Shortly after, Kapur also started his own personal blog on his official website. In January 2006, it was reported that Kapur and Chopra would be collaborating with Richard Branson on a Bangalore-based animated film company.

His most recent projekt is PAANI (which means ‘water’ in Hindu) which aims to ring the alarm bell for the global water crisis. In November 2010, when the above interview was taped, Shekhar Kapur signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Grameen Creative Lab to create an investment fund for water-related social businesses in India. Being passionate about water-related issues he will act as ambassador for the fund. Kapur signed the MOU together with Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Grameen Bank Prof. Muhammad Yunus.

More:
www.shekharkapur.com
Shekhar on Facebook

Wikipedia: Movie “Elizabeth”
YouTube: Tailer of “Elizabeth”

Wikipedia: “Elizabeth – The Golden Age”
YouTube: Tailer of “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”

Other articles/links/videos:
YouTube: Business of Cinema: Shekhar Kapur raises alarm bell for water conservation (10/2010)
Global water crisis gets Bollywood Sci-Fi treatment
Realbollywood News Shekhar Kapur rings the alarm bell for water conservation (09/2010)
DNA: The water divide, Shekhar Kapur’s magnificent obsession (05/2010)
Indian Express: Shekhar Kapur’s ‘Paani’ to seek solution for water shortage (05/2010)
YouTube: I’m not a professional filmmaker: Shekhar Kapoor (07/2010)
Vimeo: Paolo Coelho: Social Business – An issue close to society’s heart?

Career: Orchestral Conducter, Maestro, Leadership Coach
Interests: Art (from ancient to contemporary), Haiku Poetry and Literature in general, People – in particular, how we exchange important messages …
Hometowns: Tel-Aviv, Israel; Amsterdam, Netherlands; temp. Transsilvania, Romania

Itay Talgam is one of the leading figures in the Israeli music scene. He is a champion of contemporary music, and in particular music of contemporary Israeli composers. He is internationally renowned for developing the ‘Maestro program’, that explores the relationship between conductor, musician and audience to achieve inspiring new insights into leadership, management, and team work. Using a range of innovative techniques, these energetic and thought-provoking programmes challenge standard thinking and offer participants a fresh perspective on a range of organisational issues and work styles.

More:
www.talgam.com
Wikipedia: Itay Talgam
Twitter: @itaytalgam

Other articles/links/videos:
Video: TEDtalks – Itay Talgam at TED (10/2009; 23 min.)
Video: Itay Talgam – Zeitgeist Europe 2009 (11/2010; 31min.)
Conducting Collaborative Creativity: Understanding collaboration through the lens of Itay Talgam and a collection of the worlds foremost conductors (02/09)
Video: Itay Talgam at PICNIC08 – Conducting Creativity (2009)