Gillian Caldwell is the Campaign Director for 1Sky, a new national campaign to build a diverse nationwide movement and convince our federal government to take bold action to tackle the climate crisis and harness the enormous economic opportunity of the renewable energy economy by 2010. She is also a film maker and an attorney with thirty years of experience advocating for social justice in the United States and around the world. Most recently, Gillian served as Executive Director of WITNESS, which uses the power of video to open the eyes of the world to human rights abuses.
Wes Boyd is the co-founder of MoveOn.org, a prominent online political action organization. Mr. Boyd is also a software industry veteran, having founded a leading entertainment software company, Berkeley Systems. Berkeley Systems was best known for Flying Toaster screen savers, and other entertainment software. In the 1980s, prior to his work in consumer software, Mr. Boyd authored software for blind and visually impaired users allowing the first full access to Macintosh computers. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr. Boyd was a consultant in social research methodology and tools.
Michael is an author and political strategist who works on and writes about energy technology innovation, climate change, economic development, rain forest conservation, social values, national security and human rights. As president of the Breakthrough Institute, he is a leading national advocate for the U.S. to make large, public-private investments in clean energy and decarbonization technologies to achieve energy independence, restore America's economic competitiveness, and slow global warming.
Robert Hambrecht is the Chief Financial Officer at Greenlife International, a project development company that is building biofuel and agricultural businesses in Argentina and other Latin American companies. Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mr. Hambrecht is providing financial leadership to Greenlife as it seeks investment and is helping manage its key partnerships in Argentina as it structures investments in agricultural and biofuel infrastructure.
Eli Pariser is President of MoveOn.org. Eli joined MoveOn in November of 2001, and directed MoveOn's campaign against the Iraq war, tripling MoveOn's member base in the process. MoveOn now has over 5 million members. An early innovator in the field of online organizing, Eli was one of the co-creators of the Bush in 30 Seconds ad contest. Under his leadership, MoveOn.org Political Action has raised over $100 million from over 600,000 small donors to support advocacy campaigns, run ads, develop a powerful field program, and support progressive candidates.
Michel Gelobter is one of the country’s leading climate strategists, having worked for more than 25 years as a regulator, policy-maker, researcher, and thought leader on environmental and social policy. Most recently, Michel was President of Redefining Progress, the U.S.’s leading domestic sustainability policy institute. During Michel’s tenure, Redefining Progress helped design the world’s most aggressive climate legislation which was signed into California law in August of 2006, formed the Climate Justice Corps to train thousands of U.S.
Krisztina Holly is vice provost and executive director of the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, where she spearheads the development of programs and approaches to help faculty and students bring innovations to the market and develop their skills as innovators. USC Stevens, a university-wide institute in the office of the Provost, harnesses the creative thinking and innovative work at the University of Southern California's college, 17 professional schools, and research programs to build a multidisciplinary approach to innovation.
John Kao (born 1950) is an author and strategic advisor based in San Francisco. His work concentrates on issues of innovation and organizational transformation. Kao was born in 1950 to Chinese immigrant parents. An accomplished jazz pianist, he spent the summer of 1969 playing keyboards for Frank Zappa. Kao studied philosophy at Yale College, received an MD from Yale Medical School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He taught at Harvard Business School from 1982-96, where he specialized in innovation and entrepreneurship.
Leslie Glustrom is a biochemist by training. She has worked extensively on public lands issues and in 1996 she was named one of the top 10 defenders of the public lands by the Wilderness Society. In 2004, Leslie resigned her job running a biochemistry research lab in order to work full time on climate change issues. Her goal is to accelerate the transition from a fossil fuel based economy to one based on clean, renewable energy.
Dr. Michael Dorsey is an Assistant Professor in Dartmouth College's Faculty of Science (Hanover, New Hampshire). Dr. Dorsey teaches in the Environmental Studies Program with Professor Jones. Dorsey is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment; Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the University of Michigan Dept of Anthropology, from which received his PhD.
This is just a quick update to let everybody know about what the Next Agenda team has been doing. We spent a lot of the summer working with the Breakthrough Institute, covering their inaugural Breakthrough Dialogue conference, "Modernizing Liberalism." The conference, which was put on in conjunction with launch of a new journal, brought together dozens of top thinkers from a range of disciplines to figure out new ideas that could adapt liberalism to today's realities.
