Joel Solomon

Joel Solomon is Chairman of Renewal Funds, Canada's largest social venture capital firm.  Launched in 2008, Renewal Funds invests in early growth stage companies in North America in the organic and natural food, green products and environmental innovation sectors.  Renewal Funds currently has over $95m assets under management.

Renewal Funds builds on a legacy of aligning money with values inspired by founding partner Carol Newell.  Together with Carol, Joel spent eighteen years developing and implementing a "whole portfolio to mission", integrated use of capital for social goods strategy with a regional sustainable economy focus. $60m was deployed in for-profit investments, charitable donations, PRI and MRI tools, leadership and organizational capacity, based in Vancouver.
 
Joel serves as a Senior Advisor with RSF Social Finance and speaks frequently throughout North America, including a 2012 TEDxVancouver talk.  He is a founding member of Social Venture Network (SVN), Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), the Tides Canada Foundation, and is board chair of Hollyhock.
 
With a Lifetime Achievement Award from SVN, Joel was then inducted with Carol Newell into the SVN Hall of Fame in 2012.

Twitter: @joelsolomon
Web: http://www.renewalfunds.com
Linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/joel-solomon/0/4b5/a5a
TEDxVancouver talk: http://bit.ly/joelsolomontedx

Tzeporah Berman

This Crazy Time: People, Pipelines and Politics

The aggressive pursuit of pipelines we are experiencing is the last gasp of the fossil fuel industry in the climate era. Clean technologies are emerging at a large scale around the world and big oil is worried about getting access to big pools of carbon before they are simply off limits in advanced economies. Unexpectedly the pipeline proposals are uniting diverse communities across the country who are using digital media and common purpose to bridge the divide and create a movement greater than the sum of its parts.

Tzeporah Berman has been designing and winning environmental campaigns in Canada and internationally for 20 years.  She currently works as a strategic advisor for dozens of environmental organizations, First Nations and philanthropic advisors on clean energy, oilsands and pipelines.  She is the former co-director of Greenpeace International's Global Climate and Energy Program,  Executive Director and Co-founder of PowerUp Canadaand Co-founder and Campaign Director of ForestEthics. 

Jonathan Tippett

Jonathan Tippett is an artist and mechanical engineer with lifelong curiosity for the relationship between humans and machines. He earned his mechanical engineering degree from UBC in 1999 and has since worked in fuel cells, hydraulics and neurovascular implants. His sculptural media have spanned Plasticine, ceramics, metal and wood over the years, but his love of machines brought him to explore the intersection of form, function and human skill in the context of engineered and interactive sculpture. Co-creator of The Mondo Spider and co-founder of eatART, he is now developing his next experience based machine, Prosthesis: The Anti-Robot ,  in the eatART Lab.  It is slated for completion in late 2015.

Alex Chuang

Alex Chuang is a budding entrepreneur and a digital visionary with a track record of launching successful internet startups and projects. Before joining Launch Academy as Managing Director, Alex was the Founder and CEO of Weeve, world’s first free crowdfunding platform for nonprofits. In 2013, Weeve was acquired by LX Ventures, a publicly traded technology incubator that launches, integrates and acquires high-growth technology companies. Currently, Alex divides his time between Launch Academy, Vancouver's leading tech incubator and Emberyl Creative, an innovation lab and interactive agency. Alex’s work can be seen on Mashable, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, BuzzFeed, TechVibes, The Digital Journal and many more local and international media.

Amanda Palmer

Amanda MacKinnon Gaiman Palmer, sometimes known as Amanda Fucking Palmer, is an American performer who first rose to prominence as the lead singer, pianist, and lyricist/composer of the duo The Dresden Dolls. She has had a successful solo career, is also one half of the duo Evelyn Evelyn, and is the lead singer and songwriter of Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra.

Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie medals. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book (2008). In 2013, The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards.

Jason Webley

Jason Webley is an American musician known for his fusion of folk, experimental and alternative music. He began as a street performer, playing accordion in the streets of Seattle, Washington, but has since moved in-doors and on stage, playing various venues.

Jim Harris

Thriving in the Era of Disruptive Innovation

Michael Laine - Building 'the biggest thing... ever!'

President, LiftPort Group

#SpaceElevator

Michael Laine has been working for 13 years on building something that most people consider science fiction: an Elevator to Space. And even though, at this moment, Earth's Space Elevator is impossible, there are steps we can take - now - that will move us in the right direction - the Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure. We can do research, make strategic and tactical investments; we can communicate and develop outreach and education programs. We can do this, today.  It will make a difference.

"There is a profound difference between 'difficult', 'very very hard', and 'impossible'."  - Michael Laine

If there is time/demand at BIL I'll chat about: 1) Building our Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure, 2) Civilization Shifting Technologies, 3) You, too, can build your own damn Elevator - or anything else you want!

Bitcoin Panel - How Bitcoin will Benefit Humanity

John Dreyzehner

John Dreyzehner is the head of bitcoin payment processor BitPay's West Coast Operations. A native of the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, John has a passion for outdoor exploration, crypto-finance, and disruptive technologies. He graduated with dual degrees in Financial Mathematics and Music at the University of Virginia.

Elizabeth T. Ploshay

Bitcoin Foundation & Bitcoin Magazine

Elizabeth T. Ploshay was recently elected Bitcoin Foundation Board of Directors, serves as Secretary of the Board and served as Chair of the Bitcoin Foundation Education Committee. She additionally serves as Manager of Communications at Bitcoin Magazine, the first international print publication dedicated to all things Bitcoin. She also is a Bitcoin Advisor for Oomolo Inc. She is fascinated with Bitcoin and the multiple opportunities for this digital, decentralized cryptocurrency to flourish.

Elizabeth has a background in public policy and grassroots activism. She worked on Capitol Hill as a Legislative Correspondent, Scheduler, and Policy Assistant for Chief Deputy Majority Whip, Congressman Peter J. Roskam (IL-06). She also worked for Targeted Victory, a boutique political campaign consultancy, and Congressman Kevin Brady (TX-08).

Robert David

Robert David is an entrepreneur with a diverse business background stretching over 15 years from technology to finance to property development. Founder of the Vancouver Bitcoin meet up, a Bitcoin startup recently accepted into a Silicon Valley tech accelerator, and most recently the award winning Tor Incentive Project, Robert’s knowledge of software development and computing systems has led to insights and technological advancements that promise to make crypto-currency more powerful, easier, and safer to use.

Michael Yeung

Michael Yeung is the founder and president of Simon Fraser University’s Bitcoin Club from Vancouver, Canada. The club is the world’s first university-based group that advocates for greater awareness and adoption of Bitcoin and related technologies.

He recently found Saftonhouse Consulting Group, a firm specializing in virtual currency consulting for businesses, non-profits, and individuals, and acts as its CEO. He is also a member of the Bitcoin Foundation’s Education Committee and a director in The Bitcoin Co-op in Vancouver. Yeung is currently working on CoinFeet, a unique marketplace app that makes acquiring bitcoins fun, easy, and social.

Yeung has been featured on Global TV, Vancouver Sun, Fairchild TV, Huffington Post, and other prominent publications to explain Bitcoin in layman terms.

Andrew Wagner

Andrew is a tutor of math, science and writing who has been heavily involved in the Vancouver Meet Up community, where he helped organize non-profit groups while working in venue promotion. He found Bitcoin via his participation in gaming and other online communities.

While he still tutors mathematics to keep sharp, Andrew now promotes only Bitcoin (and other alternative currency) venues. He is one of the primary organizers of the Vancouver Bitcoin Meet Up, and the Director of Public Relations for the Bitcoin Cooperative. Andrew spearheaded merchant adoption in Vancouver, having signed up the world’s first Indian restaurant, the Waves that houses the world’s first ATM, Vancouver’s first nightclub, and more!

Chris Heuer 

Committing to Mutual Success in a Connected Society

Chris Heuer is a visionary who focuses on how things could be instead of how they are, making his life's Noble Pursuit the healing of the world through technology imbued with humanity, for the purposes of humanity. After investing over two years with Deloitte focused on Social Business and Engagement Strategy, he left the Big Four Consulting firm to build his latest startup Alynd, which has redesigned the context of collaboration based on the fundamental and thoroughly researched principles of building trust and maintaining alignment. His talk at this year's BIL, will be a follow-up to his original BIL talk in 2008, Transforming the Heart of Business, Making Love @Work, with a focus on earning trust, setting the context for collaboration and getting aligned for mutual success by making and keeping commitments with each other, and with our organizations. This will be set against the backdrop of what it will take for society to thrive within an open, transparent and connected world where the technology has yet to fully account for our own humanity.

Chris has been pioneering new spaces in the digital world since 1994 with the launch of his first agency, Guru Communications, out of South Beach, Florida in 1994 and the local content play Virtual Community Network he launched in 1995. He has created software, online community, real world community, social change, corporate change, government ecommerce and numerous startups over the past two decades. You may know him from the global non-profit Social Media Club, which Chris founded in 2006 after attending the first BarCamp in the summer of 2005. He was also an associate producer of the original BIL Conference serving in an advisory capacity (see Chris Heuer's photos of the first BIL here).

Clinton (Cosmo) Mielke 

Citizen science to unlimit our lifespans

Cosmo is a former astronomer and recent PhD in computational biology. His research focuses on the genetics and neuroscience of metabolism, and how aging and longevity are influenced by the development of metabolic syndrome. With a friend, he is currently launching an open genomics movement to unlimit human health-spans by analysing volunteer-contributed quantified self data.

www.infino.me

John Biehler 

How 3D Printing Changed My Life & How It's Already Changing Yours

John is co-founder of 3D604.org, a Vancouver group of 3D printing enthusiasts. He's been involved in 3D Printing for a number of years and currently has five 3D printers in his garage. He regularly demos the technology all over the place, helping to share and expose the technology to as many people he can. He just finished writing his first book on the topic that will be published later this year. JohnBiehler.com

Karen Magill

MS is A Gift

Forced to leave the workforce in 2000 by the onslaught of MS, Karen saw this as an opportunity to explore her lifelong desire to write. In February of 2014, Karen independently published an inspiring story of her journey so far with MS entitled On The Right Side, My Story of Survival and Success.

Ms. Magill believes that anything is possible and when she writes fiction, she leans towards the paranormal. She writes about extrasensory powers as if they are commonplace because, in her mind, we are all capable of those gifts.

To date, Ms. Magill is the author of three published paranormal novels, including the award winning The Bond, A Paranormal Love Story. Her fourth paranormal novel, A Little Poison – the sequel to Missing Flowers – should be out sometime in 2014.

Karen lives in an eclectic area of Vancouver, Canada and draws inspiration from the history and stories around her.

Lisa Love

Feeding Ourselves and the World - Climate Change and Why the Global Tipping Point is NOW.

In recent history the human and planetary world people have been playing a very dangerous game of destruction and death. At the same time, we have also been creating and remembering a vast world of knowledge, experiences, systems and resources.We have been connecting, sharing and collaborating with others towards the intention of repairing, restoring and growing a sustainable thriving interdependent healthy people and biodiverse clean planet.

Both have been massive transformations happening at a warp speed - and we are now at a nexus unprecedented in human history. I will be sharing THE POSSIBLE, some of what we know so far and what we can do about it - for our lives and the life of the planet.

Lisa Love loves people, dancing and trees. Founder of Tree Our World - working with farmers/gardeners in 7 countries, I am co-creating a Global Advocacy Network for Moringa Tree of Life (the world's most nutritious and sustainable food) and in development for my film Tre*Evolution. My human and earth rights journey began young in 1971 at age 8 fundraising and recycling with SPEC and Greenpeace!

If you are inspired to Tree Our World or participate in Global Sustainability, please check out our page https://www.facebook.com/treeourworldnow and the Vancouver TOW Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/treeourworld/

Brittany Whitmore

The Enterprise Revolution

Brittany is a challenge-loving, model-turned-entrepreneur with a BBA in marketing management. She believes passionately in the power of creativity and innovation and grew into entrepreneurship as she grew into herself, running a successful marketing company while completing her degree and focused that work on what she calls “authentic impact” - values-driven communications. She is now Director of Communications for the buzz-worthy tech start-up, Procurify.com, which delivers a consumer-style, simple, and beautiful user interface to procurement software. 

She believes that work should not be a means to an end but an end in itself; that what we do should be an extension of who we are and that this is how we can be the most cre­ative, pro­duc­tive, inspired and happy. She believes that cre­ativ­ity is going to save the world. We are faced with new chal­lenges every day threatening our very existence; It is going to take cre­ativ­ity to solve these prob­lems, and the only way to drive cre­ativ­ity in orga­ni­za­tions is to give peo­ple free­dom to find pas­sion in their work.

Welcome to the new world of innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship; welcome to the enterprise revolution.

Come fly with me: @BritWhitmore

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/britwhitmore/ 

Lorraine Murphy

Anonymous and the Tools of Revolution

From Arab Spring to the Ukraine, Anonymous and allied hacker groups have been active participants in cyber-revolution. This talk will explore the various tools they've used and the ways in which these have had an effect on the political outcomes and peoples' day to day lives during times of revolution.

Lorraine “raincoaster” Murphy is founder of raincoaster media, specializing in transformative social media training, as well as President Emeritus of Social Media Club of Vancouver, and has been a professional blogger, digital reporter and social media trainer since 2002. She specializes in teaching beginners and those with barriers to internet use, and in social media for social change. Her journalism focuses on Anonymous, WikiLeaks, and hacktivism. She was in charge of Web and Social Media training for the Fearless City project, and her students there included citizen journalist April Smith and poet Henry Doyle.

Her flagship blog, raincoaster.com, has been studied as part of the New Media curriculum in three universities, and the comments thread on her Mummified Fairy post has been called “one of the most beautiful things on the internet.” She once got into a flamewar with the nation of Albania, and won. She conducts workshops in the transformative use of social media on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and blogs regularly to many different sites.

Mary Gavan

Storytelling - why Bother

Why bother going to the effort of preparing and practising a good story.  What is gained by telling a good story.   Hear the unexpected from a Celtic Storyteller with a love of understanding through wit, wisdom and wry humour.   As a Past President of the National Storytellers of Canada and a current organiser of the Vancouver Storytellers monthly event, I am committed to storytelling.  But why  is the question I address through story.   www.marycelticstory.ca

Marina Adshade

The (Real) Economics of Sex

Economist Marina Adshade’s theories on the interplay of market forces in the matters of love and libido have brought her attention from around the globe. She is the author of The Love Market: What You Need To Know About How We Date, Mate and Marry and Dollars and Sex: How Economics Influences Sex and Love. She teaches at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver School of Economics.  Using engaging research and economic analysis, and no small dose of humour, Adshade unlocks the mysteries behind our actions, thoughts and preferences regarding sexual relationships, gender, love and power.

Dr. Adshade is a regular contributor to The Globe and Mail and Psychology Today and has written for The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times (UK), the Time Magazine and Buzzfeed. A sought-after speaker and commentator, she has made numerous TV appearances on CTV and CBC, interviews on CBC Radio and National Public Radio (US), online panel discussions, international and domestic print media and podcasts in Canada and the US. 

Cyan Banister

Cyan is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Zivity, a prolific angel investor with her husband Scott Banister (Tagged, SpaceX, Uber and others (See AngelList for full list), board member, advisor and also a contributing writer for TechCrunch and Women2.0.

Cyan co-founded the controversial website Zivity.com, which is a subscription based social networking site for creators and fans of beautiful and tasteful glamour photography. She currently serves on the board of directors for Mimoco, best known for their MIMOBOT line of designer USB storage devices.

Cyan has held many leadership roles throughout her career, from leading technical operations teams in an enterprise software company to helping women master technology as CTO of a nonprofit organization.

As a side note, Cyan donates money every year to the world juggling federation, women’s division.

Twitter: @cyanist

Ariel Garten

Ariel Garten is a Canadian artist, scientist and intellectual.  She was an avant-garde clothing designer with a store called Flavour Hall (now closed) in Toronto, Canada. She is deemed to have made a "significant contribution to the field" for her work in integrating art and science. She is pursuing cutting edge art and performances in other media, including dance, music, percussion, and cutting-edge instruments (such as hydraulophone, quintephone, and other). She creates work that explores the intersection of art and neuroscience.

Garten lectures about interdisciplinary neuroscience topics, such as "The Neuroscience of Morals" (on TVO's Big Ideas televised lecture series), "The Neuroscience of Molecular Gastronomy" and others), as well as psychotherapy and mental health.

Steve Dotto

Learn to Kick Ass on YouTube

YouTube is the most exciting and democratic of the social platforms.

Growing in all aspects YouTube is changing the our habits and having a devastating impact on traditional media.

Most of us think the path to success on YouTube comes as a bolt of lightning, a viral success that propels a channel to significance. 

In fact you can strategically build a YouTube channel, even map out a growth plan for it. 

One year ago today the Dotto Tech Channel was at 3,000 subscribers, and was an afterthought, Today it boasts north of 17,000 subscribers and is growing at a rapid pace (over 3,000 per month).

No viral success story, it has been grow strategically.

You know the content you want to share. Steve will take you through the techniques you need to know to effectively build a YouTube channel. 

For 15 year Steve Dotto  was the host and Executive Producer of , "Dotto Tech",  Canada's most popular computer show which was syndicated nationally and ran to an audience of some 20 million viewers every year.

A background in comedy coupled with a strong commitment to community and family make for talks that are both highly entertaining and incredibly thought provoking. 

David Joel Hiebert (with Daughter Grace)

Gratefully Going GREEN (a children’s book that gets to the heart of “going green”)

About 6 years ago an idea and concept came to me that would became the book Gratefully Going GREEN. There followed 5 years of growth. The conceptual seed grew into a wordy and weighty explanation of "GREEN."  This transformed into lighter yet stronger poetry enlivened by colourful whimsical illustrations - all firmly rooted in the “heart” of Going GREEN.  When this growth matured and the leaves became pages, I saw that I had not only created a book but also a legacy.  What did I learn from this growth of GREEN? “There’s no dream too small or no challenge too BIG.” I learned that, “ G is for Grateful,” and that… oh, I won’t tell you any more now.  It will have to wait till the BIL Conference.  Hope to see you there. If you just can’t wait to see Gratefully Going GREEN get a sneak peek at:  www.gratefullygoinggreen.com  

Elias Arjan

The Problem of Consciousness

This talk will explore the relationship between subjective experience, collective reality and the human brain. TED has recently discouraged TEDx event organizers from accepting any talks that attempt to link science and spirituality, meaning BIL is the opportunity for us to explore this dialogue.

Elias Arjan is an adventurer, benefit auctioneer, wellness expert & social entrepreneur. Elias became fascinated with the human body in college and shifted his major from Business to Human Kinetics. Elias then became a personal trainer and fitness consultant. After college Elias went in search of other methods to obtain a deeper understanding of the body/mind and lived in a Buddhist Monastery, a Yogic Ashram and studied with Indigenous Medicine People. Elias has continued to live a fit lifestyle and explore the frontiers of human consciousness. Now a recognized expert on the brain-body connection Elias presents his unique perspective in seminars and events around the world.

Jane Thomas

Library Challenge, Kashmir

Jane is a self-employed consultant, social anthropologist specializing in community participation and for 30 years has been working mainly in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Not surprisingly from so many years of on-the-ground presence, her perspective on those countries is very different from what media make them out to be.  She has an inspiring story to tell. It’s about the resilience and resourcefulness of even the poorest people recovering from a massive natural disaster (earthquake of 2005) and how they chose to do so in an most unusual way: by holding Kashmir’s first ever book fairs and starting their own community libraries!  

Eric Brooke

Organisations 3.0 beta

Viewing humans as humans not resources

How to evolve your organization to be a better workplace.  Through the vulnerable leadership, active followship, continuous feedback, career changing and growing your people to the point they out grow you.

Lived in 19 countries, worked in most sectors including being elected to public office in the UK. I am a nomad through human cultures, careers - watching/learning/listening - This talk will attempt to pull together some of the "nuggets" learnt and maybe a couple "smells" that are yet to form into nuggets.

I’m deeply curious, love to learn, pay attention to people, student of psychology, deft at communication, excel at networking, deeply tech-savvy and relish growing others through education and leadership.

ca.linkedin.com/in/ericbrooke/

http://twitter.com/ericbrooke

http://ericbrooke.wordpress.com/

http://www.goodreads.com/ericbrooke

Tammy Lea Meyer

My Voice Matters

Each of our voices is an incredible asset that needs to be captured, owned, and valued. We each need to take leadership, share our ideas and connect with others to build the needed structures of change. How do we do this? How do we come together in the spirit of cooperation to identify the critical path of inquiry that can bring us together within a collective narrative?

We will look at the power of the voice, our fundamental freedoms, the array of technologies that can help to facilitate communication and collaboration, and the real world actions that are required to integrate this work. 

Tammy Lea Meyer is a community developer and media experimentalist. She believes that through bringing motivated changemakers together, we can build and unite the systems that are being developed to assist in this time of great change. Tammy wears several hats; co-chair of CCEC Credit Union, Canada's only activist bank, a collaborator for Living the New Economy, project lead for MyVoice, an experiment in personal agency creation, and is a core member of a community home. 

Liz McDowell

Fuelling BC's Economy: where does our wealth come from?

It’s often said that British Columbia is a resource-based province. In actual fact, the reality is a lot more complex. How important is the energy sector for BC? What industries are growing, where does our wealth come from and who's funding our schools and hospitals anyway? Explore the surprising answers to these and other questions as part of a bigger conversation about the risks and rewards of new oil pipelines for our province.

Liz McDowell is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of CRED BC, a growing collection of more than 90 business leaders and professionals from the tourism, real estate, tech, health, creative and other service-based sectors who are committed to participating in informed dialogue about long-term prosperity on Canada’s west coast. CRED's mission is to promote industries that build on BC’s creativity, innovation and natural beauty, and to foster conversations about the types of energy and resource development and transportation that are compatible with this vision. Liz has been working in social innovation for the past 10 years, and she believes that there's a real need for more balanced dialogue about the risks of Kinder Morgan's proposed pipeline for the local economy.  

Anne Marie Fontainha, CHRP, CHt

 Change Your Mind – Change Your Life.  

 The art of creating the life you want through hypnosis. 

 Anne Marie, an accredited Clinical Hypnotherapist runs a successful practice in Tsawwassen British Columbia “Beyond Words Hypnotherapy” and works with people  from all walks of life throughout Canada and the US.  

 Hypnotherapy is very effective in treating all kinds of emotional and physical issues.  It is a powerful and painless method to produce personal transformation.  By  treating the cause and not the symptom, the results are immediate and long lasting.   

 The most important aspect of hypnotherapy is that; you are in control, at all times.  You create your own healing.  We guide you and teach you how to get the  results you want.

www.beyondwordshypnotherapy.ca

William Ayling

The Most Common Myth about Meditation - All Meditation Practices Are the Same and Produce The Same Results.

The old "scientific" myth that every meditation practice creates the same physiological effects and brain wave activity has been overturned.
Though many practices may provide some relaxation, decades of research now show that not all techniques produce the same range of physiological, neurophysiological or behavioral effects.

Scientists can now identify what type of meditation a person is practicing, even if they are monitoring the "Meditator" from a distant room.
William will outline the different scientific categories of meditation - Focused Attention, Open Monitoring and Automatic Self Transcending.  He will then describe how each category differs in their mechanics and consequently their effects on the body, the brain functioning, and EEG patterns. 

Normally meditative states and their effects remain subjective.  Brain research has now established an objective framework to show the effects a specific meditation technique is producing.  It is now possible to objectively determine which meditation technique is effective for a given purpose, or if it creates the direct experience of coherent holisitic brain functioning.

William Ayling became interested in meditation self development and enlightenment at the age of 8 years old.  He has been practicing and teaching mediation since 1970.   He has taught meditation in the military, education, business, health care, rehabilitation, government and the general public.  In such countries as India, Nepal, Philippines, Europe, USA, and throughout Canada.  He is now teaching meditation in his home town of Vancouver BC.  In 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in recognition of his years of work and research in Vedic Science and Modern Science, and the development of consciousness.
 

Caroline Smalley

“Thinking must change from survival of the fitest to unity.” – but as Buckminster Fuller points out: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Hi - I'm from Whistler, where I’ve been developing a global hub for citizen engagement: the-cm.com

I’m concerned about the state of the world today, and so I and my team have been building solutions. We believe that, through giving communities the tools required to give voice to their needs and what they have to give, we can draw together the resources to solve these challenges together.

In looking at the roots of the problems we face, we kept coming back to the need for economic empowerment. Why? Our current systems are not designed for the interconnectedness through which life depends, and until they are, reducing the wealth gap can’t be done.

I welcome the opportunity to speak about ideas for how society can transition from old ways of doing business, where the more you have the easier it is to get ahead, to new ways of working that mean the more we come together, the more we can do be and create. This is a cooperative effort. We know that no one person or organization can provide all of the solutions, but we also know that now is the time to take action. caroline@the-cm.com

Chenoa Johnston

Evolution of the Human Being, Exciting Spiritual Things to Come:
* The Spiritual Self - What is it? How do we connect with it?
* Five Untapped Faculties of Soul required for Evolution as Human Beings.

Certified Tantra Coach, Yoga Therapist and Law of Attraction Coach, Massage and Energy Healer, Devoted Spiritual Initiate, Single Mom of 2- 20-somethings.

Chenoa began her yoga journey at age 16 listening to Joni Mitchell onvinyl hiding in her bedroom. At age 19 she took her first yoga class and read 'Autobiography of a Yogi' by Yogananda, and every Tibetan Lama Lobsang Rampa book she could find. Thus began a lifelong passion for the mysteries of life. From Ragneesh/Osho in 1981 to the Hari Krishnas, Scientology and the Great White Brotherhood, Chenoa jumped deeply with each new discovery.  Early experiences with ghosts lead her to learn how to assist them to crossover. Out of body journeys, lucid dreaming, meeting the dark side, and developing personal relationships with Spiritual Masters since 1983 have all taught Chenoa grounded practical ways to integrate the spiritual life with today's fast pace world. Her message to share is to enjoy the inner life and let it lead you forward.

Ryan Nussbacher

Human Factors: Industrial Design for Start-ups

Dave Biggs

Transforming Community Planning Using Online Public Engagement Tools

Talk/discussion on Saturday around 11 am

Dave Biggs is an internationally-recognized speaker and public engagement strategist focusing on the use of software tools to enhance community participation for sustainability, transportation, and urban projects. 

Stories he's always happy to share:

• How to attract over 10,000 participants to your planning process,
• How to deal with wicked problems and vocal opponents,
• How to collect thoughtful & informed input from the general public.

With over 20 years of experience on a wide range of award-winning planning projects with government clients and consulting firms, he has built a reputation for leading-edge community outreach. These projects have consistently reached a broad demographic and generated meaningful input using innovative and highly user-friendly tools and techniques. Many of these projects have earned national and international awards for community participation and are cited by agencies throughout North America as best practices for stakeholder engagement.

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davbiggs

Web: http://metroquest.com/

Leanne Fogarty

Elephant Welfare Promoter

Most of us know that African elephant populations are threatened from a dramatic increase in poaching. But did you know the Asian elephant is in a far more dire situation and could be extinct within only 10 years?  How could this be possible?  Is there anything we can do or will our generation be the one that lets this intelligent and fascinating species die off?

Leanne Fogarty from Vancouver will speak on "The Last Elephants in Thailand". She will outline the many reasons Asian elephants are facing extinction; how they are being abused in the tourist industry; and what you and I can do to save this keystone species.  Leanne is trained as a BC SPCA Cruelty Investigation Officer and is completing the Investigation & Enforcement Skills Certificate at the Justice Institute of BC. Recently she went undercover and visited 7 elephant facilities in Thailand. She saw first-hand how elephants were mistreated, as well as the facilities that truly respected their welfare. The results will surprise you.

Boris Kerjner RPCc

Spontaneity: Hacking the Social Matrix 

Have you ever caught yourself living the same day over and over again? The change of faces and places does little to shift our conditioned responses and ideas. We expect ourselves to act and think a certain way and so we do! We discover our limits and spend the rest of our lives playing within them. It seems that we are bound to be "ourselves". Or are we?

In this experiential talk Boris introduces a fresh alternative to living within the boundaries of the social matrix by tapping into the unlimited field of spontaneity - an exploration that puts you quite literally at the leading edge of life.

Boris is a Longevity Specialist, Personal Development Consultant, and the co-found of PureMind Centre for Brain Excellence. His educational background in psychotherapy, counselling and nutrition is coupled with a number of profound experiences of revelation and insight into the nature of reality. An ongoing student of life, Boris is involved in continuous research and experimentation into the depth of human potential. You can contact Boris through his website at www.PuremindCentre.com.

Mark E. Sackett

Sustainable relationships and how creative collaboration cannot happen without them

Mark E. Sackett has no plans to sit still anytime soon. He owns 13 related creative businesses, lives between San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, and thrives on being inventive daily as he works in Entertainment, Media, Branding, Advertising, Print, Packaging, Identity, Graphic Design, Interactive/On-Line and Website Design, Film Production, Music, Concert Production/Events, and Television. He has been an award-winning Designer/Director/Producer for over 31 years with more than 1000 awards to his credit. Mark consults with CEOs, Venture Capitalists, Brand Owners, and Entrepreneurs around the world to grow their brands, investments, companies, and profits.

Twitter @MarkESackett @ACTIVENETWORKIN

Malcolm van Delst

Low Self-Esteem Reading Room

Low Self-Esteem Reading Room is an unbook; in fact, it was originally The Antibook. LoSERR combines play-like structures, verse, essay-like structures, short stories, illustrations and traditional narrative. It demonstrates lateral thinking, which - my psychology-degreed friends tell me - women tend to have, as opposed to male, vertical thinking. It attempts to mirror a gatherer way of life, as opposed to hunter.

There are four main voices at the Low Self-Esteem Reading Room and each of these is the creator of another set of voices. The readings take place in the backroom of Vancouver comic book store, Lucky's. The stories told by the readers slowly begin to integrate, via portals in space and time.

Malcolm van Delst, currently, makes her living as a web developer, mainly for activist and creative organizations. She has worked as a writer, videographer, film composer, photographer and graphic designer, not to mention all the McJobs; her personal best being seventeen in one year. This is her first antibook.

Mark Brand

Conflict in scheduling

Mark Brand’s life as an entrepreneur began in the summer of 2007 with the opening of his first venture, Boneta Restaurant, at 1 West Cordova. Over the course of the next 3 years, the inaugural Vancouver ‘Bartender of the Year’ would establish several other popular local businesses, including Sharks + Hammers, The Diamond, and Seamonstr Sushi. But all of these projects proved mere training grounds, when in July 2010 Mark signed his life away and assumed control of the historic Save On Meats Butcher Shop / Grocery & Seafood. Working in close collaboration with various community programs and initiatives, Mark and his team are harnessing compassion in their pursuit of new approaches to tackle important societal issues like barrier employment and food security straight from the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side.  

Trina Isakson

'Quiet' Changemakers

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Sorry, am no longer able to participate. If this topic is of interest to you, visit http://trinaisakson.com/the-introvert-book/ or email trina@27shift.com. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

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Trina Isakson is a researcher and strategist with specialties in community engagement and social innovation. Her current passion project looks into the lives of 'quiet' changemakers - people in social change movements who succesfully lead and who move important ideas and issues forward, but who gain their energy from quiet time thinking and reflecting rather than chatting in a room full of people. She has interviewed local leaders within organizations of <5 staff, to leaders within international orgainzations with tens of millions of members. From these interviews she's learned anectodes, quips, and trends to share with the quiet 'changemakers' among us, and the people that lead and collaborate with them.