Advisors
Stanley Aung
Chairperson
All Burma I.T. Students
Stanley is an I.T. Specialist and former political prisoner. Growing up in Rangoon, he became a student organizer for the High School Students during Burma became involved in political and underground movements. In 1998 he founded the All Burma IT Student Union (formerly known as ABITSF) to mobilize I.T. students from inside Burma. He was arrested for this work in 1999. While serving a sentence for forced labor in Eastern Burma, Stanley was able to escape, and fled to Thailand where he teaches computer skills to Burmese refugees. He is chairperson of ABITSU. He and his team play an instrumental role in circumventing the military news from inside Burma with the outside world. “ABITSU represents all the I.T. Students who are struggling for Freedom and Human Rights within Burma. We stand against the Burmese Military Regime and work to remove the Military Dictatorship, to generate more I.T. skilled personnel and build the infrastructure for a future democratic government of Burma. We also seek to obtain true freedom on the International Information High Way, and to get equal rights and opportunities for every nationality in Burma.”
Work website: http://www.abitsu.org/
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Jack Healey is a world-renowned human rights activist and pioneer. An effective and innovative leader in the human rights movement for over 47 years, Jack has helped move the topic of human rights from closed- door diplomatic negotiations to widespread awareness, public debate, and direct citizen action. Colleagues credit him with making human rights a major focus of governments, advocacy organizations, and individuals around the world.
Called “Mr. Human Rights” by U.S. News and World Report, Healeyʼs focus has been on inspiring the youth to support non-violent activism that would push back oppressive governments and societies. He has brought human rights to the global stage by his creative use of media and enlistment of world-class talent as advocates.
Today, Jack heads the Washington, D.C. based Human Rights Action Center. In this capacity, he has worked tirelessly for the release and return to power of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma. His most current projects are printing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into all passports and Burma: It Canʼt Wait. From 1977 until 1981 Healey directed the Peace Corps in Lesotho. After finishing his tour with the Peace Corps, he worked as the Director of Amnesty International USA for 12 years. His work at Amnesty brought human rights to the forefront of popular culture by pioneering new ways to deliver the message of human rights to new generations. He brought a new wave of young people into the human rights movement by organizing concerts with well-known artists, and by reaching out to high schools and colleges through his motivational speeches.
Healey has received 7 honorary doctorates and spoken in over a thousand colleges and high schools. He has produced 3 music albums and Douye, a documentary on Aung San Suu Kyi.
Work website: http://www.humanrightsactioncenter.org/dyr
http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/events/showevent.asp?eventid=7563
Patricia Campbell
Executive Vice President
Tufts University
Patricia Campbell, Executive Vice President, is responsible for finance, budgeting, treasury functions, human resources, construction, buildings and grounds, academic and administrative computer services, internal auditing, real estate, and risk management.
Patricia returned to Tufts after serving as Vice President for Finance and Administration at WGBH, Boston’s public broadcaster, for 3 years. At WGBH, she managed the construction and relocation to new studios in Brighton.
Patricia formerly served for eight years as the Executive Associate Dean at the School of Dental Medicine, where she introduced a new IT system, established new financial controls, initiated a strategic planning process, and reorganized the dental clinic operations.
She is part of the core team of Options for Children, a nonprofit formed after a team of dentists and health care volunteers returned from their second service trip to Zambia. The team learned first hand of the tremendous needs and what seemed like small contributions made enormous differences in the health and welfare of children and their families in Zambia. The team is committed to service missions in Zambia to bring services directly to children and their families. Options raises money and develops partnerships to support the provision of health, education, cultural and microeconomic development. Options as a group of individuals is committed to the principle of Medical Diplomacy which adheres to the philosophy that the personal action of helping people to have better lives will make the world a safer and more humane place to live.
Prior to Tufts, she served as the Deputy Commissioner for Administration and Finance at the New York State Office of Mental Health where she oversaw a budget well in excess of $1B. Patricia holds a B.A. and an M.L.S. from SUNY Albany and an M.P.H. from Tufts University.
Work website: http://www.tufts.edu & http://optionsforchildren.org/
John Clark
Senior Research Fellow
The Sagamore Institute for Policy Research
Before helping found the Sagamore Institute, a think tank in Indianapolis, in 2004, John was a Senior Research Fellow at Hudson Institute and the Director of the Center for Central European and Eurasian Studies. For twelve years, he coordinated and conducted most of the international research at HudsonIndianapolis headquarters. He is also the creator of www.provocate.org, a conceptual framework for finding local solutions for global problems. John received his BA in Political Science from the University of Washington; and his MA and PhD in Political science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Work website: http://www.sipr.org/ & www.provocate.org
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Janet M. Harris
Chief Development Officer
California Academy of Sciences
As Chief Development Officer at the California Academy of the Sciences, Janet oversees the Academy’s efforts to support its public facility in Golden Gate Park, as well as its world-class scientific research and education programs. Previously, Janet was the Vice President of Development for the International Rescue Committee, the United Nations largest partner on refugees and displaced persons. Working with its Board and Overseers, she ensured ongoing support from the private sector. With the IRC she traveled to Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Liberia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, Thailand and Indonesia following the 2004 tsunami. Under her direction, the IRC Development Department raised over $50 million annually. Over the course of her nine years with the organization, she more than tripled the number of major donors and the amount of their contributions. She also spearheaded a $110-million capital campaign for a new endowment fund. Additionally, as a member of the IRC’s senior staff, Harris helped to set the strategic direction for the organization, which operates in more than 40 countries around the world and resettles refugees in 22 cities across the United States
From 1992 to 2000, she was a development and planning consultant for several prestigious nonprofit organizations including the Roundabout Theatre Company, The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and The James Beard Foundation. From 1985 to 1992, Janet was the Director of Development at Manhattan Theatre Club and prior was a sign language interpreter for the deaf. She received a BA from the University of Iowa and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.
She is a board member of Hands On which provides sign language interpreting for the theatre; Segunda Quimbamba, a Puerto Rican folkloric dance and drum company; an advisor to Digital Democracy, which promotes the development of civil society through cutting-edge technology; and a deacon of The First Presbyterian Church of NYC. She is a swimmer, a reader, the mother of two grown sons, and volunteered for ACORN and Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Work website: https://www.calacademy.org
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Noel Hidalgo
Director of Technology Innovation
New York State Senate
For the last six years, Noel Hidalgo has focused on exploring community organizing, innovative technologies and the creative space between the two. For the past ten years, he has worked to understand the complex digital tools that enable our modern society and the communities that embrace them. Most notably, he’s journeyed around the world to six contents documenting the communities that live off of the Internet, he lifecasted the process of becoming a New York City Yellow Cab driver, helped expose the China’s broken Olympic promises, served as the Technology Coordinator for the 2004 Democratice National Convention, helped crystalize political remix culture at RemixAmerica.org, helped create an election monitoring system built on Twitter, helped foster the NYC technology community by running Williamsburg Coworking and helped empower the New York State Senate and its constituents understand the power of an open, transparent and efficient legislature. Currently, he’s the Director of Technology Innovation at the New York State Senate.
Work website: www.nysenate.gov/
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Joel L. Hodes
Partner, Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP
Chair, Healthcare Practice Group
Joel Hodes is a founding partner of Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP and is the senior member of the firm’s Healthcare Practice Group. His clients include general and teaching hospitals; subacute and rehabilitation facilities; ambulatory care, imaging and other freestanding diagnostic and treatment centers; ESRD and other specialty care providers; certified and licensed home care agencies; long-term care facilities; single- and multi-specialty physician practices; HMOs and health insurers; and health information technology developers and service providers, all of which he has represented with respect to a broad array of operational, corporate, financial, health planning, network development and other business and regulatory issues. Joel also acts as regulatory and transaction counsel and strategic business advisor to lenders, investment advisors and managers, private equity funds, REITs and others involved in financing, acquisitions and divestitures and restructuring of health care businesses.
Joel earned his Juris Doctor at Columbia University Law School (1971) and his Bachelor of Science in industrial and labor relations at Cornell University (1968). He was engaged in private practice with a prominent New York City firm until 1972, when he was appointed Assistant Director of Employee Relations of the State of New York. He served in that position until 1975, when he joined in the formation of Whiteman Osterman and Hanna. Joel founded the firm’s Healthcare Practice Group in 1978.
Joel is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and served on its Committee on State Legislation from 1983 to 1986; the New York State Bar Association, serving currently on its Committees on Health Care Systems Design, E-Health and Information Systems and Health Care Providers and previously as a member of the Executive Committee of NYSBA’s Labor Law Section; the American Bar Association and its Health Law Section; the American Academy of Hospital Attorneys; the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics; the American Health Lawyers Association; the Federal Bar Council, of which he served as a Trustee from 1994 to 1998; and the Medical Group Management Association.
Joel has proudly served as a Trustee and Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of The Sage Colleges; as a Trustee and President of Capital Repertory Theatre, Albany theatre company; as a Trustee and President of Historic Albany Foundation, Albany preservation advocacy organization; and as a member of the Advisory Board of Digital Democracy, a global partnership employing new technologies to foster open communication among citizens of (and refugees from) repressive societies to empower them to work together toward a peaceful, democratic and sustainable future.
Work website: http://www.woh.com/
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Ambassador John W. McDonald
Chairman and CEO
Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy
Ambassador John W. McDonald is a lawyer, diplomat, former international civil servant, development expert and peacebuilder, concerned about world social, economic and ethnic problems. He spent twenty years of his career in Western Europe and the Middle East and worked for sixteen years on United Nations economic and social affairs. He is currently Chairman and co-founder of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, in Washington D.C., which focuses on national and international ethnic conflicts. In February, 1992, he was named Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, in Fairfax, Virginia.
Amb. McDonald retired from the Foreign Service in 1987, after 40 years as a diplomat. In 1987-88, he became a Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. He was Senior Advisor to George Mason University’s Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and taught and lectured at the Foreign Service Institute and the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs. From December, 1988, to January, 1992, Amb. McDonald was President of the Iowa Peace Institute in Grinnell,Iowa and was a Professor of Political Science at Grinnell College.
In 1983, Amb. McDonald joined the State Department’s newly formed Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs as its Coordinator for Multilateral Affairs, and lectured and organized symposia on the art of negotiation, multilateral diplomacy and international organizations. He has written or edited eight books on negotiation and conflict resolution.
From 1978-83, he carried out a wide variety of assignments for the State Department in the area of multilateral diplomacy. He was President of the INTELSAT World Conference called to draft a treaty on privileges and immunities; leader of the U.S. Delegation to the UN World Conference on Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, in Buenos Aires in 1978; Secretary General of the 27th Colombo Plan Ministerial Meeting; head of the U.S. Delegation which negotiated a UN Treaty Against the Taking of Hostages; U.S. Coordinator for the UN Decade on Drinking Water and Sanitation; head of the U.S. Delegation to UNIDO III in New Delhi in 1980; Chairman of the Federal Inter-Agency Committee for the UN’s International Year of Disabled Persons, 1981; U.S. Coordinator and head of the U.S. Delegation for the UN’s World Assembly on Aging, in Vienna, in 1982.
From 1974-78, he was Deputy Director General of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland, a UN Agency, with responsibility for managing that agency’s 3,200 person Secretariat, coming from 102 countries, with programs in 120 member nations, and an annual budget of $135 million. From 1947-1974, Amb. McDonald held various State Department assignments in Berlin, Frankfurt, Bonn, Paris, Washington D.C., Ankara, Tehran, Karachi, and Cairo.
Amb. McDonald holds both a B.A. and a J.D. degree from the University of Illinois, and graduated from the National War College in 1967. He was appointed Ambassador twice by President Carter and twice by President Reagan to represent the United States at various UN World Conferences.
Work website: http://imtd.org/
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Patrick Philippe Meier
Director for Applied Research at DigiActive.org
PhD candidate at The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Patrick is a PhD candidate at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and director of research at DigiActive.org. His doctoral research critically analyzes the role of new media and technology in popular resistance against repressive rule. Repressive regimes are becoming increasingly more sophisticated in their ability to control, monitor and censor information. At the same time, however, pro-democracy movements are increasingly reverting to new media and digital technologies to circumvent repression. The question Patrick asks is: Do these technologies empower repressive regimes at the expense of popular movements or vice versa? Patrick is on the Board of Digital Democracy, a leading digital activism initiative. He also serves as director of Crisis Mapping and Strategic Partnerships at Ushahidi, and he co-founded the International Network of Crisis Mappers.
Work website: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/phd/students/Meier.shtml
Blog: http://irevolution.wordpress.com/
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Htun Htun Surte
Information & Public Relations Coordinator
Burma Information & Technology
Htun Htun Surte is an information and communications specialist who has been worked with several Burmese organizations based in India. Htun Htun worked from 1995 to 2004 with the Burma Solidarity Organization (BSO)/ABSDF in Manipur State in Northeastern India on the Burma border as officer in charge of business administration and public relations.
In 2004, he moved the New Delhi where he took charge of Burma Information & Technology (BIT). In 2005 he received a diploma in HIV and Family Education (DAFE) from Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi and in 2007 received his BSW/Graduate.
In August, 2008 he became a founding member of Burma Centre Delhi (BCD) and Information & Publication Coordinator for the organization.
Work website: http://www.burmait.net/
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Ralph Taylor
Project Coordinator
Mayor’s Office of International & Cultural Affairs, Indianapolis
Ralph Taylor is currently the Project Coordinator for the Mayor of International & Cultural Affairs (ICA). ICA promotes the global reach of Indianapolis by creating awareness of our international community and cultivating collaborative relationships throughout the world that promote Indianapolis and build on this international community. As Project Coordinator, Ralph is responsible for developing partnerships for various ICA activities; convening meetings with local international communities to address their community needs and opportunities; working with sister city delegations; and attending the numerous, local ethnic and cultural events. He was recently recognized by the Chin Community of Indiana for his outstanding service to the Chin community.
Prior to joining ICA, Ralph was a Grants Officer for the Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF). In addition to CICF, he has served as Director of Community Service for the Indiana Youth Institute (IYI), as Recreation Administrator for Indy Parks, as an Extension Educator for the Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service, and as a teacher for Indianapolis Public Schools.
Ralph is the Immediate Past President of the Rotary Club of Indianapolis which is one of the largest Rotary clubs in the world. He is currently Executive Vice President of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. In July 2009, he will become President of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. Other community and civic activities include Asian American Alliance Board, Immigrant Welcome Center Board, Coburn Place Safe Haven Board, United Way Diversity Committee, Assistance League of Indianapolis Advisory Council, Advisor for the Chin Refugee Community, American Indian Center of Indiana Volunteer, Purdue University representative on the Big Ten Conference Advisory Commission, Indianapolis Public Schools Education Foundation, and 2010 Indiana Multi-Ethnic Conference Planning Committee.
An Indianapolis native, Ralph attended IPS #5 and graduated from George Washington High School. He helped lead his team to the boy to the 1965 Indiana All Star Basketball team. He was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001. Ralph is a graduate of Purdue University and in the mid-1990 one of the top four fan favorites in Purdue basketball history. He just completed his third season as the radio analyst for Purdue Men’s basketball home games.
Work website: http://www.indy.gov/eGov/Mayor/Diversity/Latino/Pages/home.aspx
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Olga Tuchman
English Language Learning Specialist
Indiana Department of Education
Olga Tuchman is an English Language Learning Specialist in the Indiana Department of Education Learning and & Migrant Education.
Olga and her family (husband and two children) came to the U.S. in 1996 from Russia. In Russia she had taught English, German and Russian to diverse population of school age, college students, and adults.
The office of English Language Learning and & Migrant Education where Olga works provides technical assistance and training to K-12 mainstream teachers and administrators on developing appropriate programs for 47,000 Indiana students who have no English or limited English, to ensure that these students attain English proficiency and meet the same academic standards as all other students. Olga also oversees education of refugee students in Indiana providing support to the school districts educating refugee students.
Since summer 2008 she has advised Digital Democracy on their programming with the refugee community in Indianapolis.
Work website: http://www.doe.in.gov/lmmp/welcome.html
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As Director of New Media Business Development, Sean McDonald leads MetroStar’s efforts to capitalize on the expansion and evolution of emerging technologies business in key market segments. In this role, he is responsible for the strategy and external relationship management of the New Media team.
Previously, McDonald worked at International Relief & Development, Inc., where he focused on business development and program management in the Office of Democracy, Governance, and Community Development.
Prior to IRD, McDonald worked for the United States Agency for International Development’s Office of Conflict Mitigation and Management, the Public International Law and Policy Group, the Center for Peacebuilding International, and the Office of Senator Barbara Mikulski.
McDonald currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, the International Peace Park Expeditions Foundation, and Digital Democracy. He holds a J.D. and an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University. He earned his bachelor’s in Magazine Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.
A member of Digital Democracy’s founding team, Gabriel has been working at the grassroots level internationally since 2006, with experience in Europe, Asia and Africa. As Development Coordinator for Digital Democracy during its first year of operations, he coordinated grant proposal and outreach, working to lay the foundation for the organization. Before helping start Digital Democracy, he taught English for a year in China, afterward traveling to refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border. In addition to grant-writing and project development for Digital Democracy, he has conducted photo trainings and research on the China-Burma border. Gabe will be attending New York University’s Law School in fall 2010 with a prestigious Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest scholarship. From May-July 2010, he will be working with the International Rescue Committee to support the refugee legal clinics in Thailand.
