1. Kaori Kuroda (Japan)

Co-Director, CSO Network of Japan

Ms. Kuroda has been Co-Director of the CSO Network Japan since April 2004. She was on a Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership NPO Fellowship with Social Accountability International in New York in 2006. Prior to her current position, she worked for the Asia Foundation Japan office as Senior Program Officer and then Assistant Representative. Before moving to the nonprofit sector, she worked at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. in Tokyo and the Center on Japanese Economy and Business at the Columbia University School of Business in New York. Ms. Kuroda has written and published many articles on international NGOs, civil society and social responsibility. Her recent work includes a chapter “Rodo Jinken Bunya no NGO Inishiachibu (NGO Initiatives in the Field of Human Rights in the Workplace)” in Shakaiteki Sekinin no Jidai--Kigyo , Shiminshakai, Kokuren no Shinajii (The Age of Social Responsibility: Synergy of Business, Civil Society and the United Nations) (Kunugi and Nomura eds., 2008). She received her M.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her B.A. from Seikei University.

2. Marco Kusumawijaya (Indonesia)

Director, Jakarta Arts Council

Mr. Kusumawijaya is an architect by training, and has been working as a professional and activist in the fields of architecture, environment, arts, cultural heritage, urban planning and development. He is focusing his thought and practice on a sustainable approach to urbanism and architecture, and the social changes required towards sustainability. He works with both public and private sectors, international and local agencies and NGOs, communities and civil society groups. His experiences include an award-winning project of community-driven reconstruction of 23 villages in post-tsunami Aceh. He writes for major print media in Jakarta, and contributes to journals and books on urban issues, as well as giving talks on TV and radio. He lectures in diverse fora: public policy workshops, training of civil society activists, universities, and community-initiated advocacies and action planning exercises. In 2001 he started Green Map in Indonesia. He has published three books about architecture and urbanism, and translated one on social entrepreneurship. He is initiating a knowledge/know-how sharing website (www.rujak.org) for citizens to build a better Jakarta, his hometown.

3. Ma Jifang (China)

Coordinator, China IEM (Independent External Monitoring), Fair Labor Association

Ms. Ma is the China IEM (Independent External Monitoring) Coordinator of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a nonprofit multi-stakeholder organization dedicated to protecting worker rights and improving working conditions in China. She has been working with and for marginalized people in Chinese society, such as farmers, migrant workers and women, and bringing their voices to the public. Her recent work mainly focuses on the issues of the impact of globalization, corporate social responsibility, labor conditions in the supply chain and accountability of multinational companies. Ms. Ma has more than ten years’ experience working for nonprofit organizations. Before joining the FLA, she was the Partnership Development and Child Sponsorship Manager of the ActionAid China Office. Prior to this position, she worked for the Environment and Development Program at the Ford Foundation Beijing Office. Ms. Ma obtained her bachelor degree in English Literature at the Institute of International Relations and her second bachelor degree in Mass Media at the China School of Journalism.

4. Tanvir Mokammel (Bangladesh)

Filmmaker/Author/Director, Bangladesh Film Institute/Bangladesh Film Centre

Mr. Mokammel studied English literature at Dhaka University, was a left-wing journalist and then worked as a left-wing activist to organize the landless peasants of rural Bangladesh. Always a film enthusiast, he has so far made five full-length feature films and eleven documentaries. Some of his films have received national and international awards. LALON (2004), a feature film on the 19th-century mystic song-composer Lalon Fakir, LALSALU (A Tree without Roots) (2001), a story about a Mullah who established a false shrine in a poor village, and KARNAPHULIR KANNA (Teardrops of Karnaphuli) (2005), a documentary on the plight of the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, are among those screened in Japan. A prolific writer, Mr. Mokammel has written articles in newspapers, poems and literary criticisms. His important books include Syed Waliullah, Sisyphus and Quest for Tradition in Novel, A Brief History of World Cinema and The Art of Cinema.

5. Jennifer Santiago Oreta (Philippines)

Instructor, Dept. of Political Science, Ateneo de Manila University

Ms. Oreta holds an M.A. in Education Management from De La Salle University, and has attended advanced courses on peace and conflict studies at the European Peace University in Burg (Austria) and at Uppsala University (Sweden). She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Santo Tomas in June 2009. Her field of specialization is gender and security, and she argues that a lopsided security sector arena dominated by men creates more insecurity than safety, especially for women. Her research work and interests also include small arms proliferation and gun violence, security sector reform, and people’s democratic participation. An activist since her college days, she continues to be involved in social and political issues. She is currently the convener of the Philippine Action Network on Small Arms (PhilANSA), a local group that advocates for stricter gun control and lobbies for the passage of an international Arms Trade Treaty. She is also involved in the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) as the convener of the Youth and Peace Commission and co-convener of the Gender and Peace Commission. She is a Board member of the IPRA Foundation, and an active member of Pax Christi International.

6. Andrew K. L. Soh (Malaysia)

Instructor, Dept. of Philosophy, School of Humanities, Ateneo de Manila University

Mr. Soh graduated with a Master’s Degree in Philosophy in 2006 with a thesis entitled “Wei Ziran: A Daoist Ecological Ethic of Continual Becoming” from Ateneo de Manila University, where he also obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy. His research is in the field of Daoist Philosophy as a living philosophy in addressing contemporary questions of ecology and human living. An instructor with the Department of Philosophy at Ateneo, he teaches courses in Daoist Philosophy, Philosophy of the Human Person, and Philosophy of Religion. As a teacher, he is committed to a holistic formation of persons through an education of the mind and heart, and is a strong advocate of service learning in which students are given an opportunity to incorporate their engagement with persons on the margins with their philosophical reflections in the classroom upon the meaning of being human. A Chinese-Malaysian who has lived in the Philippines for the past ten years, Mr. Soh finds himself in an ongoing dialogue of life in which diversity holds distinct possibilities for unity—a genuine harmony of distinct cultures and perspectives.

7. Iqbal Haider Butt (Pakistan)

Senior Partner, Development Pool

Mr. Butt specializes in technical writing and research, program and advocacy design and planning, and has extensively assisted projects affiliated with national, regional and international development agencies and mainstream media groups, in the main to stimulate the developmental role of youth and the media in peace-building. He pioneered the youth track of peace diplomacy in South Asia in 2002, interacting with more than forty-five universities and higher education institutions in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. This work has been supplemented with much research on peace and youth including the largest national survey on student politics and a recent study on student politics in Pakistan. As a core member, he also helped to design the first-ever formally recognized Master’s level course on peace in Pakistan. A political scientist by training, he is the editor of around fifty books, mainly on current political history and governance in Pakistan and South Asia. Mr. Butt’s portfolio is further enriched by a fellowship with the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo, Japan, his encounters as an International Visitor on Preventive Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution under the US Department of State, and by training in Conflict Transformation Skills at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), USA.