Steve Atamian
Global Brigades, Co-founder & Executive Director

Steve Atamian is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Global Brigades, the world’s largest student-led health and sustainable development organization and Empowered.org, a social movement platform. Under Steve’s leadership with Global Brigades, more than 10,000 university students and professionals have mobilized to support communities in Central America and Ghana through nine skill-based service programs. Starting with just one student chapter in 2004, it has organically institutionalized on more than 400 university chapters across North America and Europe.

Steve graduated from the University of Southern California in 2004, where he earned a B.S. in Business Administration with an emphasis in Global Management, and a B.A. in International Relations. He currently resides in Seattle where is as an adjunct professor at the University of Washington, developing a certificate program in Social Enterprise Leadership. Steve is a speaker on creating organizations that can “scale for social good.”

Greg Bixler
Design:Outreach, Co-founder & CEO

Greg Bixler is a co-founder and the CEO of Design Outreach (DO), an engineering design nonprofit organization that creates life-sustaining products to empower impoverished people in developing countries. After graduating from The Ohio State University (OSU) in mechanical engineering (2003), he began his career at Battelle specializing in machine and product design. But his passion for appropriate technology began during a short term mission’s trip to Central Asia (2006). There he experienced firsthand human ingenuity in building everyday products using local materials. This sparked a life-long passion and set into motion the formation of DO.

Greg currently serves as a professional advisor to the OSU engineering service learning program and Engineers Without Borders student chapter. He has presented on novel humanitarian engineering design principles at the inaugural IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference and has published relevant articles in the IEEE Explore and International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering. Greg and his family are active in their church and enjoy downhill skiing, hiking, and traveling.

Tiago Dalvi
Solidarium, Founder & CEO

Tiago Dalvi started his career in a Junior Enterprise while was still in Business Administration college. During this experience he was elected consultant (2003), marketing director (2004) and CEO (2005), exerting leadership with only 19 years old. In 2006, he was accepted to Aliança Empreendedora, a social organization with focus in entrepreneurship, where he became responsible for the area of Market Access. That was the environment that took him to start Solidarium in 2007. In 5 years Solidarium has become a national and international success case by generating social impact in profitable way. Tiago leads the company as CEO and with only 25 years old is the responsible to expand its operations to Latin America, China and India. In 2011, Tiago was selected as Unreasonable Fellow, Ashoka Changemakers Winner and finally, Entrepreneur of the Year by one of the most recognized business magazines in Brazil.

Saul Garlick
ThinkImpact, Founder & CEO

Saul began his journey into social entrepreneurship in a high school club. Then he founded the non-profit Student Movement for Real Change. It had chapters at 25 universities across the U.S. and was endorsed by President Nelson Mandela. In 2011 Saul launched ThinkImpact Company, where he serves at Founder and CEO. His work has led to operations in 5 countries, over 50 development projects in health and education in Kenya and South Africa and the creation of path-breaking experiential education programs across Africa. Saul also serves on the Board of Directors for Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, University of the Pacific’s Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship, and iOnPoverty.

In 2011, Saul was recognized as a top 9 Young Foreign Policy Leader under 33 by the Diplomatic Courier and is a member of the Young Entrepreneur Council. He is an internationally renowned speaker and International Speaker Specialist for the Bureau of International Information Programs at the Department of State. He blogs regularly for The Huffington Post and his work has been featured in Inc., Entrepreneur, Fast Company, The Next Web, Business Insider, Portfolio.com and The Washington Post. A Truman Scholar, Saul graduated from Johns Hopkins University and John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). An avid runner, skier and Broncos fan, Saul lives in Denver with his wife Emily.

John Rush
CleanTurn, President & CEO

John is a social entrepreneur with a distinct focus on building small business ventures that create training and career opportunities for individuals who have traditionally had significant obstacles to employment. After serving in operations in Haiti and the Mediterranean as a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, John focused his career on leading the start-up of several programs, projects and social enterprise ventures in various capacities, including serving as Managing Director of Cleanslate, President of 180 Properties and most recently CleanTurn.

John’s significant experience, training and success in navigating the complexities associated with workforce development organizations starting and building their own social enterprise ventures led to the 2012 Honda Empowerment Award by the Columbus Urban League and recognition by Mayor Coleman’s Restoration Academy as the first private company partner. John has served on several boards including Accion Chicago, RefugeeOne and NHS Redevelopment Corporation, and is a current board member with Historic Chicago Bungalow Association and Columbus’ new Greater Columbus Growing Coalition. John also serves on the Preservation Committee at the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. John holds five Master’s degrees focused on urban studies, religion, history, non-profit management and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. John’s greatest delight is his amazing wife, who is the mother of their eight children, and the time they have together as a family.

Ted Howard
Evergreen Cooperatives, Founding member of Board of Directors
Democracy Collaborative, Executive Director

TED HOWARD is the co-founder and Executive Director of The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland. The Collaborative is recognized as a national leader in the fast growing field of community wealth building strategies and policy development. Its “Anchor Institutions” project focuses on the role universities, hospitals, and other place-based anchors can play in fostering inclusive economic and community development. In July 2010, Mr. Howard was appointed the Steven Minter Senior Fellow for Social Justice at The Cleveland Foundation. In this position, he has been responsible for developing a comprehensive job creation and wealth building strategy that resulted in the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative. For his leadership of the Evergreen Initiative, Mr. Howard was designated a CFED Innovation Award recipient in 2010. Utne Reader named him one of “25 visionaries who are changing your world.”

Mr. Howard lectures frequently about community wealth building, most recently at the Clinton Global Initiative-America (Chicago), Bioneers Conference (San Rafael, CA), the University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center (Philadelphia), and the Co-operatives United World Conference (Manchester, England). He is the author of numerous articles appearing in popular and community development publications. Mr. Howard serves on the board of directors of LIFT, a national organization dedicated to engaging young Americans in combating poverty in our nation’s core urban areas.

Jo Dee Davis

Everything in my life led me to where I am now, directing the WinWin Institute for Response-Able ReEntry at Marion Correctional Institution… growing up in Chile, descendent of gold miners and gypsies, married to a mathematician, being alive and grown up in the 60s, out-of-sync teacher and educator, mom to 3 grown ups who still sneak out at night, adventurous grandma, and blessed with brilliant, brave, amazing friends who teach me laughter yoga, Arabic, basket-making, and the value of hand holding. As the Director of the WinWIn Institute I oversee the LifeLine Reentry Community Center, where I’ve helped create a safe learning environment for over 850 incarcerated men. We work with nineteen skilled and talented inmates who have as their job the “running” of the programs. Over 70 inmate volunteer assistants, facilitators, and mentors assist them. In addition to teaching “new skills for a new life,” the Institute collaborates with all sorts of people and organizations on special events and projects such as TEdxMarionCorrectional, the PrisCon Tech Conference and Java code retreats, a H.O.P.E. relationship seminar, Two-Way Street Reentry Conferences, Pork Quality Assurance certification, poetry slams, an OASIS video project, a pilot using Udacity course materials, and, of course, the APTE Summit!

Dr. Jeffrey H. Cohen
The Ohio State University, Professor of Anthropology

Jeffrey H. Cohen is a Professor of Anthropology at Ohio State University. His research is focused on migration, remittances and economic development in rural Mexico as well as the comparative study of migration outcomes. His work has appeared in many journals including American Anthropologists, International Migration and Population, Space and Place. His books include Cooperation and Community: Economy and Society in Oaxaca, The Culture of Migration in Southern Mexico; and, Cultures of Migration: The Global Nature of Contemporary Movement co-authored with Ibrahim Sirkeci in 2011 and named one of 12 Outstanding Academic Titles by Choice Book Reviews in 2012. His edited volumes include Economic Development: An Anthropological Approach, co-edited with Norbert Dannhaeuser and Global Remittance Practices and Migration during the Economic Crisis and Beyond co-edited with Ibrahim Sirkeci and Dilip Ratha and published with the World Bank. He is currently developing a new project on changes in food and diet in Yucatan, Mexico and a biocultural study of return migration in Turkey.

Tess Mateo
CX Catalysts: USA, Managing Director and Founder

Tess Mateo is Managing Director and Founder of CXCatalysts, which develops innovative public private sector partnerships in clean energy, water, sustainable food, infrastructure, waste management and health. CXCatalysts co-produces Global Green Inclusive Innovation (G2i2) Summits that help scale sustainable businesses in BOP markets. With over two decades of restructuring, turnaround and start-up experience advising leaders of Fortune 500 and emerging companies across several industries around the world, Tess brings creative solutions and strong global networks to deliver desired outcomes. Tess also launched Gralni Group, a real estate venture; IncentOne, a technology company; and Colorworx, an innovator in novelty underwear.

Tess sits on the advisory boards of the Joint US China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE); US General Services Administration (GSA) Greening the Federal Government; the Global Summit of Women; European Women’s Kongres; United Nations Global Compact; International Trade Centre’s Women in Clean Tech among others. Recent contributions include Surprises from Rio (United Nations Business Focal Point June 2012) and Vision 2050, Business New Agenda (WBCSD February 2010.) Tess holds a BS in Biology and Psychology and BA in International Economics from University of Michigan, and an MBA from Columbia Business School.