Kopernik

Hiromi is in charge of the Kopernik Japan Secretariat.  Prior to joining Kopernik she was engaged in various organizing committees & secretariats for international sports events and expositions as a liaison officer, event planner/operator and PR officer. She also worked as a freelance Japanese/English/French interpreter and translator in business, entertainment and diplomatic areas. Hiromi holds a B.A. from the University of the Sacred Heart.

Deni was born in Jakarta but raised in Padang, West Sumatra. He lived in Aceh for six years after the 2004 tsunami, working with local and international NGOs in the fields of livelihoods and community development, agriculture,  agroforestry, cooperatives, permaculture systems, health and disaster risk reduction. He also worked for one year in West Sumatra on a disaster risk reduction project following an earthquake in the region. Deni is a member of the Disaster Forum in West Sumatra and participated in the emergency response to the 2009 earthquake in West Sumatra and the 2010 tsunami and earthquake in the Mentawai Islands.

Zulfikar graduated from a private university in Banda Aceh, majoring in psychology. He has worked for different non-government organisations (NGOs) in Aceh for seven years, working on pyschosocial, education, disaster risk reduction and community development projects. He is now working as the Community Development Facilitator for Kopernik’s project in North Aceh.

Zein is originally from Jakarta. He started his career in development by working in Aceh in the field of children's empowerment. He then became a volunteer for a tsunami learning program, a cooperation between Environment Education Centre India and the Leaded Gasoline Removal Committee. Zein has also worked as a temporary staff member with the Blacksmith institute for Global Inventory Projects in the Indonesian provinces of Aceh, West Sumatra and the Riau Islands. He is has joined the Kopernik team as the Community Development Facilitator in Tuban, East Java.

Lincoln started his career in the non-profit sector when he volunteered at a relief centre in Aceh in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. He continued working in the region for different non-profits managing programs focused on relief, rehabilitation and development. In 2010, he completed a master’s degree in Humanitarian Action (NOHA-Network on Humanitarian Assistance) at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands with an exchange and specialization program in Program Management at NOHA Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. Past work experiences before joining Kopernik include an internship at UNESCAP Pacific Operations Centre in Suva, Fiji and contributing to Aceh Jaya community development as a program manager for a local Indonesian NGO.

Christal graduated from University of Indonesia's International Undergraduate Program with Sarjana Ekonomi and B.Sc. (honours) in International Business & Management, during which she spent the last 1.5 years of her study in University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She was an active member of AIESEC, an international student organization and was part of the organizing committee behind Children of Tomorrow, an annual program of teaching street kids in Jakarta’s poor areas. Past experience prior to Kopernik includes being the Coordinator of Community Service Division of Indonesian Students Association in Groningen, the Netherlands. She has always been interested in development and feels privileged to be part of the Kopernik team.

Sally likes to tell stories. Usually about other people, but in this case she will make an exception. She brings eight years of international communications experience to her role with Kopernik. She has worked for a range of government, multilateral and non-profit organisations in Australia, Asia, the US and Latin America. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications (Journalism) and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the University of Technology Sydney and is studying towards a Masters of International Relations. Sally previously served as a Kopernik Fellow in Oecusse, Timor-Leste in 2011.

Before joining Kopernik, Iman has worked for various humanitarian and development organizations, including Red Cross Societies throughout Indonesia, namely Aceh, Nias (North Sumatera), Garut (West Java), Padang and the Mentawai Islands (West Sumatera). Iman has held many leadership roles in fields ranging from emergency response, water and sanitation, health, housing and community development.

Scott Guggenheim is the senior social policy adviser for the AusAID-Indonesia Partnership Program and former lead social scientist for East Asia and Pacific at the World Bank. His main focus during the past twenty-five years has been the use of social policy and analysis to help development agencies improve the quality of their operations.

Scott was instrumental in the shift to better integration of social development in the World Bank structure and the architect of many large-scale community development programs. Of note, these include the Kecamatan Development Program, a $1.3 billion community development program covering 34,000 villages across Indonesia; the National Emergency Solidarity and Employment project in Afghanistan, which was the first community development and emergency public works program after the bombing; and the Empowerment of Female-Headed Household (PEKKA) program which supports advocacy and micro-finance for poor widows in conflict areas across Indonesia. Scott has a Ph.d. in Social Anthropology from Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Jakarta, Indonesia and doesn't sleep much.

Adam Kilgour is Managing Director of public and corporate affairs firm Diplomacy Pty Limited. He is a founding director of the Climate Institute and Chairman of Stirling Henry Global Migration. Adam has had a distinguished career as a political and corporate affairs adviser. He has been an adviser to Victorian and Commonwealth Government Cabinet Ministers. Adam also founded public affairs firm CPR and was its Executive Chairman for 17 years. Adam has also been a Managing Director of the ASX listed Photon Group. Adam is a regular panellist on the ABC 702 Spin Doctors segment and a constant commentator on politics and corporate life in Australia.

David Madden is an entrepreneur who has been at the forefront of using technology for social change. He is a co-founder of Avaaz.org, the world's largest online political movement with more than ten million members operating in 14 languages. David is also a co-founder of Australia's GetUp!, an internationally recognized social movement with more members than all the country's political parties combined. He is also the co-founder of Purpose, a company that uses technology to mobilize citizens and consumers to help solve some of the world's biggest problems. David's work has been recognized in publications such as The New York Times and The Economist and he was, together with Jeremy Heimans, named one of the "Top 10 People who are changing the world of the Internet and Politics" by the World E-Government Forum.

David started his career with Inspire!, the online foundation behind the award-winning service ReachOut.com. He has played executive roles in technology companies dstore, Peek and Jetsetter, and has consulted to the World Bank and the UNDP. David has a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard and degrees in Law and Arts from the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He is the co-author of Imagining Australia: Ideas for Our Future (Allen & Unwin).

Richard Manning is a governance and community development expert and has worked in Indonesia for more than 22 years.   He served as district administrator of 3 districts in Timor Leste with responsibility for the overall management of local government and security services. Richard has extensive knowledge of Indonesian government structures, processes and access to a vast network of government officials at national, provincial and district levels.  He has extensive practical understanding of governance issues (e.g. management of local government, elections, management of security forces, etc) at all levels from communities to national government resulting from work with international NGOs and multilateral agencies.

Nigel is Technical Evangelist and Product Manager with the Microsoft Public Safety Initiative. Prior to joining the Vine team Nigel led Microsoft's research on humanitarian collaboration, working in Afghanistan and elsewhere on innovative collaboration technologies to make communities more resilient and development more effective.

Nigel is an advisor to the ICT4Peace foundation and the Institute for State Effectiveness. Before joining Microsoft Nigel worked for the United Nations, most recently as a global Pandemic contingency planner for the UN System and before that with the UN Joint Logistics Center where he was deployed to Iraq, the 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia, the Sudan and a number of other crises. At UNJLC Nigel managed the mapping and information management teams and led logistics coordination in the field for major emergencies. Nigel has a PhD in Complex Adaptive Systems from the Australian National University, has worked as a researcher and lobbyist, founded technology startups, received a number of patents, and has jumped off way too many cliffs over the years.

Lisa Witter is an experienced executive, social entrepreneur, communications strategist, writer, and social commentator with expertise in philanthropy, politics, women’s issues, health, social innovation, new media, international development, corporate social responsibility, and leveraging pop culture for social change. She frequently gives workshops and lectures in these areas for the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. In 2010, she was named one of 197 Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum.

As chief strategy officer of Fenton, the largest public interest communications firm in the country, she heads-up the firm’s work in innovation and global expansion/partnership and co-leads the practices in women’s issues, health, social entrepreneurship and global affairs for clients such as The Elders, Atlantic Philanthropies, Nobel Peace prize winner Wangari Maathai, International Criminal Court, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, National Geographic, The American Medical Association, David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Half the Sky transmedia project, and Stonyfield Farms.

She serves as an expert panelist for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the Institute of Medicine on violence prevention. She also co-leads the Clinton Global Initiative’s Action Network on Women and Girls.

Witter is co-author with Lisa Chen of The She Spot: Why Women are the Market for Changing the World and How to Reach Them. She is a co-founder of the award-winning SheSource.org and was honored as an outstanding activist and expert on women’s issues by Oxygen.com in 2000. She co-founded two programs to encourage people to run for political office: Emerge and the Institute for a Democratic Future.

She has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, FOX News, CBS Early Show, and O, The Oprah Magazine, and has been published in numerous publications including Newsday, The Seattle Times, The Huffington Post, and AlterNet. In 2004, Witter was a contestant on the Showtime reality show, “American Candidate.”