Mechai Viravaidya
Mechai Viravaidya founded the Population & Community Development Association (PDA) in 1974 to address health and long term sustainability issues in Thailand. PDA promoted family planning through innovative programs and approaches to desensitize contraceptive use and make them available throughout Thailand. When HIV/AIDS reared its head, similar principles were applied to ensure that everyone was aware of the dangers of this disease and knew about its prevention. Following these programs, he focused on rural development initiatives to empower the poor to eradicate poverty, which were utilized in the wake of the Tsunami in 2004. This program eventually evolved into what is known today as the Village Development Partnership, which addresses the five vital components of development: community empowerment, income generation, health, education, and environmental promotion.
Chris Kiritz
Founder/CEO - Chris is a social entrepreneur, futurist, and tech enthusiast, passionate about social justice with 20 years of experience in human rights education and advocacy using technology - including 360 video and VR. She is an avid believer in using tech for good to document, promote and raise support for mostly Thai partner projects.
Chris founded Prevent Human Trafficking (PHT) in 1999 to address this heinous phenomenon. In the process, she and her team have helped hundreds of individuals, organizations and government agencies, to tackle the root causes of human trafficking through direct support, technical assistance utilizing all kinds of media for work mostly in Thailand and the US.
Her professional trajectory was driven by her upbringing in South and Southeast Asia where she was born in Bombay, India, and raised in a cult in the region where she encountered exploited children daily. Her expertise has contributed to policy and legislative change, including passage of the original Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000. She pioneered using VR to tell stories of child survivors of human trafficking, and is currently working on a Slavery at Sea VR experience.
Chris has consulted for more than 100 companies, agencies, governments, foundations and nonprofit organizations worldwide, and taken hundreds of people on annual anti-trafficking study tours to Thailand, to learn about the issues first hand, from some of the pioneers of the global movement, who risk their lives daily on the front lines to prevent human trafficking. For everyone else, she offers the opportunity to experience it without having to travel - using the latest technology available.
Aisha Bain
Aisha Bain is a Senior Program Advisor for the Women’s Protection and Empowerment Unit at the International Rescue Committee (IRC.) In this capacity, Aisha is leading a five-year initiative to amplify the voices of women and girls as leaders within their own communities, driving forward solutions to end the violence perpetrated against them in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and amongst refugees in the United States. Aisha is also an IRC Emergency Team Roster member, recently returned from the crisis in Philippines and led IRC’s emergency responses in the DRC in early 2013, 2012, 2009, and 2008.
Aisha holds an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University, where she concentrated in human rights and was bestowed with the university’s Peacemaker Award. She speaks French and Malagasy, and has a working knowledge of Spanish, Haitian Creole and Arabic.
Matt Marcy
Matthew Marcy is co-founder of Truston Technologies--global providers of heavy weather ship moorings and port security systems. He holds a bachelor of science from the United States Military Academy at West Point and a master of science from the Johns Hopkins University. Matthew's interest in southeast Asia stems from his formative childhood years living in Thailand and attending the International School of Bangkok.
Sophie Idilbi
Sophie Idilbi is Assistant Director, Key Executive Leadership Programs at American University, School of Public Affairs. She has a Master's Degree in Public Administration and a Master's in Education, Curriculum Development. Sophie started her first non-profit experience with Assiwar Arab Feminist Movement in support of victims of sexual abuse in Israel. She served for 2 years on Assiwar Board of Directors, and then as the Director of Resource Development for 2 additional years. Sophie has been supporting PHT since 2007 with fundraising events and coordinating the annual summer program in Thailand.
Dr. Thomas M Steinfatt
Dr. Thomas M. Steinfatt received his B.S. in Mathematics and Statistics and his Ph.D. in Communication from Michigan State University. An authority on communication theory, propaganda, persuasion, health communication, he specializes in statistical methodology as Professor of Communication at the University of Miami. A Fulbright scholar at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. He is the author of a large scale ten-year study of sex work in Thailand. His research on trafficking in women and children has been funded by USAID and used by the U.S. State Department in combating human trafficking in Cambodia. He serves as an advisor to the WalkFree Foundation of Australia, and on the human trafficking measurement panel of UNODC, and has received the UNIAP top award for best methods of estimating numbers of trafficked persons.
Nicolas Lainez
Nicolas Lainez is originally from Barcelona, Spain. Lainez worked as a photojournalist in Southeast Asia after graduating film school. He received his master's degree in Development Studies at Sorbonne University, as well as a master's of Social Anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). Currently, he is PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at EHESS. His research focuses on cross-border mobility, slavery, indebtedness, women and family issues. Since 2007, he has been affiliated with the Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, and the An Giang University, both in Vietnam. He is also a researcher and communication officer for the NGO, Alliance Anti-Trafic Vietnam (AAT). For the past two years, he has conducted field research in the district of Châu Dôc (Mekong delta) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia). His work has been published in international peer review journals. Currently, he is working on a new manuscript titled The Yellow Trade.
Our Board of Advisors
Beth Kanter
Beth Kanter is the author of Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media, one of the longest running and most popular blogs for nonprofits. Beth has over 30 years working in the nonprofit sector in technology, training, capacity building, evaluation, fundraising, and marketing. Beth is an internationally recognized trainer who has developed and implemented effective sector capacity building programs that help organizations integrate social media, network building, and relationship marketing best practices. Beth is an expert in facilitating online and offline peer learning, curriculum development based on traditional adult learning theory, and other instructional approaches. She has trained thousands of nonprofits around the world.
Katya Andresen
Katya Andresen is Chief Strategy Officer of Network for Good, as well as a speaker, author and blogger about nonprofit marketing, online outreach, social media and fundraising. In addition, she is an adjunct professor of communications at American University’s Key Certificate Program and serves on the board of NTEN. Katya has trained thousands of causes in effective engagement, and her marketing materials for non-profits have won national and international awards. She is the author of the book, Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes and was featured in the e-book, Nine Minds of Marketing. She is also an author featured in People to People Fundraising - Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities.
Fundraising Success Magazine named her Fundraising Professional of the Year in 2007, and she has since become one of its regular columnists. Before joining Network for Good, she was Senior Vice President of Sutton Group, a marketing and communications firm and a marketing consultant overseas in Ukraine. She also worked for CARE International. Katya traces her passion for good causes to the enormous social need she witnessed as a journalist prior to her work in the non-profit sector. She was a foreign correspondent for Reuters News and Television in Asia and for Associated Press and major US newspapers in Africa.
Britt Bravo
Britt Bravo is the Founder of Big Vision Consulting. She is a blogger, podcaster, and blog coach for artists, writers, entrepreneurs and do-gooders. She's also a big vision consultant who loves to help people find and express their calling. When she's not blogging, she loves to interview big visionaries, and bring groups of people together, online and offline. She offers the Juicy Blogging e-course 3 times a year.
Britt leads workshops about how artists, writers, creative entrepreneurs and nonprofits can use social media, and how individuals can create work they love. She has presented at events such as the Bioneers, BlogHer Conference, Craigslist Nonprofit Boot Camp, eWomenNetwork Luncheon (Oakland), FIELD Project’s Scale Academy grantee meeting (a program of the Aspen Institute), Global Engagement Summit, Ladies Who Launch (Oakland), Making Media Connections Conference, Stanford Women’s Leadership Conference, Writing for Change Conference, United Way of Kern County’s Professional Development Conference for Nonprofits, San Francisco Writer’s Conference, NTEN’s We Are Media Workshop, and the San Francisco Bay Area YNPN Career Development Series.