JOHN SEED

Participated in Ideas at the Powerhouse session:

'Very simple miracles'
- 8pm, Friday, August 17
Hear audio highlights from the session

John Seed is founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. Having been referred to as "the town crier of the global village", Seed has worked tirelessly developing projects which protect rainforests and promote sustainability around the world. One such project was geared towards protecting rainforests in South America, Asia and the Pacific by providing benign and sustainable development projects for indigenous inhabitants of rainforest areas.

Since 1979, he has been involved in the direct actions which have resulted in the protection of the Australian rainforests as well as developing community awareness about conservation issues. In 1984 he helped initiate the US Rainforest Action Network. In 1987 he co-produced a television documentary for Australian television about the struggle for the rainforests.

For 15 years, he has written and lectured extensively on deep ecology and has been conducting Councils of All Beings and other 're-Earthing' workshops in Australia, North America Japan, India, Thailand and Eastern and Western Europe. Seed also lectures at universities in Australia, United States, United Kingdom and Asia. He is a Fellow of Findhorn Foundation and Scholar-in-Residence at Easlen Institute.

In 1984, he founded the magazine, World Rainforest Report and remains as one of the editors. Now translated into 10 languages, Seed co-authored Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings with Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming and Professor Arne Naess. As an accomplished singer and songwriter, he has produced five albums of environmental songs since 1981.

Seed is a recipient of the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for services to conservation and the environment, 1995

More information about the Rainforest Information Centre is online http://www.forests.org/ric

SULAK SIVARAKSA

Participated in Ideas at the Powerhouse session:

'Very simple miracles'
- 8pm, Friday, August 17
Hear audio highlights from the session

Sulak Sivaraksa is a social activist and a former Buddhist monk. Having been embroiled in legal actions, survived death threats and endured exile, he works to bring people together to share a vision of an 'enlightened society'. He is described by his biographer, Joanna Macy as "one of the heroes of our time, offering us deep wisdom and refreshingly sane alternatives to the religions of consumerism, greed, and exploitation."

Lawyer, teacher, scholar, publisher and author of many books, Sivaraksa says of his tumultuous life that "the trials against me and a number of other unpleasant events in my life have helped me to practice my Buddhist mindfulness, to be aware, to overcome anger, to cultivate the seeds of peace, and to forgive, as well as to be grateful."

Since 1968, he has founded several international organisations which support spiritual and community life and promote training and education. These include the Satheirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation, the Komol Keemthong Foundation, the Thai Inter-Religious Commission for Development (TICD) and the International Network of Engaged Buddists (INEB).

He has written many books across a wide range of subjects, including Global Healing: essays and interviews on structural violence, social development and spiritual transformation and his memoirs, Loyalty Demands Dissent: autobiography of an Engage Buddhist. As an 'engaged Buddhist', Sivaraksa is a member of the advisory boards of many organisations including the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, USA; the Institute of Asian Democracy, USA; the International Campaign for Tibet, USA; and Partage avec les enfants du tiers-monde.

Sivaraksa is the recipient of:

• The Right Livelihood Award, Sweden, 1995
• The Unrepresented Nation and People Organization (UNPO), Taiwan, 1998

LYNNE SPENDER

Participated in Ideas at the Powerhouse session:

Content Creators
- 2.30pm, Friday, August 17
The Ideas Debate
- 7.30pm, Friday, August 17

Lynne Spender is Executive Director of the Australian Interactive Multimedia Industry Association (AIMIA). Prior to taking up the position at AIMIA in 1998, she was Executive Director of the Australian Society of Authors for 5 years.

She has been a speaker, panelist and Chair of many industry conferences and events and writes regular column for Webhead magazine. She is on the Board of CREATE Australia (the national arts training ITAB), has served on the Board of the Law Foundation of NSW, Redfern Legal Centre Publishing, the NSW Writers' Centre and many other community and cultural organisations.

She has formal qualifications in English Literature and Language, Sociology and the Law. She has written and edited numerous books, including one on digital rights for authors which is currently being revised for a second edition.

As Executive Director of AIMIA which represents 1200 people nationally, she heads an industry association which works to provide information and networking services to member individuals and companies working the area of digital content. Members are generally those involved in creating and developing content and internet applications in the areas of education, entertainment and ecommerce for the web.

As well as lobbying governments on issues relating to the development of the Internet, AIMIA runs national conferences and the annual AIMIA Industry Awards. Both state and national offices run events, seminars and networking forums to provide the industry with opportunities to develop professional and personal contacts. AIMIA also runs an export access program, assisting members to prepare their businesses for international markets.

FIONA STEWART

Participated in Ideas at the Powerhouse session:

ABN AMRO Business Ideas Forum
- 10am, Friday, August 17
The Ideas Debate
- 7.30pm, Friday, August 17

Fiona Stewart is an ebusiness strategist and new economy commentator. At 31, after ten years in universities, she left an academic career to found her Melbourne-based company, realworld Research and Communications.

Formerly, Stewart was a research fellow at the School of Literary and Communication Studies at Deakin University. She is also a non-Executive Director of the new company GOLD Ratings - the Guide to Online Learning Delivery. This company acts as a quality assurance mechanism for global online learning products and services.

Stewart writes regularly for The Australian on eLearning and learning management issues. In one of those columns addressing the dearth of e-leardership, she writes, "as an individual who has made the move from receiving an income as an academic to generating wealth as chief knowledge officer of an internet start-up company, it is disappointing to be without e-leadership at this time. With those of us in e-business, spending our waking hours being excited, energised and entrepreneurial, the superficiality of the Government's argument about what is and is not the new economy becomes more obvious by the day, if not the hour. We will never be a new economy just because we make use of IT products and services. It is no great innovation to use a computer to do old economy things. Would it not be more worthwhile, both culturally and financially, to create that product or service in the first place? This is why Australia is looking shaky. We are failing to produce the new IT products and services that the rest of the world needs, and will buy."

Stewart is also a Fellow of the non-partisan, non-profit think tank, OzProspect which cultivates new voices, new ideas and new vibrancy in Australian public debate.

Kerrie Tim

Participated in Ideas at the Powerhouse session:

'We are not happy Natives'
- 3.30pm, Thursday, August 16

Kerrie Tim is the Acting Executive Director, Office for Women, within the new Community Engagement Division in the Department of Premier and Cabinet. Kerrie’s substantive position is Executive Director of the Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy. Kerrie has extensive experience in public policy and administration.

A graduate of the University of Queensland, Kerrie joined the Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy in February 1999. Prior to that she was with the Public Service and Merit Protection Commission, and before that spent two and half years with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet as a Senior Adviser. Kerrie also served five years with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

For the past eleven years, in her spare time, Kerrie has led workshops on peer counselling, alliance building, facilitation and conflict resolution and she has extensive experience teaching and leading on the elimination of racism and internalised racism.

Kerrie’s international experience has included leading a workshop in Israel on eliminating racism, representing Australia at a UNESCO Regional Symposium on Human Resource Development (Philippines) and the first International Indigenous Women’s Conference (Australia).