Special Guest: His Excellency Francisco Altschul – Ambassador of El Salvador to the United States of America – Cinema Libertad, Nov. 4, 7:15pm, Four Mile Run Community Center.
The administration of President Mauricio Funes appointed Francisco Altschul as Ambassador of El Salvador to the United States of America in March 2010. Before his nomination, he was appointed Charge d’Affaires at the Embassy of El Salvador, beginning in July 2009.
Ambassador Altschul is an architect who graduated from the University of El Salvador. He studied Urban Development, Housing, and Planning at Bouwcentrum International Education in Holland and the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank in Washington, DC. He is founder and president of Eco Desarrollo, a private agricultural company dedicated to the practice and promotion of organic agriculture in El Salvador.
From May 2003 to December 2007 he acted as the Executive President of SACDEL, an NGO dedicated to the promotion of local development projects and policies for government decentralization. In 1997 he was Councilor for the city of San Salvador, heading the Urban Development Commission, where he had oversight of the project to rescue the Historic Downtown of San Salvador, and the solid waste management project in metropolitan San Salvador. The Ambassador won first prize in design contests, along with Roberto Dada, for the David J. Guzman National Anthropology Museum and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.
He was a member of the National Commission for the Environment (CONAMA); the Board of Directors of the National Development Foundation (FUNDE); Consulting and Training System for Local Development (SACDEL); the Architects’ Association, and Friends of the National Anthropology Museum Association (AMUNA). The Ambassador was also a professor at the Central America University José Simeón Cañas (UCA), in the Department of Architecture.
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Special Guest: Her Excellency Muni Figueres - Ambassador of Costa Rica to the United States – Gestación, Nov. 5, 1pm, Masonic Memorial
Muni Figueres was appointed Ambassador of Costa Rica in Washington, D.C. on September 1, 2010.
Ms. Figueres has extensive experience in the politics of trade policy and trade negotiations as instruments of development. She served the Costa Rican government’s trade diversification strategy at the Investment and Trade Promotion Agency, as Director General (1982-86), and then as Minister of Foreign Trade (1986-88). She then was appointed Special Presidential Trade Representative in Washington, D.C. (1988-90) for Costa Rica’s support towards U.S. congressional approval of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). She headed the Trade and Integration Division at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (1990-92), and was subsequently External Relations Advisor at the IDB (1992-2001), in Washington, D.C.
Between 2001 and 2010, she served on a number of boards, among which IDT Telecom, Inc.; LASPAU (academic exchange programs, at a graduate level, affiliated with Harvard University); International Executive Service Corps (support to SME’s on a global scale); International Social Services, and the Chairman’s International Advisory Board of the Council of the Americas.
Ambassador Figueres has a Master’s degree in Political Science from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and a B.A. from the City College of New York.
Something Ventured Panel – Nov. 5, 5pm, Masonic Memorial
Introduction:
Jonathan Ortmans advises the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation on its global footprint and its interface with policymakers. He runs the Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship, a public policy initiative to focus the attention of policymakers and opinion leaders on the importance of entrepreneurship to the economy and society. Based in Washington, DC, Jonathan serves as an interface between new research and initiatives to advance entrepreneurship at the Foundation and the concerns that arise from policymakers in the nation’s capital. Since 2004, he has also advised the Foundation on its emerging global prominence and has helped develop key partnerships and programs with international leaders. Jonathan has also led the development of the Foundation’s Global Entrepreneurship Week initiative. Piloted in the United States in 2007, Global Entrepreneurship Week now inspires the under-30 generation to explore their entrepreneurial potential in more than 115 countries.
Jonathan started his first business, Microchips, at 19, and his second at 34, before beginning a career on Capitol Hill on the House Ways and Means Committee focusing on trade policy work. Previously, he served as executive director of the Columbia Institute for Political Research concentrating on health care economic policy. Currently, he serves as president of the Public Forum Institute, an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that enjoys strong bi-partisan congressional support in fostering public discourse on major issues of the day.
Moderator:
Charly Travers is an Associate Advisor at The Motley Fool where he co-manages stock portfolios for the Hidden Gems and Million Dollar Portfolio services with the goal of helping individual investors take control of their financial well being. His areas of expertise include corporate valuation, evaluating management incentives, and identifying compelling small cap companies. Charly is a regular contributor to The Motley Fool’s award winning Market Foolery podcast, which is one of the leading business podcasts on iTunes. He is also a long time movie buff who was shamed into hiding his New Balance sneakers in the back of the closet after watching Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Panel:
Mark G. Heesen has advocated for the venture capital industry, entrepreneurship and innovation for nearly two decades, first as National Venture Capital Association’s head of public policy and, since 1999, as the Association’s president. Mark is constantly engaged in legislative and regulatory issues surrounding information technology, life sciences and clean technology investing, providing strategic direction for the NVCA professional staff and managing a board of 26 venture capital practitioners.
Mark has taken a leadership position on behalf of the venture capital industry on issues such as carried interest taxation, financial services reform, the FDA regulatory approval process, highly skilled immigration, patent reform, U.S. competitiveness issues, energy reform, support for basic research funding and countless other policy issues that impact America’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. As the primary spokesperson for the venture capital industry, Mark is often called upon to offer insights and perspectives on trends and developments occurring within the asset class. He is a frequent presenter at industry conferences, a familiar and trusted source in news articles focusing on the venture industry, and a recurrent guest on CNBC and Bloomberg Television.
Prior to his work at NVCA, Mark was an aide to a former Governor of Pennsylvania and was Deputy Director for Federal Funds reporting to the Texas Legislature. Mark received a law degree with an emphasis in taxation from the Dickinson School of Law in 1984.
Andy Louis-Charles received a Bachelor’s of Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech where he was inducted into the ANAK Society, the highest senior honor. Subsequently, he earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Florida College of Law, where he graduated cum laude. In 2001, Andy won First Place Honors at Harvard Business School’s AASU – Entrepreneurial Ventures Competition. He subsequently leveraged Harvard’s $10,000 cash award into a multi-million dollar commercial real estate operation. After selling his stake in an urban redevelopment company, Andy invested in both public companies and private businesses. Over the years, Andy has founded, managed, and invested in numerous companies and investment partnerships.
Andy has been a contributor and analyst for The Motley Fool, and current serves as the Vice-President of Business Development for CustomInk — one of the largest online custom apparel companies in the US — where he heads its strategic ventures and investment opportunities. In addition to his professional responsibilities, Andy has served on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations and serves as an advisor to a number of startup companies. Andy has been a featured analyst on CNBC Worldwide and has been published in numerous online publications.
Don Rainey joined Grotech Ventures as a general partner in September 2007. With over $1B US under management, Grotech focuses on early stage information technology companies. Don currently serves on the boards of Grotech portfolio companies Clarabridge, HelloWallet, LivingSocial, Personal, SnappCloud, and Zenoss, as well as the Northern Virginia Chapter of the March of Dimes.
Don is an emerging technology consultant to the Chief Information Officer of the US Department of Defense through the DeVenCi Program. The DeVenCi Program consists of a handful of venture capitalists who research and nominate companies to solve the US Department of Defenses’ unmet technology needs. Don is also an Organizing Board member of the prestigious MindShare forum. In this role, he helps CEOs from the Greater Washington Metropolitan region’s most promising start-ups build long-term sustainable companies.
Don’s long history in the tech industry includes serving as president at Attitude Network, one of the first online entertainment networks, which was sold to TheGlobe.com in 1999. He also managed channel distribution and brand marketing in 50 countries for IBM’s $2 billion network hardware division and served as COO of DaVinci Systems where he spearheaded the company’s acquisition by ON Technology. Don designed and launched Novell’s much-emulated global Authorized Dealer Program in the late 80′s. He currently heads the Capital Formation Committee for the Northern Virginia Technology Council and is an adjunct professor at American University where he teaches graduate courses in venture capitalism.
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Andrew Simpson – Organ Accompanist for The General – Nov. 5, 8:45pm – Masonic Memorial
Andrew Earle Simpson, composer, pianist, and organist, is Ordinary Professor at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music of The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC and head of the division of Theory-Composition. A composer of opera, silent film, orchestral, chamber, and choral music, he explores how music interacts with other arts, in concert and on stage. Both his concert and theatrical works make multi-faceted connections with literature, visual art, or film, reflecting his fundamental interest in linking music intimately with the wider world (an approach which Simpson calls “humanistic” music).
Silent film, as a nexus of drama, visual art, and music, is an ideal genre for Simpson’s multi-disciplinary explorations. An increasingly active silent film musician, Simpson is Resident Film Accompanist for the National Gallery of Art and House Accompanist for the Library of Congress’ Mt. Pony Theater. He has also performed original film scores at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy, the Sala Cecelia Meireles in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the New York Public Library, the J. Paul Getty Villa in Los Angeles, New York’s Lincoln Center, and many other venues. He is also co-founder of the Snark Ensemble, a group devoted to creating and performing new scores for silent film, theater, and dance.
Simpson’s instrumental chamber music is recorded on the Albany, Naxos, Capstone, Fleur de Son Classics, Athena, and other labels. More than twenty of his silent film scores, both for piano solo and chamber ensemble, appear on DVD. Forthcoming recordings include A Crown of Stars, a wedding oratorio (Cantate Chamber Singers), for Albany, and Summer-Night Songs, for soprano saxophone and harp (Pictures on Silence).
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Weapon of War/Women & Peace Panel – Nov. 6, 4pm
Moderator:
Barbie Fischer is a musician and visual artist who uses her love of art in helping to heal wounds of those affected by conflict, conducting trauma healing through the arts where participants take part in exercises using music, painting and poetry to express the trauma they have been through. She has also utilized her artistic talent to aid in empowering women in conflict regions and helping non-governmental organizations with their program development. She holds a B.S. in Cross-Cultural Ministries and is currently working on her M.A. in Conflict Transformation at The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Eastern Mennonite University. Her blog, Express Peace, highlights the importance of art in peacebuilding.
Panel:
Abigail Disney is a filmmaker, philanthropist and scholar known for her documentary films about social issues. She is the founder of Fork Films, NY, and the founder and president of the Daphne Foundation, a philanthropic organization supporting projects to benefit low income NYC communities.
She turned to filmmaking after she met Liberian peace activist and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee. In 2008 she launched Peace is Loud, an organization that supports female voices and international peace-building through nonviolent means. Peace is Loud organized a 2009 Global Peace Tour as part of the UN’s International Day of Peace. The tour brought her first film Pray the Devil Back to Hell to hundreds of community screenings in the U.S. and abroad, sharing the inspirational story of the women of Liberia. Peace is Loud funded a 10-day project held in three different cities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help foster female peace-building capacity.
Her latest project, Women War and Peace, is a five-part PBS special series that looks at the untold story of women in wartime around the world.
Alex Footman began making films as a junior at Wesleyan University when he edited Crude Independence, an award-winning look at the domestic oil industry. A year after graduating, he traveled to Afghanistan to document a brave group of women risking their lives for education. Alex is the director of Weep Like a Waterwheel.
Kathleen Kuehnast is director of the Gender and Peacebuilding Center at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Prior to her present position, Kuehnast had a 15-year career in international development, where she worked extensively with the World Bank managing research and programmatic projects and advising policymakers (government and non-government) on social development, with a focus on gender-related concerns. She has worked in a similar capacity with the Asian Development Bank, the German Technical Cooperation Agency and the U.N. Development Program. From poverty studies to conflict-related development projects, Kuehnast has focused on the role of qualitative social analysis as a critical perspective, especially in understanding the role of women in economic transition and post-conflict reconstruction. Dr. Kuehnast is co-editor of the volume, Women and War: Power and Protection in the 21st Century (USIP Press).
As a recipient of the Mellon Foreign Fellowship at the Library of Congress (2000) and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies Fellowship (1999) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, she has studied and written extensively on the impact of post-Soviet transition on Muslim women of Central Asia, and is co-editor of the volume, Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition: Nation Building, Economic Survival, and Civic Activism. Kuehnast holds a Ph.D. in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Minnesota. Her master’s degree in education is from the University of St. Thomas.
Suraya Sadeed is a leading authority on the education and welfare of women and children in Afghanistan and a pioneer in bringing innovative educational programs to Afghanistan. Born and raised in Kabul, she immigrated to the United States after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and became a successful business woman. During the height of the Afghan Civil War (1993), Suraya returned to Afghanistan and was shocked by the horrific conditions of children and the destruction of her homeland. That same year, she established Help the Afghan Children, Inc.
Suraya has confronted the Taliban and drug lords while delivering aid to thousands of families during bombing attacks. Her courageous efforts in providing humanitarian aid, medical care, education, and hope have directly benefited over 1.5 million Afghan children and their families. After the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, Suraya was selected as an Educational Commission Advisor for the Transitional Government of Afghanistan and Delegate to the Grand Assembly of Afghanistan. Suraya established one of the Afghanistan’s first model schools and was the first to bring computers and computer education programs into the public school system. Her introduction of peace & environmental education has been lauded by the Ministry of Education and the United Nations.
Suraya’s work has been recognized and honored at the highest levels of government in both Afghanistan and the United States. She has appeared on such programs as the Oprah Winfrey Show and NBC’s Weekend Today Show – where she was recognized in their ‘Courageous Hearts’ series. Her story was told in a film documentary Inshallah, Diary of an Afghan Woman, produced for the Oxygen Channel. In March of 2006, Suraya’s work was recognized by President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush at the White House.
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VOICES FROM MARIEL – Nov. 6, 4:30pm – Masonic Memorial
Dr. José Garcia (Story Concept/Narrator) was born in Cuba, and immigrated to the US in 1980 as part of the Mariel Boatlift. He earned a degree in Political Science with minors in Social Studies and Spanish from Montclair State University, a Masters in Latin American Literature in 1991, and a PhD in Latin American literature with a concentration in US Latino Literature in 1999, from the University of Arizona. His dissertation, titled La Literatura Cubanoamericana y Su Imagen, was published in 2004 in a book of the same title and dealt with transculturation and the Cuban American experience in the U.S.
In the fall of 1999, José began working as an assistant professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida. In 2002, he became department chair of the Modern Languages department and in 2006 he was promoted to associate professor. At FSC, he has directed the popular Study Abroad program in Spain and created and implemented FSC’s first Latin American Studies minor as well as other courses in Latin American Studies and film. Recently, he has presented his academic research at international conferences and published various articles and two books on the Cuban and Cuban-American experience in the US. In the spring of 2009, José was granted a sabbatical to write an oral history of the Mariel Boatlift to be published at the end of 2010.
Rob Tritton (Producer) has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration from the University of Central Oklahoma. He has been a producer at NFocus for seventeen years also serving as its chief operating officer. In this capacity, Rob gives oversight to projecting, scheduling, and managing all aspects of production. As Producer of the recent feature film, Endure (2010), he was responsible for securing the $1.4 million budget through equity investments, financing and state incentives.
Jesse Larson (Producer) is a recent graduate of Florida Southern College with a B.A. in Public Relations. He began working as a production assistant in high school on live events, short films, and commercials. Most recently, Jesse was an associate producer on Endure (2010).
