Maude is the Honorary Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch. She serves on the executive committees of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and is a Councillor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council.  Maude is the recipient of fourteen honorary doctorates as well as many awards, including the 2005 Right Livelihood Award, the 2005 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Fellowship Award, the Citation of Lifetime Achievement at the 2008 Canadian Environment Awards, the 2009 Earth Day Canada Outstanding Environmental Achievement Award, the 2009 Planet in Focus Eco Hero Award, and the 2011 Sierra Club EarthCare Award.  In 2008/2009, she served as Senior Advisor on Water to the 63rd President of the United Nations General Assembly and was a leader in the campaign to have water recognized as a human right by the UN. She is also the author of dozens of reports, as well as 18 books, including her latest, Blue Future: Protecting Water For People And The Planet Forever and Boiling Point: Government Neglect, Corporate Abuse, and Canada’s Water Crisis.

Originally a medical doctor, Dr. Kauffman's primary work has been as a theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher studying the origin of life and molecular organization.  Thirty-five years ago, he developed the Kauffman models which are random networks exhibiting a kind of self-organization that he terms "order for free."  He was a professor at the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Calgary. He is currently emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and affiliate faculty at the Institute for Systems Biology. He has a number of awards including a MacArthur Fellowship and a Wiener Medal.  Dr. Kauffman was the founding general partner and chief scientific officer of The Bios Group, a company (acquired in 2003 by NuTech Solutions) that applies the science of complexity to business management problems. He is the author of The Origins of Order, Investigations, and At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization.

Evelin Lindner has a dual education as a Medical Doctor and a Psychologist, with a Ph.D. in Medicine from the University in Hamburg in Germany, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Department of Psychology at the University of Oslo in Norway. She is the founding president of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS), a global transdisciplinary community of concerned academics and practitioners who wish to promote dignity and transcend humiliation around the world.  Lindner is also co-founder of the World Dignity University initiative, including Dignity Press and World Dignity University Press. She is a prolific author and most recently published Honor, Humiliation, and Terror: An Explosive Mix – And How We Can Defuse It with Dignity (2017).  Evelin lives and teaches globally, and is affiliated with the University of Oslo since 1997, with Columbia University in New York City since 2001, and with the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris since 2003.  Lindner has received several awards and, as a representative of the dignity work of HumanDHS, she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015, 2016, and 2017.

Issa was born in Cameroon in 1967 and grew up in the small village of Nditam in the heart of Cameroon’s equatorial forest. He speaks seven languages and holds an MFA in French Literature. Convinced that the power of art can save lives, Issa started working as a political cartoonist, illustrator and reporter in a weekly satirical newspaper, Le Messenger Popoli.  In 1994, his opposition to the political regime in Cameroon led to his arrest and torture. He escaped from his country in 1996 to seek asylum in France, and since 1999 has taught his painting and drawing techniques in universities, cultural centers and social institutions around the world. Issa has been the subject of several documentaries focusing on his life and journey and has illustrated and co-authored several books published in the United States and France.   More recently, Issa founded Hope International for Tikar People (HITIP) a non-profit, community-based organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for Tikar and Bedzan villagers and individuals living with disabilities in the equatorial rainforest of Cameroon. His current project is the construction of “Radio Taboo” – a 150 foot tall solar powered community radio station to educate villagers about HIV/AIDS, the environment, gay rights and women’s issues.  Radio Taboo trains citizen journalists to report on local health and human rights concerns for the betterment of the community.  Issa presently divides his time between Cameroon, France, China, and the United States.

Naresh Singh is a practitioner scholar and independent consultant in international development with more than 30 years’ experience in more than 50 countries around the world.  He specializes in promoting sustainable livelihoods among people living in poverty, conflict zones, and post disaster situations. He has been using complex adaptive systems in his work since 1995.  He has a Master’s degree from the Indian Agricultural Institute and a Ph.D. from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He is Senior Associate Fellow at the Middle East Research Institute in Erbil, Iraq and a member of the Board of Wisdom Thinkers Network (based in Syracuse NY).  Naresh is author of several publications including: Empowerment Towards Sustainable Development; Sustainable Livelihoods: Building on the Wealth of the Poor and Legal Rights of the Poor. He was formerly the Executive Director of the UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (Co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and Hernando de Soto, a Director-General of the Canadian International Development Agency) and a visiting scholar at several academic institutions including McGill, Waterloo and Harvard.