PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE: FROM THE FRONTLINE – Skoll World Forum 2013
Speakers
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Former Prime Minister of Norway and Deputy Chair, The Elders
Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway, served as Director General of the World Health Organization from July 1998-2003. From 2007-2009, she was the UN Secretary-General`s Special Envoy for Climate Change. Dr. Brundtland has served on the UN Secretary-General`s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability since its launch in August 2010. As Deputy Chair of The Elders, she contributes her wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackling the world’s toughest problems, with the aim of making the world a better place.
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Mabel van Oranje is a global advocate for equality, justice and freedom and serial entrepreneur for social change. She is the founder and chair of ‘Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage’ and ‘VOW To End Child Marriage’, and played a catalytic role in the creation of the Girls First Fund. Mabel is a member of the (advisory) boards of Apolitical Academy Global, Global Witness, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and The Elders. She is a co-founder and chair emeritus of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
You can follow her tweets @MabelvanOranje
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Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to improving health care for the world's poorest people. He is Co-founder and Chief Strategist of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that since 1987 has provided direct health care services and undertaken research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Dr. Farmer and his colleagues in the U.S. and abroad have pioneered novel community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings.
Dr. Farmer holds an M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he is the Kolokotrones University Professor and the Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School; he is also Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston. Additionally, Dr. Farmer serves as the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Community Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti.
Dr. Farmer has written extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan Davis) Award from the American Medical Association, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and, with his PIH colleagues, the Hilton Humanitarian Prize. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Bill Strickland is the President and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation and its divisions, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild (MCG) and Bidwell Training Center (BTC), both founded in 1968, and National Center for Arts and Technology in 2005.
As president and CEO his duties include: developing and implementing major fund-raising plans of action; working with Boards of Directors and Industrial Advisory Boards; encouraging participation of corporate executive officials from major multi-national Pittsburgh corporations. Strickland has completed the development of a 40,000 sq. ft. production greenhouse, created for the development of Phalaenopsis orchids and hydroponics vegetables, and a 62,000 sq. ft. facility as a mortgage free asset for both MCG and BTC. The facilities include a 350-seat music/lecture hall, library, arts studios and labs, dining and meeting rooms, state-of-the-art award winning audio and video recording studios, serve as a demonstration site for Hewlett Packard and Steelcase equipment and are home to 25,000 Phalaenopsis orchids that are cultivated for wholesale distribution.
The National Center for Arts & Technology (NCAT) a division of the Manchester Bidwell Corporation (MBC,) was created to assist interested communities in opening and sustaining local educational organizations that replicate the MBC Model. There are currently nine operational centers in the United States and one center in Israel. Throughout his distinguished career, Strickland has been honored with numerous prestigious awards for his contributions to the arts and the community.
