RSA Connectors
RSA Connectors is a new and growing network of RSA Fellows worldwide who act as a first port-of-call and a ‘friendly face’ for new Fellows who want to find out more and get involved, and who help local Fellows to organise events and collaborate on projects.
If your country does not yet have its own RSA Connector, you can apply to become an RSA Connector by e-mailing: Jamie Cooke.
Latest RSA Connectors (Dec 12th): Isilda Almeida-Harvey (Portugal).
Nov 5th: Jonathan Robbins (Singapore) and Lin Grist (Canada). Oct 18th: Fred Chak (Hong Kong, China).Oct 16th: Irwin Cruz (Philippines). Sept 26th: David Burns (Paris/Strasbourg, France) and Geof Cox (Brittany, France). Sept 12th: Michael Tyrimos (Cyprus), Katie Boswell (San Francisco, USA), Bonnie Shaw (Washington, DC, USA). Sept 4th: Joao Fonseca da Silva (Uruguay), Eve O'Kelly (Ireland), Gabriel Wer (Guatemala), Jose Berrocal (Costa Rica), Sidney Rose (Sweden) and Joseph O'Reilly (Thailand). August 24 2012: Julian Williams (Dubai) and Paul Kawachi (North Korea).
Need support for your Fellows' meetings, network or projects? Go to the new Fellowship resources page for ideas, guidance, how-tos and other support.
RSA Connectors - by country
Australia
Paul VittlesCity: Sydney
About: Paul Vittles is the current chairman of RSA in Australia and New Zealand. Paul is a researcher, consultant, coach and mentor. His passion is helping people and organisations to set and achieve their goals. Paul has particular expertise in facilitating visioning workshops and vision-led change programmes. He also delivers keynote presentations and masterclasses on his specialist topic of 'Creating and Delivering An Inspired Shared Vision'. Also available from Paul: 4 pro bono visioning workshops per annum for social enterprises.
Austria
Daniela Krautsack
City: Vienna
About: Interests - interacting with inspiring minds whose sky is not the limit. Inspirations - travelling the world; art, culture and creative industries. Challenges - understanding the purpose of life. Responsibilities: sharing knowledge, motivating the under-privileged.
Bangladesh
Mohammad Asadullah
City: Dhaka, Reading (UK)
Belgium
Alain Ruche
City: Brussels
About: My key interest is to promote and contribute to community networks of practice for meaningful social change with a view to improving general wellbeing and awareness. My sources of inspiration are mutual understanding, empathy, experience, improvisation and silence. I believe in slow thinking.
Brazil
Michael Biggs
City: São Paulo
About: As an advocate for academic research and for the creative and performing arts and architecture, my personal and professional interests coincide in how to create “the new”. In academic circles this is referred to as knowledge creation, in business it is referred to as innovation, and in the arts it is referred to as creativity. I will be pleased to share my experience of managing “the new” in UK, Sweden and Brazil under the umbrella of RSA Connections. Linkedin profile.
Canada
Lin Grist
City: Guelph (Toronto)
I have been a Fellow since 2002 and have lived on both sides of the pond, currently in Canada. My key interests are civic engagement & 21st century democracy and social entrepreneurship.
Challenge is helping to build strong and vibrant communities.
China
Fred Chak
City: Hong Kong
About: Born and raised in HK, Received a BA and MA degree in London. Now spilt my time between HK and London working as a producer for TVC, digital and live installations campaigns, picked up over 20 international awards in the past few years.
A serial inventor focused in environmental issues. My energy consumption E-ink display plug had won me a Red Dot best of the best designer award, and received a D&AD Yellow pencil for my fish bowl electricity meter .
With a background in performance and video art, I've curated and organised over dozens of shows/art exhibitions in UK and around the world, including Tate modern, Institute of Contemporary Art and London Festival of Architect.
I'm interested in art, culture and creative industries in general. I'm also keen to tackle social injustice, inequality and poverty through cross discipline collaboration.
China
Joseph Oliver
City: Beijing
About: Key interests - sustainable concept development, creative innovation and inspiration. Challenges - cultural synergy, education, market courage. Responsibilities - managing international teams to push boundaries of the possible. Networks - global cultural, creative arts and design, environment and city design. Inspirations - nature, human spirit and the unknown.
China
Mark Havenhand
City: Shanghai
About: Key interests: environment, sustainability, working with China, creativity, balance. Challenges - influencing without resources or power. Responsibilities - knowing what's possible and likely. Networks - trying to get something started in China! Cultural, creative, intellectual and actual. Inspirations - Beauty. A Peaceable Kingdom (Hicks).
Colombia
Carlos Largacha Martinez
City: Bogotá
About: Social change towards a more humane society through complex-quantum thinking, humanistic management, diversity/inclusion, with the challenge of changing mental models to achieve it. My networks include the Society for Organizational Learning, Management Innovation and Exchange MIX, and Humanistic Management Network/Center. And here is my hack on ‘Non-accumulative capitalism: social incentives as the ultimate end’.
Costa Rica
Jose Miguel Aguilar Berrocal
City: San José
About: Jose studied Psychology, has a Master’s in Projects Management, and is currently enrolled in LSE’s Development Management Master Program as Chevening Scholar. Jose first started organizing Punk Rock Concerts as fundraisers for social causes. He worked as Social Development Advisor for local governments and as consultant for the EU in Central American Border Zones. He then founded the NGO Fundación Acción Joven (FAJ) using his own savings. FAJ uses participatory methodology to prevent school dropouts of at-risk students in public high schools. It has developed alliances with the Costa Rican Ministries of Education, Welfare, Culture, Security, and private firms. The Government recently declared it as “Organization of Public National Interest”. Jose achieved a reform of the University Volunteering Law, is an ASHOKA Fellow, was named “National Peace Builder” by the Ministry of Justice and elected by the local business newspaper as one of the 40 most successful young people in Costa Rica. He regularly works with Ministers of Education and Welfare designing social policies for at-risk youth.
Cyprus
Michael TyrimosCity: Nicosia
About: Born in Cyprus, Michael always envisioned an entrepreneurial future for his country. Following the completion of his studies and advisory duties in some of the UK’s most dedicated enterprise-driven organizations such as NACUE, EntrepreneurFirst and others, he returned home aiming to create the first Cypriot integrated entrepreneurial ecosystem. Parallel to his venture, Synups, he co-founded the Cypriot Enterprise Link, which in less than a year inspired a plethora of young Cypriots to an entrepreneurial mindset, while supporting the creation of new initiatives such as Hack{Cyprus}, the first ever hackathon in the country, and currently the launch of the “StartUp Cyprus” campaign.
Czech Republic
Alexandra Bockova
City: Ostrava
About: Passion for photography, especially documenting the social. Living interest in sustainable urban living and community development, active promoter of public space and goods. The biggest institutional inspiration I see is in the work of the RSA. The best insight on Czech society I acquire from the work of a Czech sociologist, Mr. Jan Keller. Chair of a civic association encouraging art and creative work of emerging photographers and artists. Current challenge is a university course on Creative Photography, starting this autumn 2012 at the University of Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Denmark
Vicki Therkildsen
City: Copenhagen
About: Vicki Therkildsen is an experienced journalist presently working in broadcast journalism with The Danish Broadcasting Corporation and has a book coming out in September 2012 - an investigative journalistic tale of a Danish murderer. She has great knowledge of the media and gender issues and is currentling looking into doing a documentary, starting a feminist network and almost certainly a number of other things. With almost 20 years of experience doing voluntary work on national, european and international level Vicki looks forward to helping RSA-fellows navigate in her home country, Denmark
Finland
Mika Aaltonen
City: Helsinki
About: I think the Western materialist dream is fulfilled - and we are looking for the next one: a second renaissance driven by individualism and the 'flat society', that´s how I am driven too.
France
David BurnsCity: Paris, Strasbourg
About: I’ve worked for most of my career in and around the headquarters of some of the biggest and oldest companies on the planet. Strategy, deal-making, governance. Lots of financial leverage.
In the last couple of years I have begun to get involved in smaller and/or newer outfits. Bringing them on, making them stronger, getting them to the point where they can create livelihoods for more people. Sometimes I just invest, sometimes I take on a part-time executive or non-exec role, and I also work as a trustee for various education-related charities.
Perhaps my favourite activity right now is a little engineering company which is developing new environmentally-sound packaging technology: I am a shareholder, and act as their Finance Director. Although they would never admit it, I think they like to have me around because I get things organised, and do what they see as the boring work. Not my view of course! I’m British and French and flit back and forth between the two countries, which is un-ecological; however in these times when the Continent is almost entirely cut off, it makes me feel I can play a useful role for the RSA as a “France Connector”. Or should it be “Britain Connector”? Tell me how you want to connect…
France
Geof CoxRegion: Brittany
About: I live in rural central Brittany and work internationally on social enterprise development, focusing especially on creating sustainable livelihoods in poor or otherwise disadvantaged communities.
My interests also include environmentalism and sustainability; culture, heritage and conservation; music, literature, arts and crafts; education; open source and online communities; current affairs - especially these days grassroots alternative economics like the 'Occupy' and 'Indignados' movements - and international partnerships.
Contact my website or my RSAFellowship.com profile.
Germany
Ulf Brandes
City: Berlin
About: Key interests - organisational approaches to sustainability. Challenges - our "homo oeconomicus" conditioning. Responsibilities - balance consulting, research and family. Networks - like-minded people in Berlin. Inspirations - progress is possible everywhere.
After many years in international technology and business management I started working with like-minded people in Berlin to help organisations transform for innovation, sustainability, and human values.
Guatemala
Gabriel Wer
City: Guatemala City
About: Growing up in Guatemala has made me particularly sensitive to social issues such as inequality, poverty and conflict. I have witnessed and experienced first-hand the tremendous impact that this can have on people's lives. For more than 10 years, I have volunteered and worked as a business and project manager, and facilitated groups in different countries and across various sectors. I have lived in Spain, Germany and the UK. Having spent many years abroad, I am moving back to Guatemala to work on several projects, including starting a new social enterprise, a shared space, and developing a participatory methodology to facilite the creation of community-led social enterprises in deprived areas.
Key interests: Social Enterprises, Community Development, Facilitation, Co-working, Project Management, Human-Centered Design, Participation, Transition & Resilience.
Challenges: To support the creation of an ecosystem for social innovation in Guatemala and Central America.
Networks in Guatemala, UK and Spain, from co-working to social entrepreneurship, project management (PMI), ToP facilitation and training (ICA:UK and ICA Guatemala), various business communities of practice, local universities, and local media.
Inspirations: great purposeful design, skill sharing, the power of facilitation and participation, resilient communities, photography, travelling.
Languages: Spanish, English and German.
India
Sujit S. Nair
City: Bangalore
About: Sujit is the co-founder and vice chair of British South India Chamber of Commerce. He is a serial entrepreneur who is passionate about education and enterprise promotion in India. His passion for enterprise promotion in India has seen him working through a number of organisations to help to foster better conditions for ambitious Indian entrepreneurs who want to take their company to the next level. He is in the process of working with the RSA to engage other influential and highly networked RSA Fellows who are interested in working in India and contributing their knowledge and expertise to bring about a change in a developing country. Key interest – Education, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Indian Politics.
Ireland
Eve O'Kelly
City: Dublin
About: I have worked in the performing arts and in education all my life and I strongly believe in their importance in personal development, not just for children but for all of us, right through our lives. The sciences are important, of course, but we shouldn't get so caught up in the increasing technological cleverness of our world that we forget to look inside ourselves. The arts give us an outlet for our feelings, and continuing education helps us find interests and skills we didn't know we had. To become the best version of ourselves that we can - isn't that what life is all about?
Japan
Kimihito Okubo
City: Tokyo
About: Kimy is a graduate of Waseda University in Japan and is an expert in branding and thought leadership. His cross-cultural experience spans different continents and he has extensive knowledge and experience in communications and marketing. His key strengths are in leadership and business motivation skills, focusing on generating the best, most creative, innovative solutions and ideas.
Malaysia
Robert LloydCity: Kuala Lumpur
About: My key interests are in education, the environment , the performing arts and, having spent most of my life in either the UK or Malaysia, I am interested in the links between the two countries and what each can learn from the other. My current responsibilities include the development of international education. I am concerned by the challenges posed in achieving international mindedness amongst young people, intercultural understanding, human rights and environmentally sustainable development.
Malta
Graham Gurr
City: Gozo
About: I am artistically focused. Motivated by social development. Responsible by example. Interactive professionally. Inspired by original and innovative ideas.
North Korea
Paul Kawachi
City: Beijing
About: My interests are in developing sustainable low-cost open learning solutions for rural development, using open educational resources and cloud technologies linked to open universities and individualised resource designers. I am a Professor of Instructional Design and Editor of Asian Journal of Distance Education.
Pakistan
Muhammad Asif Qureshi
City: Karachi/Glasgow
About: Linking science with the Arts has always been fascinating and yet challenging for me. However, the RSA platform helps to bridge the two effectively. Networking with "the men in power" in an attempt to achieve an enlightened 'Global Society' is my ultimate aim.
Philippines
Irwin Cruz
City: Manila
About: I am currently an arts journalist based in Manila and a teacher at a local university. I have lived in Guatemala, Germany, Italy, Thailand, and Spain and have worked for various local and international publications. My interests are in new and social media, the visual arts, cultural policies, and regional integration, while networks include the media, the arts and the academe.
Poland
Alexandra Krawiec
City: Poznan
About: Alexandra Krawiec has worked as a University Lecturer, Strategic Business Adviser and a PR specialist. She was a Managing Director of MF Philharmonic Hall and a President of the Living Art foundation. She is the founder of PrimeSolutions, a company bringing together science and industry. Within PrimeSolutions she initiated PrimeIdea, a media project specialising in documentaries. She is an author of Passion for Life, a documentary featuring David Attenborough. Alexandra is convinced that everybody can make a difference, and that working together for a good cause makes us all happier.
Portugal
Isilda Almeida-Harvey
City: Lisbon/Lewes
About: I work in the Culture and Heritage sector and throughout my career I have mainly worked on the development and creation of new learning and community engagement services in Museums and Archives. I chose to work in this sector because I wanted to make a difference to people's lives and ways of thinking. Being an RSA fellow is an opportunity to do that in a wider and even deeper scale.
My interests include Continuing Professional Development, partnerships, funding, audience development and engagement. My responsibilities are to be creative, empower and widen access. I am Portuguese, I am based in the UK and my professional and academic networks are cross sector and spread between the two countries. Inspirations: I draw inspiration from people, their memories, passions and experiences and from everything that symbolizes that. My challenge is that there isn´t enough time to do everything we dream of. Twitter: @ESROlearning
Romania
Janina Radulescu
City: Bucharest
About: Communication professional, public affairs twitterer - @JaninaRadulescu, fellow member of the RSA & the Transatlantic Network 2020, CIPR graduate, enthusiast of innovation & creativity-boosting practices.
Russia
Claire Reilly
City: Moscow
Saudi Arabia
Mamoon al-Azami
City: Jeddah
About: Mamoon has 40 years of experience in multinational community development worldwide - in locations from Bangladesh to Hackney and Manchester. He has delivered courses/lectures for NGOs from 50 countries and was President of the Islamic Community Centre in north London. He is also a keen footballer and cricketer.
Singapore
Jonathan H Robbins
About: My key interests are releasing the talents and capacities of people to succeed. Challenges include creating a twenty-first century assessment paradigm and moving from competencies to the Capacity for personal mastery.
My networks are BERA, IAEA, Linked-In and RSA Networks. Inspirations include people, poetry, photographs and prayer.
South Africa
Barbara Bester
City: Cape Town
About: Barbara lives in Cape Town and has worked in the field of strategic communications for more than 20 years in South Africa and internationally. Key interest in bringing together Fellows for collaborative working relationships, within South Africa, to become involved with community and urban projects important to the ongoing, transformational growth of the country.
Spain
Graham Rawlinson
City: Bilbao/Chichester
About: key interests - driving healthy sustainability through innovation and collaboration on a global scale. Challenges - learning more new things each year, getting action to work with the words. Responsibilities - my main work now is writing and facilitating for innovation and creativity. Networks - Linked-In, RSA and Transition Chichester. Inspirations - great writers, Pirsig, Kafka, Steinbeck, Tolkein, Shakespeare and Mitch Albom and the amazing way the world is created.
Sweden
Sidney Rose
City: Stockholm
About: I have been an international educator and consultant since 1980; and have worked in many countries and cultures. I embrace and celebrate the differences in culture and tradition. I am interested in the delivery of the highest possible standards of education to students in the 21st century, particularly in developing countries.I have a huge network of educators globally and aspire to the sharing of skills and resources to improve world standards of education.
Thailand
Joseph O'ReillyCity: Bangkok
About: Originally from Australia I’ve been living in London, working for a number of global public interest organisations and causes for the last thirteen years. I’ve spent the last few years leading Save the Children UK’s work on education around the world and recently moved to Bangkok to help grow Save the Children’s efforts and influence on education across Asia.
Needless to say I’m passionate about expanding learning and educational opportunities. I have specialist interests in literacy and reading and in increasing children in the developing world’s access to and use of better quality books. I’m the founder of First Read, which aims to provide parents of very young children in developing countries with material and skills to develop emergent literacy.
I’m also interested in design and especially in how it can be used to improve public spaces and buildings and am keen to find a way to work with others to improve the public realm of my new home town of Bangkok. I’m a keen cyclist too and would love to help Bangkok become a cycling city – I like a challenge – and find out from fellows where cycling is already established or emerging in other parts of Asia.
You can find out more about what I’m up to on my blog or connect via Linkedin.
United Arab Emirates
Julian Williams
City: Dubai
About: Julian Williams is Group Quality Assurance Director for a group of international schools in Dubai. He has been an international teacher, school leader and consultant for over 30 years in the UK, Malawi, Colombia, China and the UAE. He is also a doctoral student with a keen interest in school leadership and improvement and education for social responsibility. He has a wide portfolio of other interests in education and training including: meeting special educational needs and EAL in the mainstream classroom; teacher CPD and ownership of appraisal; stakeholder partnerships as a vehicle for sustainable change; bridging academic/vocational divisions and entrepreneurship and ‘Can Do’ thinking in education. Networks include the IB, CIE, Cambridge ESOL and Linked-In. Challenges include clearing my in-tray and maintaining a healthy family life/work balance. He has not yet succeeded.
United States
Katie BoswellCity: San Francisco
About: Katie has worked in public policy and international development in the UK, India and US. She is currently International Program Manager for One World Children's Fund in San Francisco, an organization which believes that local communities are best suited to solve problems affecting children in their communities. She is interested in the interaction of the local and the global, as new technologies reshape our lives but vast power imbalances remain. Katie holds an MA in History from the University of Cambridge and is currently studying for an MSc in Development Management from the Open University. In her spare time, she enjoys learning Hindi, reading and travelling.
United States
John Oakley
City: Washington state; Oakham (Rutland, UK)
About: To leverage my international and enterprise experience to introduce the use of appropriate technologies that enable communities to communicate and collaborate on projects that support the growth of local employment and wealth creation.
United States
Bonnie ShawCity: Washington, DC.
About: Bonnie is an expert at making meaningful connection between people, place, technology and play to catalyze massively collaborative civic innovations for tangible real world impact. She brings a delightfully playful perspective to all her work, and offers over 10 years of international experience in urban design, civic engagement strategy, campaign implementation, and facilitation. She has worked with global consumer brands, media and broadcasting companies, real estate and development agencies, non-profits and community service organizations, and federal, state and local government agencies in Australia, UK and USA.
Bonnie is a serial social innovator. In addition to her own consulting practice, she is the Founder of the global photographic treasure hunt and community engagement game Snap-Shot-City, Founder and Dean of the DC chapter of The Awesome Foundation, co-creator of the 24 Hour City Project, organizer of the Digital Divas Dinners, and an honored Fellow of The RSA.
Uruguay
Joao Fonseca da Silva
City: Montevideo
About: Joao Fonseca da Silva, born in Portugal but currently residing in Uruguay, is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. Joao has a wide range of interests from creativity and serendipity to more fundamental issues such as social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Do get in touch with him if you are planning to move to Uruguay or just visiting.
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