Joanne Cheung
Berkeley, CA, USA
Joanne Cheung is a designer and strategist. Growing up on the Yangtze River, her earliest organizing experience was mobilizing her elementary school to protest the Three Gorges Dam. Since then she has lived and worked internationally and saw how liberatory efforts around the world are interconnected. She brings a lot of love, care, and creativity to her work in building global solidarity. She is an Affiliate of the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, a Lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, an Advisor to Building H, and a member of APEN Action, California Community Land Trust Network, and Inclusive Capital Collective. She holds a Permaculture Design Certificate from Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, M.Arch from Harvard Graduate School of Design, MFA from Bard Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, and BA from Dartmouth College, where she was a Davis United World College Scholar.
Blueprint Summit, San Francisco, 2018
Brijlal Chaudhari
Normandy, France
Brijlal Chaudhari is a member of Tharu nation from the foothills of the Himalayas where the Rhinos and the Elephants used to roam freely. Raised in a multi-generational Tharu family, he carries his ancestors’ oral teachings of relationships, leadership, compassion, storytelling, diplomacy, reciprocity, customary law, governance, Indigenous economics, and resource management. He also holds a bachelor's degree in economics and African Studies and a master’s degree in public administration. He is an Indigenous Peoples’ rights activist with over 15 years of experience leading social change programs and organizations. His expertise lies in bringing diverse groups of people together for an honest and meaningful dialogue for impactful results. He strongly believes that Indigenous Peoples’ way of life, their worldviews and knowledge systems must coexist with the others as equal partners. Hence, he founded Global Home for Indigenous Peoples to create a better world for Indigenous Peoples.
Biennial UN Global Indigenous Youth Forum, 2023