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My name is Mingyi. You can also call me Faye. I love how it’s written in Chinese: 明 (Ming) with the sun and the moon, and 一 (Yi) separates the sky and earth. I think it means to understand a little bit of the Dao — and that’s also what I’m trying to follow: following the Dao, following nature, following the earth and land.

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Life - All aspects of my life are sustained and informed by my spiritual practice. I consider myself blessed to have the joy and privilege of working with amazing souls building a more just and livable world for all.

Work - founder, CSIDC. I teach and write about how individuals and movements can enable people to respond to complex, uncertain and high-stake situations.

Other identities - meditator, mom, singer, poet, partner, friend.

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Former "panda" (WWF). Curious about leadership as a collective phenomenon. Love attending to "social fields". Artist in the making. Dancer. Long-distance walker.

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hello my friends! I was born in Sydney (on Gadigal lands) but made Indonesia my home. Justice has been a key driving force in my life, and fighting for it has taken many shapes and forms... creatively through music and performance, through love and a spiritual practice, on the ground through direct action and protest, and through building power, leadership and capacity of others in my work as a facilitator and trainer.

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My environmentalist journey started in 1992 when I joined a youth forum on environment and development in KL as in order to bring Asian youth voices to the Earth Summit in Rio. I was lucky enough to join a week long exposure trip to Sarawak, staying with the Dayak people to understand how their land, livelihood, and ways of living was under threat by Japanese loggers driven by mindless consumption.

I then moved to Beijing to set up Greenpeace in China, and went on to lead various green NGOs large and small, international and domestic, including WWF, Friends of Nature, and Greenovation Hub which I founded. I also founded a boutique non-profit for facilitation and activists education - Forward Works - with my partner in crime, Apple Chan.

So this gathering in Sabah, Borneo feels like a double full circle for me. I am really excited and grateful for this double loop journey.

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My name is Shehzia, and people call me Shehz for short. My name has Persian roots and means beautiful light :)

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This is my team (or at least some of them :-))

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This is my team (or at least some of them :-))

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In 2021 after a few years of on the ground delivery, research and reflection, I co-founded AktivAsia, a non-profit organisation committed to equipping the people most affected by injustice with the tools, skills and knowledge they need to fight injustice and create systems change. Our focus is on supporting and building capacity of people at the frontline of the climate crisis. Campaign by campaign, milestone by milestone, this is how we win. This is our beautiful team gatherered in Korea earlier this year. We are from East, Southeast and South Asia, and me from the land of Oz. I love our team and what we have built. I love being a facilitator and seeing the difference an enabling learning space makes to people's lives.

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I was born and raised as Her Majesty’s subject in Hong Kong, one of the last colony on earth. My parents were poor, honest and hard working labors. My father used to be a truck driver for the power company, and my mom a street hawker selling vegetables. I grow up with a strong sense of colonial and class injustice. I choose to identity myself as a Chinese during the Tiananmen movement in 1989, long before HK was handover to China.

I therefore have a complicated relationship with coloniality and nationalism. I actually went to graduate school and wrote about the inevitable predicament and banal experience of decolonizing ourselves.

During my two decades of service in international (read Western) environmental organizations (which themselves need to be decolonized), I increasingly recognize and appreciate the duo challenge of overcoming our own countries’ growth-led developmentalism as well as the limitation of western / euro-centric environmentalism. Just to spell out, for instance, the decarbonization of economy is much more complicated in the global south as governments need to develop to left people from poverty while decarbonize- while developed economies have the “luxury” of decarbonize while they are industrializing after centuries of resources and wealth extraction from the South.

It was a very long, and circular, journey for me to finally find my own voice and feel at ease with the situation we, as global south environmentalists, found ourselves entangled in. As someone very wise once said, people make history - but people do not make history in vacuum - people make history within the conditions and limitations they inherited from their processors.

On this - both programmatically and epistemologically - I believe and advocate for an Asian decade of shifting attention of the international climate movement towards Asia where the majority of the problem, as well as the potential of and momentum for solutions at scale could be found.

Asia emits more than half of the world’s carbon emissions but we are getting less than 20% of the international climate philanthropy resources to address the challenges. While as 80% of the resources go to economies that now composed of 20% of the emission.

The Asia Decade calls for not only rightsizing the recourses needed to fundamentally address the challenges of poly crisis in the region where it really matter maters, more importantly, it invites all of us change makers from Asia to inherit, break free, overcome (Aufheben), and go beyond the eurocentrism of universalizing western perspectives and methodologies and treating Asia as an object - an object to apply knowledge and analysis, to police and to manage. Asia itself should be a methodology for us to imagine a new world - from the ruins of the old one with 500 years and more of colonialization of our land, people and mind.

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I live in beautiful Goa in India, where I moved at the beginning of 2024 after living most of my life in big cities. I find most peace and tranquility in nature, as near the water as possible. My 5 year old niece Mirai is at the centre of my happiness universe, very closely surrounded by the rest my family. I enjoy travelling, swimming, everything underwater related, and geeking out on DuoLingo learning languages in my free time!

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LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shehzia-lilani-30b1656/

Email - shehzia@climate-talent.org

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I have been part of the Presencing Institute faculty and community of practitioners for the last seven years and using Theory U for the last 15 years.

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Learning to host Collective Trauma Integration Processes with Thomas Huebl through the Collective Trauma Facilitation Training.

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... Deep Relaxation, as practiced in the Plum Village tradition. This is the one I use the most https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKClq7FHExc

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15-Minute Guided Body Scan Meditation | With Sister True Dedication

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A segment of Camino de Santiago, through Central Switzerland. 

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I’m from Northeast China, in the bioregion known as the Northeast Asian forest and grassland — freezing winters, and a kind of hot-blooded energy. I currently live in London, feeling both the tensions and possibilities between East and West, and trying to embody reconciliation from within.

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I’ve recently fallen in love with gardening — connecting with the land, growing vegetables and wildflowers, and feeling that I’m a part of this ecosystem, contributing in a small but meaningful way to its health.

Although I won’t be there in person for the retreat, I can already feel the entangled energy and my best wishes. I’m deeply willing to co-hold and co-weave the future with all of you.

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Sorry that I am not active on any social media. Happy to connect:

whatsapp: +44 7895885572

wechat:fayelu

email:faye.mingyi@gmail.com

linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faye-mingyi-lu/

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750 million+ members | Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights and opportunities.

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This is the flagship space that I founded in Bangkok, it's cultural & civic hub.

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is a new cultural and civic hub established by Creative Migration, a women-of-color-led, international arts organization based in Los Angeles and Bangkok. Our mission is to bring together cultural and climate diplomacy with a special focus on collaborative community building through intersectional practices.

Bangkok 1899 opened its doors in 2019 with founding support from the Ford Philanthropy and The Rockefeller Foundation.

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Bangkok 1899 is a cultural and civic hub established by Creative Migration, a women-of-color-led, international arts organization based in Los Angeles and Bangkok. Our mission is to bring together cultural and climate diplomacy with a special focus on collaborative community building through intersectional practices.

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I just came back from speaking at the the 10th World Summit on Arts and Culture in Seoul. I was the only person speaking from Thailand and we had one of the only sessions focused on culture and climate: "Shaping Tomorrow: Actions Today – Culture’s Critical Role in Climate Action
and Sustainability"

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What I can talk about all day - hit me up if this is your jam too!

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What I can talk about all day - hit me up if this is your jam too!

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The joys and pains of constant learning, meditation, spirituality, the inner lives of change agents, feminist organizing, adaptive leadership, women's leadership, the need to bring a global south lens to global conversations on change, south south solidarity, BIPOC solidarity.

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Most photogenic member of my family ... 

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Most photogenic member of my family ... 

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This is with my wife Clare down on our land. We have 83 acres of grassy woodlands and are co-creating a space to hold for-purpose events. We call it Nugget and Brumby's. Over the last year we have sourced old farm buildings and lots of recycled materials and begun building the first structures. This is our shed that we built with our boy Yan. It is made from reclaimed hardwoods and tin. It tells a story. We love it.

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And because founders build organizations that reflect their core, this is CSIDC - 

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And because founders build organizations that reflect their core, this is CSIDC - 

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Center for Social Innovation in Developing Countries (CSIDC) is a women-led organization in Pakistan with a global reach.

At its core is a radical premise: those most affected by injustice must be the ones to shape its undoing. Social change initiatives are not built for communities — they are built with them, led by them, and accountable to them. Women are central to this mission.

CSIDC designs immersive spaces where movement leaders step out of urgency to pause, strategize, and return with renewed purpose and clarity. In these spaces, campaigners strengthen their practice of leadership and organizing in ways that are strategic, reflective, and sustainable.

Our political education draws from the organizing tradition I taught at Harvard — from Marshall Ganz’s storytelling and strategy to Heifetz’s frameworks for leading through uncertainty — and reimagines them for movements led by those at the margins.

We seek to bring a Global South lens to global conversations on how change is built — not through dominance, but drawing upon the resources of our people, spirits, lands and histories, and through dialogue and collaborative action.

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culture diplomacy + climate action

serial entrepreneur/curator

intercontinental

wilderness sports

Thai/US citizen

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Love the Irish philosopher and poet the late John O'Donohue. Listening to David Whyte poems. And always return to Tara Brach for guidance and wisdom

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Hello, my name is Geo. That's me and Kenma in the photo. She's taught me so much about living! Constantly reminding me that it's ok to be unapologetically myself. And whatever my mood, whatever the results of my pursuits, I'm all right.

Injustice makes me angry. And compassion makes my heart swell. I do what i do in part because of these.

I love where I work because we strive to honor people's agency and leadership and talent in fighting for climate justice. I've deeply enjoyed learning about Sabah through this work.

Mindfulness practice - prayer, sitting meditation, a lot of journaling. It's always found me even if I'm in and out of awareness. I enjoyed reading your intros and love the references - I've also turned to Tara Brach for a saving grace and once joined a local Plum Village sangha. Anyone in the group practicing qi gong? Or maybe an occasional examen? :)

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I only feel whole in nature. I love being submerged in the waves surfing or walking/running every day through the wetlands and woods next to my house. Coming from an activist background what drives me is social justice and the believe that people power can bring about change. My passion is bringing people together to co-create ideas, empathise and build deep relationships. My family means everything to me.

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I work with wealth and resource holders in three ways:

Connect deeply into the self through integral coaching modalities, retreats including spiritual retreats, coaching circles and more

Develop intentional learning agendas and evidence that shifts power in philanthropy to empower everyone.

Actively advice families and wealth holders in the global Majority to develop intentional people and community centric. funding interventions for whole ecosystem resilience, systems change, power shifts in the global majority

I firmly work in networks and collaboratives in the global Majority from Latin America, Africa and Asia

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http://linkedin.com/in/sumitra-pasupathy-56291

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750 million+ members | Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights and opportunities.

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Hi! This is Arjav - आर्जव

I'm happy to be a coach and facilitator, which is so different from the past (and almost forgotten) chapters of my life - technologist, researcher, consultant.

The direct and simple way has always made sense to me (it helps that my name means "straightforward" in Sanskrit) so I'm an advocate of this approach.

I would call myself a seeker of balance, integration, variety and humour (see photo - the expression is not uncommon :)). I seem to find them in yoga and the arts, and would love to bring them more into coaching and facilitation so that they are as playful as serious.

Looking forward to spending time with all of you!

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Hi this is Songqiao!

Two weeks ago, with a group of regenerative practitioners from around Asia, our feet got sucked into the rice paddy fields, and we collected snails that got fed to ducks!

Snails are symbols of laziness and ignorance in the Buddhist context so you can say we were being disciplined in self development. However, snails are also wonderful reminders to go slow and gentle, to be vulnerable and soft, and always carry the spiral home with us :)

That’s how I feel the two sides of me, I’m both trying to enjoy our beautiful adventure of life slowly, while trying to catch myself in various ways that I can do better!

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/sze-ping-lo-6266045a?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

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750 million+ members | Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights and opportunities.

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Born in Hong Kong, grew up in Brisbane, spent a decade in London, another in Amsterdam and nearly another in Bangkok. I like to make and do things, am a believer in craftivism as a form of empowerment and love fixing things. none-exhaustive list of things i also love: jumping on my bike (esp when it involves a lot of rolling down hills), all things about food, coffee rituals and growing stuff.

Work: I studied fine arts and then Graphic design just when computers were coming online and managed to surf the wave of web and interactive design working in agencies and eventually balancing out the commercial work with "doing good" by Greenpeace freelancing and then working with the international office full time. I joined Greenpeace Southeast Asia with my creative hat on, but soon found the problem solving aspect of design (the bit that i really love) could be utilised in other ways. It's especially handy when facilitating, there's always problems to be solved & that's where i get my energy from :) Currently answering to engagement director and interim programme co-director

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750 million+ members | Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights and opportunities.

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Hi! My name is Varun. I live in an apartment by the sea in Goa (India) with my wife Nayantara and our dog Bear. Home is a transient concept for me but it generally resembles where they are!

A little about me: I'm deeply curious about people and society and what drives or influences the way we make decisions and meaning. Through this, I have found my sense of meaning in work and in community – both professionally and personally – and I like to measure my progress by how much I'm able to learn and unlearn and relearn everyday. I find balance somewhere between critical thinking and compassion and I admire those who can bring both adaptiveness and playfulness into their worldview.

In terms of work, I care about listening and sense-making, both as an individual and in the collective, and how this can lead to consensus building and meaningful action towards shared objectives. I'm convinced that there is always some alignment point, and the pursuit of this is what drives me and excites me.

Find me on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varunmukerji/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/varunmukerji/

Whatsapp: +919890259677

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As a trained chemical engineer , business educated turned social innovator turned network weaver . I am a trained Integral Coach for development, and parts of several networks including co-founding philanthropydialogues for the global majority. For the facilitation work amd social innovation SBS ecosystem collaboration with

Active Hope

Theory U

Trauma informed interventions

Co-creative / collaborative actions

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i am fourth generation Malayan of Sri Lankan Tamil origin - Malaya being the reference Singapore and Malaysia. I grew up in West Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur to a family that centered the community and family as a core part of being. My grandmother on my mother side of the family was a community weaver that brought all people(s) together and supported people in need despite her lack of resources and poverty. And she always weaved with deep love, care and seeing everyone as equal and powerful. My father side of the family are 3 generations of caregivers, care workers and health providers. My ancestors were community builders, weavers and givers despite their experience of adversities.

My parents identities were largely shaped by repeated migrations, colonial structures, identity politics, rascism, poverty, hardship from broken family structures and violence. And yet, the qualities of the feminine is deeply entrenched in both sides of my ancestry which values care, the relational and interconnection between humanity. And spirituality and multiple faiths have informed and guided my journey of life.

I was one of the first in my family to participate in tertiary education. And I have been led to live in multiple communities around the world including Asia, wearing different hats and changing constantly.

At the centre of who I am is my beautiful family of my husband and 3 boys who center who I in every moment of life

I experience wholeness in spaces that invite the relational self through the heart, head, body, spirituality , ancestry and deeply connect and interconnects with the whole self, each other, communities, nature and the broader system. I love whole ecosystem developments and in particular weaving and (interconnecting) between people, communities, nature and systems. And a space where everyone is invited to the table to create a shared sense of belonging .