Global Leadership Council | Meet the 2012 GLC Members

April Kyle (San Francisco, California, USA): April Kyle is the co-organizer of the San Francisco NetSquared Local group. April originally hails from Texas where she was co-organizer of the Houston NetSquared Local group. She is passionate about technology and works for Tendenci, a company who has built a platform for association websites. Her other interests include reading, running, and volunteering. April is involved with several groups in the San Francisco area in addition to her work with NetSquared Local. Her favorite animal (aside from her dog!) is a red panda.

Aseem Thakur (Singapore): Aseem has been the organizer of Singapore NetSquared group since last year. He is a social entrepreneur with track record of implementing innovative solutions in the digital fundraising space for non-profit sector in Asia. He is the co-founder of www.GIVE.sg which is Singapore's leading peer-to-peer charity fundraising website that was started on the belief that more people can be engaged into philanthropy by making giving fun and social. GIVE.sg has been very successful in amplifying funds raised for many charities. Passionate about using social media for good, Aseem enjoys working with non-profit groups to develop innovative ways to rally public support in solving some of the world's most pressing social challenges.

Aysegul Guzel (Istanbul, Turkey): Aysegul is co-organizer of Net2Ist, the NetSquared Local group in Istanbul. Aysegul Guzel is a dreamer, thinker, listener, action taker, social entrepreneur, strategic, and innovation consultant. She moved from Barcelona to Istanbul, to launch her new entrepreneurial venture, an innovative sharing platform which uses time banking and social media, and kicked off Net2Ist upon her arrival. She is also working on a research project to discover opportunities to provide economic and social development in Turkey.

Eduardo Bejar (Guayaquil, Ecuador): Eduardo Bejar is the director of Fundapi.org, an Ecuadorian nonprofit organization working with technology projects for social change since 2001. His background is based in computer information systems engineering, Internet and public policies, e-government, and citizen participation. He has been involved with Techsoup Global since 2007, when his project Yankana was selected as one of the 21 featured projects for the N2Y2 NetSquared Conference. Later he started the NetSquared Local group in Guayaquil, Ecuador, which was the first Net Tuesday event outside the US. He has also been involved with a few TechSoup projects and currently is doing a research with organizations in Latin America about technologies in the social sector.

Eli van der Giessen (Vancouver, Canada): Eli has been coordinating Net Tuesday meetups in Vancouver since June 2009 and organized a NetSquared Camp unconference in August 2010. So consider him a fan of NetSquared Local! During the day he’s the Creative Services Lead at the David Suzuki Foundation, where he leads the online acquisition and outreach work that has helped the Foundation create an online constituency. Eli also uses his experience in event production and volunteer management to connect web innovators with nonprofit campaigners to assist them with learning from each other.

Ivan Boothe (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA): Ivan is the Creative Director of Rootwork.org, working with nonprofits and social change groups in website development and online advocacy. He is the Online Communications Associate at the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a community organizer with Casino-Free Philadelphia, and co-founded the Genocide Intervention Network. Ivan co-facilitates Philadelphia NetSquared, and has been active in NetSquared Local groups in both in Philadelphia, PA and Washington, D.C. since 2006.

Maria Zaghi (Guatemala City, Guatemala): Maria has 20 years of experience in the implementation of projects and entrepreneurial efforts related to ICTs in Latin America. She has been the leader for several ICT agendas in Guatemala including the e-Guatemala strategy as a researcher of the Information Committee in the National Science Council. She is also part of the National E-commerce, Information Society Commission of Guatemala, and a collaborator with the Innovation and Competitive Agenda. Maria has an MBA degree from the University of Maryland in College Park with a specialization in MIS. Presently, she is in charge of business development for Campus TEC, the first technology park in the Central American region with over 100 companies in the ICT.

Steven Flower (Manchester, UK): Steven has been the organizer of the Manchester Net Squared since December 2009.  Recently, the Local group has started to undertake more outreach with local non-profits via "social media surgeries", and have exciting plans in the works for 2012.  Steven looks forward to networking with other NetSquared Local organizers, building upon existing ideas and developing new ones, and collaborating with the network at-large.

Tierney Smith (Toronto, Canada): Tierney is the Community Manager at TechSoup Canada where she works to build technology capacity in the nonprofit sector, and the NetSquared Local organizer for Toronto. She has experience developing software in the corporate sector and has a degree in Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo.