Two Conference Keynote Speakers Named

  • August 9th, 2011

    A top-flight program is being lined up for The Kirwan Institute’s upcoming conference, Transforming Race: Visions of Change, to be held March 15-17, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio. Van Jones will keynote the welcome reception on the evening of Thursday, March 15 and Vandana Shiva will lead another keynote session.

    Van Jones is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean-energy economy, senior fellow at the Center For American Progress, best-selling author, and former green jobs advisor in the Obama White House.

    Vandana Shiva is founder of the gender unit at the International Centre for Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, India, and founding Board Member of the Women Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO). Dr. Shiva chairs the Commission on the Future of Food set up by the Region of Tuscany and is a member of the Scientific Committee which advises President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain. Time magazine identified Dr. Shiva as an environmental “hero” in 2003 and Asia Week has called her one of the five most powerful communicators of Asia.