People who have significantly contributed to the vision and activities of the Uplift Academy are given the distinction of becoming Fellows. Founding Fellows are those who participated in the formation of the Academy, and become the selection of future fellows. !!! [Jeffrey Ashe | http://upliftacademy.org/ashe] [http://farm1.static.flickr.com/30/66532811_bdd74d530e_m.jpg] is the Manager of Community Finance at Oxfam America. Prior to coming to Oxfam, Mr. Ashe founded and served as Executive Director of Working Capital, the largest micro enterprise program in the United States. Before Working Capital, Mr. Ashe was Director of the "PISCES Project," the first worldwide investigation of programs reaching the smallest economic activities of the poor. He also served as Senior Associate Director at ACCION International where he assisted in the dissemination of peer group lending throughout Latin America. Mr. Ashe designed, assisted and evaluated microenterprise programs in thirty-five countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe for the World Bank, the Agency for International Development, CIDA, ODA, and many NGO clients. In addition, he developed micro-enterprise projects in Arkansas, North Dakota and Canada. Before his work in the micro-enterprise field, Mr. Ashe directed a nation-wide rapid rural appraisal for the Costa Rican government and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador. Mr. Ashe has published extensively in the micro-enterprise field and is the author of several books and articles on the topic. He also teaches microfinance at Brandeis and Columbia Universities. He holds a BA in Political Science from the University of California, Berkley, and an MA in Sociology from Boston University. !!![David Brin | http://upliftacademy.org/brin] [http://farm1.static.flickr.com/47/134423899_2396aa3ae6_m.jpg] is a scientist, public speaker, and author. Several of his novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. His 1989 ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. A 1998 movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on The Postman. His fifteen novels have been translated into more than twenty languages. Brin's 1998 non-fiction book -- [The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? | http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html ] deals with a wide range of threats and opportunities facing our wired society during the information age. His chief argument, that openness is more effective than secrecy at fostering freedom, sparked controversy and garnered the prestigious Freedom of Speech Prize from the American Library Association. His papers in scientific journals cover an eclectic range of topics from astronautics, astronomy, and optics to alternative dispute resolution and the role of neoteny in human evolution. His Ph.D in Space Physics from the University of California at San Diego followed a masters in optics and an undergraduate degree in astrophysics from Caltech. !!![David Ellerman | http://upliftacademy.org/ellerman] [http://farm1.static.flickr.com/142/383469450_b56422d182_m.jpg] is visiting scholar at UC Riverside, and author of [Helping People Help Themselves: From the World Bank to an Alternative Philosophy of Development Assistance (Evolving Values for a Capitalist World) | http://www.amazon.com/Helping-People-Help-Themselves-Alternative/dp/0472... ] as well as [ Intellectual Trespassing as a Way of Life | http://ellerman.org/Davids-Stuff/Books/Tres%20-TOC.htm]. He works in the fields of economics and political economy, social theory and philosophy, and in mathematics. His undergraduate degree was in philosophy at M.I.T. ('65), and he has Masters degrees in Philosophy of Science ('67) and in Economics ('68), and a doctorate in Mathematics ('71) all from Boston University. He has been in and out of teaching in economics, mathematics, accounting, computer science, and operations research departments in various universities (1970-90), founded and managed a consulting firm in East Europe (1990-2), and worked in the World Bank from 1992 to 2003 where he was an economic advisor to the Chief Economist (Joseph Stiglitz and Nicholas Stern). !!![Tom Munnecke | http://upliftacademy.org/tom] [http://farm1.static.flickr.com/180/383445712_36ad4be62c_m.jpg] is founder of the Uplift Academy, took an early retirement as vice president and chief scientist at a Fortune 500 company in order to look at the intersection of technology and better world activities. During this career, he was one of the lead software architects of two of the largest hospital information systems in the world, the Veterans Administration's VISTA system and the Department of Defense's CHCS system. Starting an "encore career" in 2000, he founded GivingSpace, which changed its name to Uplift Academy in order to broaden its focus to forms of uplift beyond financial giving. He was a 2003 fellow at [Stanford's Digital Visions Program | http://rdvp.org], and is a Senior Fellow at [Civic Ventures | http://civicventures.org]. !!![Heather Wood-Ion | http://upliftacademy.org/woodion] [http://farm1.static.flickr.com/130/383444725_3c936a13c5_m.jpg] is co-founder of the Uplift Academy, is currently executive director of the Goldie Hawn Institute, author of Third Class Ticket, and co-author of Against Terrible Odds: Lessons in Resilience from Our Children.