People
Zahra Al-Hilaly
Zahra represents Australia on the UN Women Generation Equality Task Force and works with the Department of Foreign Affairs in France and Mexico to deliver the Generation Equality Forum. Zahra is 21-year-old first generation Australian from Palestine and Iraq, and advocates policy issues on gender equality, equitable representation of migrant and refugee youth within decision making, and refugee rights on local, national, and international levels. She sits on the YWCA Australia Young Women’s Council, is a MYAN Australia National Ambassador, and represents Western Australia Government as the state ambassador for young people. She studies Law and Journalism at the Murdoch University and recognises the fundamental need to ensure that young people, across all intersectional diversities, are centred at the core of decision-making processes. For her work, she was recognised as a finalist for Young Australian Muslim of the Year, 25 Young Women to Watch in International Affairs, and was selected as a global candidate for the World YWCA Global Women’s Leadership Cohort.
Anis Saadah
Anis is the Co-founder & CEO of the Innocircle Initiative, an incubator start-up coop. She is also the Marketing Officer at MyCoop.id and head of Incubator at Indonesian Consortium for Cooperatives Innovation (ICCI). She has a mission to attract young people to join and work in the cooperative sector.
Yoahana Tamara Yunisa
Yohana is the 2nd generation cooperator in her family. In 2015, she joined Keling Kumang Credit Union in Indonesia, established by her father 27 years ago. She has graduated from University of Liverpool, England with majors in Entrepreneurship and since then she has been actively involved in the cooperative. She is experienced data analysis and business plan development. Her experience with cooperatives includes managing the K-52 consumer cooperative, monitoring and evaluating all business units under the Keling Kumang Group, establishing networks and partnership, etc. Currently, she is leading an agriculture project on cacao for cooperative members in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Additionally, she is working with National Federation of People-Based Enterprises Co-operative (INKUR Federation) as an International Relationship staff. Her soft skills have led her to be a good negotiator and a professional who is managing the business with a dynamic working environment. She has also spoken at events in the universities for entrepreneurship.
Yoahana Tamara Yunisa
Balasubramanian (Balu) is the Regional Director for International Cooperative Alliance – Asia and Pacific. He has over 25 years of experience managing international development operations and overseeing multiple country offices. He has worked in India in cooperative development before moving abroad to work on Asian regional concerns for overseas agencies in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. He has worked with the Aga Khan Rural Support Program, ActionAid India, International Development Exchange, and the Asia Foundation.
Emi Do
Emi is a researcher at Tokyo University of Agriculture in the Department of Agricultural Economics. She has worked in the non-profit, agriculture and entrepreneurial sectors in Tokyo. She is also an organizer with the co-operative working group of the INET (Institute for New Economic Thinking) Young Scholars Initiative, a member of the operations team of the platform co-operative Social.Coop and a co-founding member of Unfiltered.coop, a media co-operative featuring marginalized voices in Japan. Before this, she was an urban farmer in Vancouver, Canada and co-founded the first urban agricultural producer co-operative in the region in 2010. She has published several articles on the CSA movement in Canada and the Teikei movement in Japan, with a focus on the urbanization of local food systems.
Moosa Mehar
Meher is an Indian entrepreneur in the social impact space. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of TinkerHub Foundation, an organisation that solves the technology skill gap in India by creating peer learning communities inside campuses. Mehar has led the Government of Kerala’s start-up & innovation activities in northern Kerala before moving to TinkerHub full time. With Kerala Start-up Mission, he was running Start-up Incubator & Accelerator programmes. He was also one of the minds behind Coopathons (Cooperative Hackathons) and partnered with ICA-AP to run the programme for three constitutive versions. He is a mentor from India for the ICA-led Global Cooperative Entrepreneurship Programme and has taken workshops In global cooperative forums like Global Youth forum 2020.
John Hayes
John is a California native now residing in Warsaw, Poland. He is an English teacher, avid traveler, punk musician, and anti-racist activist. John is new in the cooperative movement and wants to help inspire the average working-class person to organize and own their workplace. MyCoolClass is a teacher-owned platform cooperative based in London, UK with international directorship and membership of teachers, tutors, and other educators from all over the world.
Risal Steebel
Risal is active on the Board of Indonesian Youth Cooperative (KOPINDO) and the Indonesian Youth Council (KNPI). He was introduced to the cooperatives in 2009 when he joined the student cooperative at the Islamic State University in Makassar and soon became its Chairman. He conducted a lot of cooperative education activities among students. After graduating, he joined DEKOPIN in the South Sulawesi region, Indonesia as the Chairman of (BKPK) Youth Network and Communication Cooperative.
Tom Ivey
Tom joined DotCoop in 2016 after gaining experience in varied roles, working in entertainment solutions to corporate banking. Tom has always said that joining the cooperative movement has felt like "coming home". Since then, he has worked with organisations across the spectrum of the cooperative economy to raise the profile of co-ops publicly as well as maximising their economic potential. He is a strong believer in harnessing the power of the virtual world to propel the cooperative business model to the forefront.
Anna Aguirre
Ana is co-founder and worker-owner of TAZEBAEZ cooperative (since 2009) which translated from the Basque language means "and why not." It is with that spirit Ana landed in the cooperative world and through learning and experimentation, she knew it was the perfect path for her. She is passionate about worker-owned cooperatives and is one of the co-founders of the Young European Cooperators. She has served in the board since its foundation and was chosen to represent Europe in the International Co-operative Alliance Youth Committee, further broadening her horizons.
Santosh kumar
Santosh is the Director of legislation at the International Cooperative Alliance, Brussels, Europe. Before he was working with ICA-AP from 2010 - 2019 where he served as the Secretary of ICA-AP Committees on Youth Cooperation and Cooperatives in Educational Institutions, and as the Programme Manager of the ICA-EU Partnership on Cooperatives in Development (Coops4Dev). He has contributed to the publication of the 4th Critical Study on cooperative laws and policies in Asia-Pacific, and the 1st ICA-AP study on by laws of primary cooperatives in Asia-Pacific. A qualified lawyer, he has practiced law at the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India. He has also worked with the Supreme Justice Commission, Tibetan Government in Exile to draft the Evidence code meant for Tibetan settlements in India and in top Indian law firms in constitutional law, IPR, and human rights law.
Masayuki Yasui
Masayuki is the Chairperson of the NFUCA Student Committee and is currently enrolled in the Faculty of Education, University of The Ryukyus. He has been actively involved in the coop movement since 2016 after he joined the University of The Ryukyus Coop Student Committee. Before that, he was in charge of Student Committee activities in Kyushu.
Heira Hardiyanti
Heira is a cooperator at the Institute for Indonesian Cooperative Development and Studies, and an educator at IKOPIN where she completed her post-graduation in management study. Currently, she serves as a consultant for the Agency of Cooperative and SMEs in West Java and some institutions. After stepping down from her position as Chairperson of the Women Cooperator committee, she continues her work in women cooperative empowerment and youth movement as a Global Cooperative Entrepreneur (GCE) Mentor. She is a co-founder of mycoolclass.com, a teacher-owned learning platform coop. She is highly skilled in non-profit organization, social enterprise, corporate social responsibility, policy analysis, and youth development and has undertaken numerous international courses.
Navitha Varsha
Navitha is the Co-founder of Karunachal Foundation and Founder of Wetransform. She identifies herself as a free-spirited green entrepreneur, yoga practitioner & trek leader who believes that the most important thing in life is ‘Environment’ which she defines as internal (mind, body, spirit) and external (community). At Karunachal Foundation, she works with youth to make them environmentally conscious citizens. Being a strong advocate of living in harmony with nature and self, she believes that future global citizens owe it to themselves to live more conscious and responsible lives.
Deepak Ramola
Deepak is the Founder and Artistic Director of Project FUEL. A two-time TED Talk speaker & UN Action Plan Executor, he serves as the Kindness Ambassador for UNESCO MGIEP. Forwarding the understanding of life lessons of the women of the Maasai tribe to young girls in Afghanistan and to sex workers of Kamathipura, learnings from earthquake survivors in Nepal to Syrian refugees in Europe, Deepak is a new age storyteller and artist. He and his team of artists have painted the world's first village of life lessons. Deepak's methodology has been recognized as the world's top 100 innovations in education by the Finland-based organization HundrED and has also been adopted by the Education Board of Antwerp in Belgium, Nepal, and Pittsburgh, USA. A celebrated lyricist in Hindi Cinema, his songs have been voiced by Amitabh Bachchan, Farhan Akhtar, Rekha Bhardwaj amongst others. His first collection of Hindi poetry titled Itna Toh Main Samajh Gaya Hoon received the prestigious Young Writer Award in 2020 at Jaipur Literature Festival. His latest book, 50 Toughest Questions of Life, has gone into a reprint two weeks after its release. Read more about him at deepakramola.com.
Suroto
Suroto is a Cooperative Expert from Indonesia and specialises in developing consumer cooperatives, credit unions and worker’s cooperatives. He is the Chairperson of the National Association of Socio-Economic Cadre (NASSEC), Trisakti Multistakeholder Co-operative, Vice-Chairperson of the National Co-operative for People’s Bussines (NCPB)/ INKUR Federation, and the founder of the Indonesian Co-op Party. He has established the Institute for Co-operative Research and Development ( LePPeK ) and has been its Chairperson since 2003. He was also the Chairperson of the Institue for Indonesian Co-operative Development Studies ( LSP2I ) from 2010 – 2013. He has been a member of the ICA-AP Committee on Youth in the past.
Alistair Nicholas Rodrigues
Alistair is the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Karunachal Foundation. As a firm believer in the spirit of ‘Community’, which defines as a space of self-sufficiency where its members share resources and are there for one another, he feels this must be inculcated at a young age. Being a footballer and entrepreneur, he strongly believes that sports shape an individual’s personality and plays a key role in one’s physical and mental health. He works with children and youth to help them create safe spaces for themselves.
DR. MOHD. AZLAN YAHYA
Dr. Azlan is the Vice-President of the National Cooperative Movement of Malaysia (ANGKASA). He also serves as the Chairperson of the ICA-AP Committee of Cooperatives in Educational Institution. He has held various leadership positions in the fields of Business Management, Cooperatives and Entrepreneurship.
Dhanaj KM
Since 2018, Dhanaj has been a part of the Kerala Start-up Mission’s (KSUM) Operations Team. He Leads the Accelerator programs’ vertical and engages with Corporates & Partner Organisations to design & run Accelerators for start-ups in Scaleup/ Revenue stage. Before this, he has worked with BAIF Development Research Foundation, where he helped the rural community to adapt technology to enhance their standard of living and quality of life. He is always fascinated by new ideas and therefore, the career switch to KSUM was a conscious choice to work with young entrepreneurs and start-ups.
Annielen L. Panerio
Annielen is the General Manager of Camsur Multi-Purpose Cooperative in Philippines and manages all business operations of the cooperative. She is also an accredited trainer of Cooperative Development Authority, Agricultural Training Institute, Department of Agrarian Reform and Department of Agriculture.
Cécile Berranger
Cécile Berranger is a socio-economic researcher at Aroundtheworld.coop, Roma Tre University and Arco Research Centre. She is completing her PhD at the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School focusing on the role of cooperatives in recreating urban places in Rochdale. Her main research interests include cooperatives, responsible investment in agriculture, local development and placemaking.
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