Daniel Almagor
Founder and former CEO Engineers Without Borders, Australia
Daniel Almagor is the founder and former CEO of Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB) and the Managing Director of Medivax Pty Ltd. He also sits on the Board of the Jewish Museum of Australia. Daniel holds two degrees: a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering and a Bachelor of Business Administration, both from RMIT.
Nic Frances
CEO of Cool nrg, social entrepreneur and author of the 'End of Charity'.
A former English stockbroker, Nic Frances left London at the height of the 1980s boom for Liverpool, where he built the Furniture Resource Centre into a leading social enterprise. In 1998 Nic was awarded an MBE for his services to charity in the UK. Having been ordained as an Anglican priest in 1996, Nic emigrated from the UK to Australia where, he led the Brotherhood of St Laurence, a leader in the fight against poverty, until 2004. In 2003 Nic was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for his contribution to Australian Society.
Nic’s background in charities, coupled with his discussions among political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum, led to him to realise that traditional avenues of charity were unable to cope with the key social problems like poverty and climate change. It was for this reason in 2004 that Nic established the company Easy Being Green to focus on the Australian Market. In early 2007 Nic sold Easy Being Green in order to focus on driving action on poverty and climate change globally.
He founded Coolnrg in 2007, based on the concept of “value centred market economics”. Coolnrg delivers large scale energy efficiency programs that demonstrate the viability of energy efficiency programs as commercial enterprises.
Nic’s strategy was that Coolnrg would prove itself commercially viable across international markets, and different regulatory frameworks, while meeting altruistic aims around increasing Climate Change awareness, and lowering CO2 emissions through reduced energy use.
Nic established Coolnrg by raising capital at a time when energy efficiency programs had not been attempted globally, or at the scale Nic envisaged. Nic also included key staff as equity holders, to closely align the managerial and owners interests. From this chrysalis, Coolnrg has used the turnover from carbon credits generated by successful campaigns to launch subsequent campaigns.
Today, Coolnrg is a commercially viable $400 million company. In just three years, it has educated 55.8 million people and saved 3.1 million tonnes of CO2 . Down the track, Nic intends to use Coolnrg’s profits to establish a Carbon Fund, which will provide capital to foster the growth of other innovative and marketable environmental ideas.
John Liu
Director of the Environmental Education Media Project
John Dennis Liu was born in Nashville Tennessee on January 2, 1953. His father is Chinese, his mother is American and his wife is German. Mr. Liu has been a television news cameraman, producer, and filmmaker for more than 3 decades. Mr. Liu was one of the first American journalists to live and work in the People’s Republic of China, helping to open the CBS Television News Bureau in Beijing at the time of normalization of relations between China and the United States. In the mid-1990’s Mr. Liu founded the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP) initially to help Chinese people to learn more about the environmental consequences of the rapid industrialization that was and is taking place in China.
Over the years the EEMP has taken over 1000 environmental education films to China. The EEMP has expanded to work globally and is working increasingly in many countries around the world. Mr. Liu has also produced numerous films on Ecosystems and human environments including “A Steppe Ahead”,
“Line in the Sand”, “Because They’re Worth It”, “Sink of Surf”, “Beating the Drum Loudly”, “Women of the Gobi”, “The Real Leap Forward”, and “Jane Goodall – China Diary”.
In 1995, Mr. Liu began a long-term research and documentation of the cradle of Chinese civilization in the Loess Plateau that has led to several influential films including “The Lessons of the Loess Plateau” and “Hope in a Changing Climate”. For his efforts Mr. Liu was named the Rothamsted International Fellow for the Communication of Science. Mr. Liu is a PhD candidate at the School of Human and Environmental Sciences at the University of Reading, an Assistant Research Professor at George Mason University and this year was named Senior Research Fellow by the IUCN. Mr. Liu has been increasingly requested to speak publically on his research and since 2005 has spoken more than 200 times for diverse audiences around the world.
Rowan Barber
State Manager at Australian Sustainable Business Group
Rowan would like to save the world, but he can bearly save himself. Rowan Barber, aged 43, lives in the
inner city of Brisbane. Even at the young age of seven, at Sunday school Rowan would sit and listen to the Missionaries explaining about poor people in developing countries.
'I didn't want to go and save them (poor people), I just wanted to give them water to drink and designated places to poo. That's what got me into the profession I am now in,' says Rowan.
At 17, Rowan started studying for his engineering degree (which he never quite completed) and today he is doing the work he always dreamed of doing. Rowan is an advocate for the 2.6 billion people who lack a designated place to poo. His mission is to improve the quality and sustainability of public toilets in Australia & around the world. He also works to improve the status and working conditions for those who clean & maintain public toilets.
'I cannot change the world but water and sanitation can make a world of difference in a community which lacks it,' comments Rowan.
Nick Byrne
Knowledge Manager, EWB
Nick’s EWB journey began in Adelaide, where he was amazed by the inspiring attitudes of EWB volunteers. Nick studied civil & environmental engineering in Adelaide, before moving up to sunny Queensland for work while also completing his masters in International Development. Busy bee!
After relocating to Queensland, Nick quickly found himself making contact with the SEQ Chapter and becoming even more passionate about development. 12 months later, he has left the engineering consulting world to become the newest member of the EWB staff team and help to engineer a better world - hurray!
Nick is based in the QLD office with lovely Amanda and is lucky enough to wake up everyday living by the beach. In his “spare” time, you can find him down the beach rowing surf boats or at the CrossFit box.
Greg Adamson
Dr Greg Adamson is vice-chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Victoria, member of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) Board of Governors, chair of SSIT Australia, and an Honorary Fellow at the Department of Information Systems, University of Melbourne. His research is focused on barriers to uptake for socially beneficial technologies.
Kip Cooper
EWB New Zealand
interest in working in developing countries and was lucky enough to go to Fiji as an aid worker to design and construct a water supply system in the Jungle. Having spent a couple of years watching EWB NZ take shape I wanted to get involved and have recently become the acting President of the Auckland Professionals Chapter.Danidu Wijekoon
EWB New Zealand
Danidu is a Mechanical Engineer from Auckland, New Zealand. Born in Sri Lanka, he was raised and 
educated in both Sri Lanka and New Zealand, which helped create a strong awareness for the issues of sustainability, development and social justice. He also has a passion for art, and cricket.
Judy Hagan
Past EWB Volunteer, Oxfam - Water and Sanitation Expert
Judy emanates from Canberra. This beginning combined with a passion for science fittingly resulted in .jpg "Judy")
her completion of a BSc from the ANU. Judy combined this with Environmental Management qualifications and 8 years of service to the Australian public in the fields of environmental and heritage regulation and management. Working initially across Australia’s airports and its territories of Christmas and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Jervis Bay, Judy proceeded to her water speciality working with the National Water Commission on Australia’s expansive water reform agenda.
In 2007, Judy became an EWB Volunteer in Cambodia. Initially heading over for 6 months, Judy stayed on for over 2 years working with 2 partners. With Resource Development International Cambodia (www.rdic.org), Judy finalised and published the RDIC Ceramic Water Filter Handbook (http://rdic.org/waterceramicfiltration.htm) to form a comprehensive instruction manual for production of these low-cost household drinking water treatment technologies. Judy also established and developed the Tonle Sap Floating Latrine Project in partnership with Live & Learn Environmental Education (www.livelearn.org), which researched, consulted, developed and trialled sanitation options for floating communities of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake. These projects are both ongoing with new EWB volunteers paving the way to further results and outcomes.
After returning to Australia in late 2009, Judy is now based in Melbourne and continuing to explore her passion for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene work with Oxfam Australia.
Le Cao Minh
Deputy Country Director and Chief Financial Officer for Habitat for Humanity Vietnam 
Le Cao Minh has worked in community development for the last ten years, supporting initiatives in housing microfinance; sustainable housing, water and sanitation; land rights; and local government capacity building.
For the last five years he has specifically focussed on the impact of climate change and disaster risk on the economically marginalized. Awarded an Erasmus Mundus scholarship, he attended Heriot-Watt University (UK), Politechnico di Milano (Italy) and Umeå University (Sweden) and earned an MSc in Strategic Project Management in 2008.
He is currently the Deputy Country Director and Chief Financial Officer for Habitat for Humanity Vietnam and would like to extend his thanks to the EWB conference organizers for their support and partnership with HFH Vietnam and its humanitarian engineering work.