Planetwork Bios

Jim Fournier - Cofounder
Has worked as an industrial designer, entrepreneur, software developer, systems analyst and industrial ecologist. For the last several years he has focused on initiatives to create new Internet software and identity protocols to better inter-connect a global network of people and organizations who share ecological and social justice values. He is currently founding a startup company Biomass Energy & Carbon, which offers a fundamental technology breakthrough for reversing climate change by producing sustainable energy and charcol from biomass. When buried in the soil biochar becomes a restorative high-carbon fertilizer that increases soil fertility and water retention while actually taking net carbon out of the air.

At twenty three he founded his first company, JLF Designs, which rapidly grew into a premier line of international high-design consumer products, selling in the finest stores throughout the world in the 1980's and winning numerous design awards, including Accent, ID, IDSA and Axis in Japan. His product design work, and love of geometry, led him into computer aided design, then modeling and animation, and ultimately to developing 3D modeling software as a geometry partner with Silicon Graphics in the early 90's. Before retiring from the business world in 1995 to focus full time on global sustainability and the evolution of consciousness, Fournier also served as the ecology editor for the Industrial Design Society of America where he was an early advocate of industrial ecology.

In addition to BEC he is currently working on his doctoral dissertation re-framing the evolution of technology in the context of biological evolution, entitled Meta-Nature. Fournier did undergraduate work in architecture, physics and chemistry at Bennington College and went on to study architecture at MIT. He currently serves on the board of Planetwork, Channel G and the Parapsychology Research Group, and on the advisory boards of numerous organizations including, Highfield Foundation, Meru Foundation, Buckminster Fuller Institute, Peoples World, ManyOne Networks and SF Greenmaps.

Elizabeth Thompson - Cofounder
Has been a pioneer in the New York and San Francisco art and culture scenes for over 15 years. Her work has centered on the creation, dissemination and synthesis of leading edge ideas, people, and networks of communities across disciplinary boundaries and media platforms including the worlds of information technology, sustainability, global change activism, digital media, art, architecture and design.

Prior to founding Planetwork in 1998, Elizabeth survived a prolonged immersive experience in conceptual art as Director of the internationally acclaimed John Gibson Gallery in New York (1986-1993), and as a founding member of the Obie Award-winning experimental theater company: Cucaracha Warehouse Theatre, where she worked as both a performing artist and creator/producer of their renowned Summer Performance Art series (1987-1995). While with John Gibson Gallery, she designed and produced exhibitions in New York and throughout Europe including Basel, Frankfurt, Cologne, Zurich, Geneva and Paris. Immediately prior to fleeing the hyper post-modern New York art world for California’s utopian highways, she managed the studio of the renowned political artists, Leon Golub and Nancy Spero. (1994-1996).

Elizabeth is spearheading the launch of a new Planetwork initiative: The Planetwork Journal serving as the co-editor along with digital media scholar, Ken Jordan. In addition, Elizabeth currently serves as acting Director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, working closely with BFI’s Board President to re-conceive a strategic vision, design new programs, create a new organizational structure, and move the Institute’s administrative hub to New York. She sits on the Advisory boards of several art & culture organizations including, Guggenheim Public at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; Camino De Paz, New York; Link Tank, San Francisco; the Venture Collective, San Francisco and Fourth Door Review a U.K. based ecology and culture journal. Elizabeth writes and lectures frequently about the intersection of art/ecology/digital culture & planetary citizenship.

Kaliya Hamlin - Network Director
Has been an active member of the Planetwork community for three years. She brings her natural networking and community bridge-building capacity to this work. Last year she began starting Planetwork chapters in other cities and this year stepped up and became Network Director.

In 2003 Identity Commons hired Kaliya to evangelize on its behalf in multiple communities, partly because she was doing it already. Kaliya's persona as Identity Woman emerged in January 2004 as she continued to participate in the larger Identity 2.0 and "meta identity system" discussions. Currently, she works on behalf of the whole identity ecosystem, helping develop XRI/XDI and servers as an advisor for several companies on user-centric identity.

An active member of the Drupal open source community, she co-founded and co-directs a social enterprise (earned-income nonprofit) called Integrative Activism, which builds Drupal sites for values-based communities.

Kaliya came to the Bay Area from Vancouver, Canada to study at UC Berkeley, where she graduated with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies focusing on Political Economy and Human Rights. She also minored in Demography and Environmental Science Policy Management. Throughout college Kaliya played on the Canadian National Water Polo Team and won a Gold Medal at the 1999 Pan American Games. Her "inner geek" roots can be traced to winning the regional science fair and making it to the Canada Wide Science Fair in grade 7 and 9.

Michael Mell - WebMaster
Has designed and built web sites for Fortune 500 companies, artists, lawyers, Buddhists and many shades between. He prefers to work in the Open Source LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python). Michael is also involved in developing applications for i-names.