Key HNP Members

MINI bios

Connie Nielsen is an actor (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001567/) and the founder of Human Needs Project. Connie Nielsen has starred in films on both sides of the Atlantic, such as Gladiator, Mission to Mars, Devil’s Advocate, The Hunted, One Hour Photo, Demonlover and Brothers to name a few. In April 2010, Connie Nielsen went to Nairobi, Kenya to shoot a film, Lost in Africa, major parts of which take place in the slum of Kibera. While touring the slum, Ms. Nielsen was surprised to find that hundreds of thousands of people living in the center of a modern city like Nairobi had no access to water and were spending large amounts of time and money to obtain water that did not provide them any guarantees of quality. In fact, the water is often a source of serious diseases, which further add to a host of problems the desperately poor residents have to deal with. She decided to build a self-sustaining well with water-based services there and teamed up with David Warner to create Human Needs Project.

David Warner is the co-founder of HNP, and the CEO of Redhorse Constructors, a Bay Area-based Sustainable Construction firm. For the past twenty years, Redhorse has performed general building construction contracts throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area with emphasis in site work, reinforced concrete foundations, seismic strengthening of existing structures, new custom Single Family Dwellings, high end, complex house renovations, and commercial-scale projects.

Redhorse Constructors actively pursues contributing to the built environment through “green” measures.  Several projects constructed by Redhorse have sought to achieve conventional building practices through sustainable materials, methods, and strategies.  Often driven by the client’s interest, successful green projects combine new systems and product experimentation with challenging “everyday” use requirements.

Redhorse’s dedication to these ideals produces buildings that blend the natural and built environment, substantially reducing resource and energy use while providing a sustainable residential development model.

David Warner is also a member of the Advisory Board of College of Natural Resources at the University of California at Berkeley.

Daniel Kammen is the Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds appointments in the Energy and Resources Group, the Goldman School of Public Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering. Kammen is the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) and the co-Director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment.  Kammen is the Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center.  Kammen received his undergraduate (Cornell A., B. ’84) and graduate (Harvard M. A. ’86, Ph.D. ’88) training is in physics. After postdoctoral work at Caltech and Harvard, Kammen was professor and Chair of the Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at Princeton University in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs from 1993 – 1998.  He then moved to the University of California, Berkeley. 

Daniel Kammen is a coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.  He hosted the Discovery Channel series ‘Ecopolis, and had appeared on NOVA, and on ’60 Minutes’ twice.

In April 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named Daniel Kammen of the University of California, Berkeley, a Senior Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) Fellow to advise our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere on clean energy issues.

Daniel Kammen is now the Clean Energy ‘Czar’ at the World Bank.

Jim Wunderman President & Chief Executive Officer, Bay Area Council, a business-backed public policy organization in the San Francisco-Oakland-Silicon Valley Bay Area.  Led by its CEO and members, the Bay Area Council is

the strong, united voice of more than 275 of the largest Bay Area employers, representing more than 500,000 workers, or one of every six private sector employees.  Since becoming CEO in 2004, Wunderman has led the 64-year-old public policy organization to become one of the most influential, effective institutions of its kind. Under Wunderman’s leadership, the Council has grown significantly in membership, revenue and profile, and has developed a global competitiveness strategy for the Bay Area that serves as a model for other regions.  Some of the core elements of the global competitiveness strategy are to develop world-class infrastructure, a second-to-none education system, and to enact a smart growth plan that will stand in an era of climate change and economic pressures. Wunderman has also helped the Council develop deep and collaborative relationships with leaders in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento.Prior to the Bay Area Council, Wunderman held key positions in both the private and public sectors.

Kenneth Kao Lecturer in Architecture, Department of Architecture, Harvard, and CEO of Kao Design

For over 20 years, Dr. Kao has researched and taught topics on Building Technology, Innovation, and Sustainability at Harvard Graduate School of Design (HGSD). Kao offered courses in Net Zero Energy Development, Emerging Green Technologies, Building Construction Materials & Methods, Computer Aided Design, Engineering, and Manufacturing, Architectural Component Prototype, Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern architects’ building experiments. Kao advised Doctoral students’ technology research, served as Masters’ thesis design advisor and on the admissions committee, and collaborated on curriculum development with the building technology group.

Kao co-authored Digital Design and Manufacture: CAD/CAM in Architecture and Design, book published by Wiley Press, wrote “Frank Lloyd Wright: Experiments in the Art of Building.” Kao’s research and designs have been published in Modulus, SPACE-Art & Architecture, and Arts & the Islamic World. 

Kao has also taught at ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served as guest design critic at Yale University, Architectural Association in London, and lectured at Tufts University, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Rhode Island School of Design.

Founded in 1995, Kao Design Group's recent projects include numerous environmentally sensitive site planning and residential projects in California, New England, British Virgin Islands; an Environmental Education Museum in

DC, Modular exhibition pavilions. The studio has undertaken research in building components. They won the group award for Harvard's Vision of Sustainability competition. Kao joined Sim Van Der Ryn in an Eco Design Collaborative to develop Green Campus Design and master plan Guideline for College of Marin, and other environmentally sensitive design initiatives.

Jonathan Kaplan, the entrepreneurial founder of Flip Video, has launched a new venture called The Melt - A new fast casual restaurant business that combines technology with simple, irresistible cuisine for a fun, memorable dining experience. The Melt will specialize in high-quality grilled cheese sandwiches and seasonally fresh soups.Prior to starting The Melt, Kaplan served as senior vice president and general manager of the Cisco Consumer Business Group after his former company, Pure Digital Technologies, was acquired in 2009. As CEO, Chairperson and Founder of Pure Digital Technologies, Kaplan invented the wildly popular Flip Video camcorder line. The industry-changing impact of the Flip Video family was noted by Business Week, as it featured Kaplan as one of the Most Influential People on the Web for 2008.

Previously, he founded FamilyWonder, a leading children’s entertainment venture which was sold to SEGA of Japan in 2001. Before that he served as a vice president and the publisher of Geoworks, where he was responsible for the creation and leadership of a wireless software development group targeting the international cellular markets. Kaplan began his career in publishing at Conde Nast Publication in New york City where he also taught as an adjunct professor at New York University.

Kaplan sits on the board of director for several Bay Area technology companies and non-profit organizations and holds a bachelor’s of science degree in industrial management from Carnegie Mellon University.

John Todd In 1989 Dr. John Todd, an internationally recognized inventor and a pioneer in the design and construction of ecological wastewater treatment systems, decided it was time to offer a cost-effective, renewable or what is now commonly referred to as “green” solution to the growing global wastewater crisis.

The company Dr. Todd founded, John Todd Ecological Design, has constructed dozens of Eco-Machine wastewater treatment systems based on Dr. Todd’s visionary ecological philosophy and award-winning practical designs in eleven countries on five continents around the world.

Today, headed by Jonathan Todd, John Todd Ecological Design commercializes Dr. Todd’s discoveries with an approach that is well suited for reuse applications in municipal and a variety of commercial wastewater environments including commercial residential designs. Many of our installed systems are zero discharge systems; all the treated water is reused on site.

Joyce Oneko, Lawyer, Kenya, West Arica, is a founding member of the Mama & Dada Management Project (MADAM), a community-based initiative based in a small rural lakeside village on the shores of Lake Victoria in the Nyanza Province of Kenya. The project is geared toward HIV/AIDS prevention, awareness creation and care and support interventions. It assists in empowering girls and young women to gain mental and financial independence through education.

Joyce Oneko left a lucrative law practice after twenty five years when she lost her only son in a road accident. Born in 1953 in Kisumu, Kenya, Joyce went to a local school before leaving her village to attend a girl's high school on scholarship. Later she studied Sociology and obtained a law degree. Joyce believes that there can be no lasting improvement in the lives of women if girls are not given the opportunity to acMama Na Dada was established in 1998 by two African women who believe that there can be no improvement in the lives of women, if girls are not given the right tools and opportunity to achieve their true potential. Through their work and their own personal experiences, the two women noticed that most girls are discriminated against

from the earliest stages of their lives, through childhood and into adulthood. This makes the Girl / Child more susceptible to violence, especially of a sexual nature, such as rape, sexual attacks, sexual exploitation and trafficking. As a result these girls suffer from little or no self-esteem, poor school performance and early school drop out.hieve their true potential. She co-created Mama Na Dada in 1998 to address these potentials.

Joyce holds a law degree from the University of Wolverhampton, England, and a Diploma in Counselling. She has been practising law in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, but left the practice at the end of September, 2001 to concentrate on doing community work with Mama Na Dada.

Norman Hantzsche CEO of Questa Engineering. Based in Point Richmond, with field offices in Napa Valley and Berkeley, Questa was founded as a California corporation in 1983.  Questa offers complete engineering design and planning services to government and private sector clients in water resource management, water and wastewater treatment, public works, resource conservation, trail and park public access, bicycle and pedestrian pathway design, watershed management, wetlands and stream corridor restoration and habitat enhancement,  landscape architecture, slope and bank stability,  groundwater studies, and toxic/hazardous materials investigation and remediation.  Questa is a pioneer in integrating hydraulic, hydrologic, geomorphic, geological, and geotechnical evaluations to develop comprehensive, creative solutions.

Andy Barkett After earning a BA in Political Economy from UC Berkeley, Andy has split his time between private and public endeavors.  In addition to working at Google and now managing engineering teams at Facebook, Andy has worked at two successful venture backed startups and collaborated with classmates from the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, where he earned his MBA, on a venture called Greenlight Apparel, which provides apparel produced in an environmentally and socially responsible manner to the organizers of races and other events.

His passion for social issues also extends to education, and Andy has volunteered at schools, supported school board candidates, and served on the founding board of directors for Oakland Collegiate, a group exploring charter school options for underprivileged neighborhoods in Oakland, CA. Andy is currently helping to bring together academics, entrepreneurs, and others to provide business and operational planning for the Human Needs Project. 

Dan Prull is the Energy Director at Redhorse Constructors. He is also Energy System Design Consultant, Moskito Island (Renewables & Environment industry) and responsible for the complete design of a new renewable energy system for Moskito Island in the British Virgin Is. (BVI) - incorporating energy storage, distributed generation sources (e.g. wind, solar and diesel) along with multiple levels of redundancy and control to ensure seamless and autonomous operation. Dan was earlier also employed as Chief Technical Officer at Virgin Renew - Hand selected by Sir Richard Branson to Co-Found Virgin Renew, as a founding team member, responsible for leading development of the Virgin Group’s entry into renewable energy services. Responsible for design and implementation of company strategy and supporting business plan as well as the creation of appropriate reporting mechanisms to measure the success of the business.

Education: University of California, Berkeley Ph.D. , Mechanical Engineering with a Designated Emphasis in Energy Science and Technology , 2005 — 2008 Researcher - Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab (RAEL): dissertation research was done at the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab under the guidance of his adviser, Daniel Kammen. During his tenure at RAEL, Dan contributed to numerous renewable energy projects; from evaluating tethered wind and plug-in hybrid vehicle technologies to GIS resource assessments to designing industrial-scale energy systems. Most notably, his doctoral research focused on the design, integration and control issues associated with micro-grids. This research gave him valuable real-world experience working with energy integration and installation issues as well as in evaluating the cost-effectiveness of different distributed generation and storage technologies. University of California, Berkeley, M.S. , Mechanical Engineering , 2003 — 2005, Researcher - Vehicle Dynamics and Control Lab. University of Colorado at Boulder, B.S. , Mechanical Engineering , 1998 — 2003