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Tom Szaky – King of Trash Thursday, September 24 • 7:30pm • Rozsa Center Tom Szaky is co-founder and CEO of TerraCycle, Inc., producer of the world’s first products made from, and packaged in, waste. TerraCycle has been named the producer of the most eco-friendly brands in America, received the Home Depot Environmental Stewardship Award twice, been featured in Wal-Mart’s sustainability report, and been repeatedly named the ultimate eco-friendly brand. TerraCycle has been featured in virtually every major media outlet from “60 Minutes” to the Wall Street Journal (5 times). TerraCycle is on its way to redefining the definition of waste on a grand scale – all while sustaining sales growth of over 100% per year for the past five years! This lecture is co-sponsored by CenTILE, School of Business and Economics, Michigan Tech. |
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Loung Ung – author and activist First, They Killed My Father Monday, November 9 • 7:30pm • Rozsa Center Loung was born in 1970 to a middle-class family in Phnom Penh. Five years later, her family was forced out in a mass evacuation to the countryside. By 1978, the Khmer Rouge had killed Loung’s parents and two of her siblings and she was forced to train as a child soldier. In 1980, she and her older brother escaped by boat to Thailand, where they spent five months in a refugee camp. Fifteen years after her escape, Loung returned to Cambodia and was shocked and saddened to learn that twenty more of her relatives had been killed. This compelled her to devote herself to seeking justice and reconciliation in her homeland. The continuing destruction caused by the millions of landmines that still litter the countryside of Cambodia led Loung to spread the word about the dangers of these horrendous, indiscriminate weapons. |
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Robert Nemiroff – APOD co-founder Thursday, January 14 • 7:30pm • Rozsa Center Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is originated, written, coordinated, and edited since 1995 by Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell. The APOD archive contains the largest collection of annotated astronomical images on the internet. In real life, Bob and Jerry are two professional astronomers who spend most of their time researching the universe. Bob is a professor at Michigan Technological University, while Jerry is a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland USA. Each might appear relatively normal to an unsuspecting guest. Together, they have found new and unusual ways of annoying people such as staging astronomical debates. Most people are surprised to learn that they have developed the perfect random number generator. |
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Boukman Eksperyans – Haitian Voodoo Rock Saturday, February 27 • 5:30pm • Rozsa Center Boukman Eksperyans became Haiti’s leading advocates for social reform in 1990 when they released the song “Ke-m Pa Sote,” which dealt with the horrendous living conditions in Haiti as a product of the oppressive government. The message resonated with other Haitians and was rapidly incorporated into the repertoires of other Haitian bands. Their 1992 album, Kalfou Danjere/Dangerous Crossroads, was met with death threats, phone taps, and a radio ban by the military authorities due to its violent nature. Boukman Eksperyans’ musicality and political courage has made them the most popular roots band in Haiti. The band continued its tradition of supporting socially important projects when it launched the 2006 Solidarity Tour to support the University of Fondwa 2004 (UNIF), Haiti’s first rural university. The University of Fondwa, seated in the mountains south of Port au Prince, opened in 2004 to train the sons and daughters of peasants from all over the country to become leaders in the sustainable development of their own communities. |
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Majora Carter – Greening the Ghetto Saturday, March 20 • 7:30pm • Rozsa Center Majora Carter simultaneously addresses public health, poverty alleviation, and climate change as one of the nation’s pioneers in successful green-collar job training and placement systems. She founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001 to achieve environmental justice through economically sustainable projects informed by community needs. Her work has garnered numerous awards and accolades including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, one of Essence Magazine’s 25 Most Influential African-Americans in 2007, and one of the NY Post’s Most Influential NYC Women for the past two years. She is a board member of the Wilderness Society, SJF, and CERES; and hosts a special national public radio series called “The Promised Land” (thepromisedland.org). Her work now includes advising cities, foundations, universities, businesses, and communities around the world on unlocking their green-collar economic potential to benefit everyone as President of the Majora Carter Group, LLC. |
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