Swami Tirtha known as the Hip Gurus Guide has a doctorate in Ayurvedic medicine and over the past 40 years he has written several books including the Amazon #1 bestseller in its category, The Ayurveda Encyclopedia (30,000 copies in print). He has been a monk since 1990. His international speaking has taken him to speak to the White House alternative medicine commission, and several medical colleges including Johns Hopkins. Swamiji was recognized as a monk by his guru in the Himalayas and as a natural born shaman and healer by shamans in the Amazon rainforest. He began his spiritual path as a college freshman in 1972 when he lost his parents in a car accident. That tragic event awoke his search for inner peace. Swamiji’s latest book is The Stress-Free College Student, aimed to help reduce the 80% anxiety/depression and 50% dropout rates among college students. Bryant University’s Pinterest page, ‘Books Worth Reading’ has added his book to their shelf, now sitting beside their list of ’50 Books that Changed the World’. Swamiji blends ancient wellness & consciousness with modern cutting edge EEG brain waves & Heart Rate Variability scanning technology. He offers his breakthrough expertise to students and entrepreneurs, addressing stress-management, wellness, and life-calling.

Robert David Steele on ‘Open Source Everything’

Open Source Intelligence pioneer and former defense intelligence leader Robert Steele is pictured above speaking in 2013 at the Inter-American Defense Board, an international committee of nationally appointed defense officials who develop collaborative approaches on common defense and security issues facing countries in North, Central, and South America. The IADB provides technical advice and services to the Organization of American States (OAS).
 
Robert has an amazing story from Marine to defense intelligence leader, and more recently as author of ‘The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust’. His saga includes status quo challenges to developing open source models for a more enlightened global village of instant-everywhere and interactive Internet capabilities.
 
Many world leaders have followed his work advancing open source standards for the Net, realizing that the old paradigm of centralized top-down command-and-control creates mis-matched expectations and conflict with the new Internet paradigm of decentralized net-roots cooperation and collaboration.

See the in-depth article featuring Robert Steele in the UK Guardian: ‘The Open Source Revolution Is Coming…’ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jun/19/open-source-r…

As promoter of an international ‘Open Source Everything’ conference later this year, Robert will share his plans for bringing together leading luminaries who have a compelling vision of open source capabilities for culturing a higher standard of living for 100% of humanity.

I taught special education for many years. I left teaching due to the current reforms that are taking over the nation’s classrooms. I am now committed to writing about the profession that I hold dear and the public schools that are critically important to the future of America and its children.

Along with my book, Misguided Education Reform: Debating the Impact on Students, I have been published in Phi Delta Kappan and Education Week. I am an activist on the issue of safe school facilities. In 2012, I was invited to speak about school building safety at the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s annual meeting in Memphis, Tennessee.

I have a B.S. degree in special education from Central Michigan University, a M.Ed in special education from the University of North Florida, and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Florida State University. I earned credentials in teaching students with emotional disabilities, learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, and school administration. I also obtained post-doc credentials in teaching gifted and talented from the University of South Florida. My student teaching involved working under wonderfully talented veteran teachers who I still hold in high regard.

We are Garden Tower Project, a small company with big ideas right here in Bloomington, Indiana.

We're committed to socially-responsible practices at every level, and our mission is no less than to help transform the face of gardening and food sustainability in our world.  To us, food security is more than just growing your own food, it is about growing healthy food. In an era of rapidly rising food prices and industrial farming practices that strip our food of nutrients essential for good health, we believe the Garden Tower is one small step in empowering people towards their own food security. To this end, we plan to launch GrowingCircles as support becomes available.  Moreover, support from customers and partners alike brings us closer to full-scale production of our future tower, the next generation of the ultimate patio farm -- The Garden Tower!    

Our Team: Garden Tower Project is the brainchild of a few social entrepreneurs from Bloomington, Indiana AND our partners: Colin Cudmore: inventor and founder of Garden Tower Project Tom Tlusty: project partner and health professional Joel Grant: project co-founder, environmental scientist and applied expert in natural systems Benedict Jones: creative consultant and networking guru David Huber: business and creative development consultant And several contributing local craftsmen & craftswomen! - See more at:

The Garden Tower Story, by Colin Cudmore

I've been concerned for years about environmental and sustainability issues.  But it was not until my green-thumbed mom dragged me to a lecture at Indiana University by Will Allen that I really woke up to the nature of the food crisis in our world and the ways people are trying to address it.  Will Allen and his internationally-known organization, Growing Power, are at the forefront of the fight, and his presentation so inspired me that I knew I had to be a part of the solution. Soon afterwards in July of 2010, I was volunteering at my local farmers’ market in Bloomington, Indiana. During a break I sat down and watched hundreds of people milling about. One of the vendors closest to me was selling starter plants for gardens. All the time I sat there, not a single person bought a starter plant from him, yet the vendors all around him had a steady supply of customers buying fully-grown, ready-to-eat vegetables. As someone passionate about sustainability and food security, I was surprised and dismayed that people in my community did not seem to be interested in buying plants to start their own gardens.  I approached the vendor and asked why he thought people weren’t buying his starter plants. He said, “It’s because people think they don’t know how to do it, or think they don’t have the time.”

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GUEST: ROB STEWART

When Stewart boarded Sea Shepherd’s ship, Sharkwater took a turn from a beautiful underwater film into an incredible human drama filled with corruption, espionage, attempted murder charges and mafia rings, forcing Stewart and his crew to become part of the story. During filming, Stewart encountered life threatening obstacles, including diseases such as West Nile, tuberculosis, dengue fever and flesh eating disease.

Sharkwater has been hugely successful, premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and winning a “Canada’s Top Ten” award. Sharkwater made history with the largest opening weekend of any Canadian documentary, and was the most award-winning documentary of the year, winning over 35 awards at prestigious film festivals around the world. As of 2012 it is the third highest grossing Canadian documentary in the last ten years, next to the high budget films, Nascar and Oceans.

Stewart’s hardcover book, Sharkwater: An Odyssey to Save the Planet, was released in October 2007 by Key Porter Books. His book Save the Humans was be released in the Fall of 2012 by Random House.

Stewart continues to work towards conservation and environmental education, speaking at the University of Victoria, Yale University, Vancouver Aquarium, ROM, various TEDx events, and others.

For More Information on Rob Stewart or “Revolution” Visit: http://therevolutionmovie.com/

Matt Bracken was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957 and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979 with a degree in Russian Studies. He was commissioned in the US Navy through the NROTC program at UVA, and then graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training class 105 in Coronado California. He served on east coast UDT and SEAL teams, taking a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut in 1983. Mr. Bracken left active duty after Lebanon, upon completion of his obligated military service, but he remained in an active reserve status through the remainder of the 1980s. Since then he has lived in Florida, Virginia, South Carolina, Guam and California. In 1993 Mr. Bracken finished building a 48-foot steel sailing cutter of his own design, on which he has done extensive ocean cruising, including a solo voyage 9,000 miles from Panama to Guam and two Panama Canal transits. Matt is a self-described freedomista who loves ocean sailing for the pure freedom it often permits. He is a constitutionalist who believes in the original intent of the founding fathers of our country. He lives with his family in North Florida and longs for the wide blue ocean.