Prakash Laufer: He has been a student of Prout for the past 50 years. He has been a dancer since the early 1970s and did his graduate work in Dance-Movement therapy at Antioch New England. He has been a social entrepreneur and worked with many social-justice and community non-profits over the years focused on service to humanity and spa global organization that promotes Prout, with iritual development. He currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Prout Alliance and on the board of Master Units Retreats Inc, which manages Ananda Viplava Master Unit in upstate New York. He is the parent of five grown daughters, four of them adopted from around the world, and many grandchildren. He has been a regular practitioner of meditation and yoga for 50 years.
Matt Openheim: With a PhD in Transformative Learning and Change from the California Institute of Integral Studies, Matt sees our future in the elegant and intricate patterns of the rainforest. He is a Fellow with the Society of Applied Anthropology and expresses his own transformation through percussion and meditation. After teaching anthropology for twenty-three years, he is putting his effort into a book and project: Watershed Worlds: Ancient Paths for Planetary Survival and Resilience. He has done Prout research in New Zealand, Australia, Los Angeles, New Mexico and now in Asheville, NC. Founding Coordinator for Service Learning at California State University, Channel Islands. Service learning trainer and coordinator, Adopt -A- Watershed, Los Angeles Unified School District and Albuquerque Public Schools. Native American Education Committee and Diversity Training facilitator, and Coordinator for Parent, Family and Community Involvement Albuquerque Public Schools, Facilitator of Collaborative of funders: Los Angeles Urban Funders. Indigenous, Collaborative, participatory and action researcher. Publications include journal and magazine articles, book chapters, and fiction.
Rs’ Ricky Peterson: A recent transplant to Asheville, Rs’i was born in California, earned his MBA in West Virginia, and has both lived and traveled abroad. He is passionate about Prout and spirituality, and has been practicing Astaunga Yoga and vegetarianism for nearly two decades. Rs’i is honored to be part of the Prout Research Institute of Asheville Advisory Committee, especially given that the community here is ripe for the adoption of the principles of Prout. In addition to acting as CEO of his newly co-founded Information Technology (IT) firm, Shooting Stars Consulting, he also works as the Registrar of the Neohumanist College of Asheville, and as the Events and Experiences Manager at United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County
Priyanka Kompella: She is building an interplanetary world at Relativity Space, by developing an autonomous Rocket Factory using 3D printing technology. Previously, she studied Human-Robot Collaboration and Companionship as a Mechanical Engineer at Cornell University, which led her to work on some life-like robotic characters at Walt Disney Imagineering. She was born in India, grew up in the mountains near Seattle, Washington, and now lives in Los Angeles. As an early student of Prout, she grew up identifying as a universalist with family in many different countries, and researching green communities and vegetarianism in high school. She performs with LA Unbound Dance Company & enjoys painting, hiking, and learning new skills. Her current project is to create an inviting space & community where people can meet, socialize, and share their thoughts while sipping on some great non-alcoholic cocktail-style drinks. She’s very excited to serve on the Advisory Committee of the Prout Research Institute and build a world where humanity and compassion drive socio-economic structure!
Roar Bjonnes: He is an activist and a writer on ecology, alternative economics, and Eastern spirituality. He has written five books, and he was the editor of the US-based Prout Journal from 1987 to 1992 and the editor of Common Future magazine in the mid-90s, a magazine which featured some of the first articles taking a critical look at the sustainable development model, which he thinks will continue to be a failure if it is embedded in the worldview of material growth and corporate capitalism. He is the co-author of the book Growing a New Economy, which outlines the macro-economic framework for a new economy based on Prout and which world-renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben called “a hopeful account of the possibilities contained in our current crisis.” He is the cofounder of Systems Change Alliance, an international non-profit which brings people, businesses, and groups together to create integrated and long-term systems change.
Allan Rosen: He has worked in the nonprofit community development sector since 1989 and was introduced to Prout in 1990. He completed his graduate studies in city and regional planning at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1995. For the last twelve years he has worked for an anti-poverty human services agency in Chapel Hill, NC. Previous work experiences include construction management with the Birmingham, AL affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International and community development banking at the Self-Help Credit Union in Durham, NC. His initial focus with PRI will be two-fold: (1) utilizing community development finance tools to fund the development of Prout projects and (2) creating a database and search tool to catalog and map socially-transformative movements and projects, as well as allied think tanks and technical assistance organizations.