Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera graduated in the Political Science from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela, later majoring in Development Studies in University of Sussex, England. Between 1977 and 1982 he held several positions in the educational field in the Venezuelan public education system. Since 1985, has been associated with the political branch, where he held several posts such as: Academic Advisor in the Institute of High Studies on National Defense, Executive Secretary of the Working Group on Political Reforms of the Presidential Commission for the Reform of the State, Chief of the Research and Development Division, Venezuelan Institute of Foreign Trade, Executive Secretary and Venezuelan Representative in the Forum on Debt and Development (FONDAD), Director of Cooperation of the Universidad Central de Venezuela, Venezuelan Representative to the Energy Council of the United States of America, Director-General of Hydrocarbons and Deputy Minister of Hydrocarbons of the Ministry of Energy and Mines. In 2003 he became Ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in United States of America.

Gregory Wilpert is a freelance journalist and sociologist, who has spent the past seven year living in Venezuela. He is the author of Changing Venezuela by Taking Power (Verso Books, 2007) and the editor of Venezuelanalysis.com which is trusted by many as the most important English language source of unbiased news and analysis from Venezuela.

Antonio Gonzalez is President of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP). SVREP, founded in 1974, is the largest and oldest non-partisan Latino voter participation organization in the U.S. Gonzalez assumed the presidency of SVREP in 1994, after serving during 1984-90 as an SVREP organizer and 1991-94 as a policy program director with the William C. Velasquez Institute, SVREP’s sister organization. Gonzalez has lectured and written on U.S. Latino voting behavior, as well as Latino participation in U.S.-Latino America policy. He currently appears as a regular commentator on the National Public Radio’s Tavis Smiley Show and hosts his own weekly show of Pacifica’s KPFK in Los Angeles called “Strategy Session.”

Gonzalo Gomez is a psychologist with a long trajectory of struggle in popular movements in Caracas and Maracay. He has been a union leader for several decades and presently is a member of the National Union of Workers (UNT). He was a co-founder of the web site http://Aporrea.org and is presently spokesperson for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela elected by several “battalions” (local committees) in the western part of Caracas.

Marcos García joined the Venezuelan Foreign Service as Second Secretary and Labor Attaché in the Embassy of Washington, DC on April 2007. Previously, he worked 19 years in the Metro System of Caracas as operator, organizational and process analyst, administrative coordinator, and trade union leader. He also served as an adviser to the Minister of Labor. Mr. García holds a degree in Translation and a Master’s degree in Discourse Studies from the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Camila Piñeiro graduated from the Latin American studies masters program at the University of California, Berkeley. Her thesis project was a study of Venezuelan cooperatives looking at the relationship between workplace democracy and social consciousness. Her articles have been published in Cooperatives in 21st Century: The Road Ahead (ICFAI: 2007, Ahmedabad, India) and journals such as Monthly Review, Socialism & Democracy, and Temas.

Noeli Pocaterra is from the Wayuu Nation in Venezuela. She is an appointed chair of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples and Vice-President of the National Assembly. She has become a key player in policy changes for indigenous people in Venezuela. Noeli is also a strong advocate for indigenous children’s right and has been instrumental in bringing about positive changes for children at the national and community level by affecting both policy and programming. She will be participating in the conference via video. Jorge Guerrero has been an activist accompanying Afro-Venezuelan communities in the areas of education, culture, community work, organization, training and research. He was director of the Afroaragüeños Civil Association and founder of the Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations as well as a founding member of the Afro-Latin American and Caribbean Strategic Alliance. He served as adviser to the Presidential Commission for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Venezuela’s Education System. He has published several books including, most recently, Afro-Venezuelan Education and Pedagogy in 2007. He is presently Venezuelan Consul in New Orleans.

Clara Herrera is an economist who has also worked on the prize-winning documentary “Raza Cósmica” and the film “Impacto Chávez,” currently in progress. Her government positions have included posts with the National Housing Council, the Bank of the People, and the Commission for the Administration of Foreign Exchange. She has served as President of the Center for Training in Local Decision Making, a foundation that helps poor communities to work with governmental offices and has also worked with organizations seeking to link universities with communities.

Adina Mercedes Bastidas served as Vice President of the Bolivarian Republic from 2000 to 2002. As an economist who taught at the Venezuelan Central University for a number of years, she has also served the Venezuelan government in a number of economic posts since 2002. Among them: Minister of Production and Commerce, member of the Commission for the Administration of Foreign Exchange, and presently as executive director for Venezuela and Panama at the Inter-American Development Bank.

Mark Weisbrot received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous research papers on economic policy, including papers examining Venezuela’s economy and US-Venezuela relations. He writes a column on economic and policy issues that is distributed to over 550 newspapers by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. His opinion pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and most major U.S. newspapers. He appears regularly on national and local television and radio programs. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.

Manuel Rodriguez is the Vice-Minister for the Environment of the Venezuelan government. He has a doctorate in Chemical Engineering with a specialty in Environmental Engineering and taught at the Engineering School of the University of the Andes in Mérida, Venezuela. He has participated in numerous conferences in Spain, France and Canada presenting papers on his research on such subjects as the treatment of wastewater from textile and garment factories.

Julio Chavez, an electronics engineer, has been mayor of Torres, Venezuela, since 2004. He was a student activist, union organizer, journalist, and fighter against neoliberal economic policies. He has been a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela since 2000. As mayor of Torres, he has put in place the structure for citizen participation in the decisions of his city, including where money should be spent. He also serves on the presidential commission on community power for the states of Lara and Trujillo.

James Early is the Director of Cultural Heritage Policy at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution. His public service-advocacy-activist work includes: TransAfrica Forum Board of Directors; Board of the Institute for Policy Studies; Cultural Democracy Advisor of the Transnational Institute of Amsterdam; Board of Directors of Free Press Media Reform; Steering Committee International Network for Cultural Diversity; Telesur Board of Advisors; Cuba Now Advisory Board. He has worked closely in activism with Afro-Descendant Networks throughout Latin America and the Caribbean for 20 years, and is active in the formation of Afro-Descendants and Revolutionary Transformations in Latin America, and co-author with Jesus “Chucho” Garcia of The Political Status of Afro-Venezuelans in the Bolivarian Revolution: A Democratic Measure for Venezuela and a Hemispheric Imperative. Justice Fernando Vegas, an expert in commercial relations, is a published novelist who writes regular columns for newspapers and journals. He was appointed to the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) in August 2004, and assumed office in January 2005, where he sits in the Electoral Chamber of the TSJ. Justice Vegas has helped to negotiate various international trade agreements with companies doing business in Venezuela. He earned his law degree at the Central University of Venezuela and a master’s degree in the Laws of Economic Integration in 1977.

Olivia Burlingame Goumbri is the Director of the Venezuela Information Office in Washington D.C. She was previously Executive Director of EPICA, the Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean, a faith based organization that largely focuses on bettering U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America. She has authored various articles and books including a human rights report on Haiti as well as The Venezuela Reader: The Building of a People’s Democracy. Besides her undergraduate degree in cultural and historical studies from the New School for Social Research Mrs. Goumbri holds a masters degree in Public Administration from American University. She has also received a graduate certificate in Public Management and was awarded a certificate of achievement from the Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute at American University. Most recently Mrs. Goumbri has appeared as an expert on Venezuela for NPR’s To The Point and various BBC radio programs.

Eva Golinger is a Venezuelan-US attorney specializing in human rights, immigration, and entertainment law. She is also a writer and investigator whose two books, The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela (2005) and Bush vs. Chávez: Washington’s War on Venezuela, which has just been released in English translation, document US government efforts to oust democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. She is a native New Yorker currently residing in Caracas.

Steve Ellner has been teaching political science and history at the Universidad de Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela since 1977. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Latin America and particularly Venezuelan political parties and organized labor. He is co- editor of Venezuelan Politics in the Chavez Era: Class, Polarization and Conflict and Venezuela: Hugo Chavez and the Decline of an “Exceptional Democracy.” His latest book, Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict and the Chavez Phenomenon, was released this year by Lynne Rienner Publishers. He is a frequent contributor to In These Times and Commonwealth and has published on the Op-Ed Page of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times.