This includes ensuring and facilitating open information flows, supporting the incubation of new ideas emerging in the network, stimulating continuous learning, providing methods and assistance to new groups and learning teams, designing international meetings, maintaining the web site, and taking care of the financial, legal and institutional structure of the network.

A new Cultivation Team stepped forward in October, 2006. The current Team members are based in London, Germany and Brazil. They are: Lesley Williams, Maria Glauser, Mark Siebert, Jens Trotzky, and Cristina Leal. Rabea Chaudhary has the supporting role as Newsletter Editor.

Lesley Williams My work is about facilitating participation: communities, networks forums, groups. I am a passionate South African exploring different cultures and how we relate to each other; also trying to get my head around reconciliation. Coming from a country with an intense past like South Africa, I would like to give a voice to the previously disadvantaged as I see (and experience) the legacy of how apartheid lives on. I love being the instigator of projects and improving systems. I currently work part-time for the South African Business Club in London where I run the secretariat, and do freelance facilitation and hosting work. I have both worked for and now operate from The Hub, London. I have started up and maintained various learning and leadership networks in South Africa; including Nexus and Young Professionals Forum at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, have a background in AIESEC and Toastmasters and have down work for Common Purpose SA, Siyavuma and have been elected to the national steering committee of Young South African Women in Dialogue - founded by our First Lady, Mrs. Zanele Mbeki.

Jens Trotzky
I am from a finish-german family and I am a very logical and somewhat practical person. My interest has always been in information retrieval and general science and engineering. However, I always felt the need for something on top of all the technical things and that's why I always spend time in voluntary organizations like AIESEC, Oxfam or UNICEF. I believe in constant learning and I enjoy gaining new perspectives from talks. I love to listen to other people and telling stories is somewhat second nature to me. I've travelled the world during several internships and even though the ride was bumpy at times I enjoyed every moment. I am currently finishing off my four different university degrees and am looking out for the great challenges and opportunities to come. In Pioneers of Change I started to look out for new ideas in the field of technology and I enjoy reading about people and their ideas I didn't know existed a few years ago.
Please find my profile and contact details in several networking platforms:

Maria Glauser
Maria is experienced in indigenous education within the context of Paraguay and holds a degree in Educational Sciences. Maria has been a research analyst for Plan International, UNDP and Decidamos, where she was involved in strengthening youth leadership in Paraguay. She has published on the learning and knowledge-sharing practices of indigenous groups in Paraguayan Chaco. Maria speaks English, German, Italian and Spanish. Maria has been co-director of The Hub since August 2005. More personal: My little story. I was born in Asuncion, Paraguay. My mum is Paraguayan, my dad Swiss. I have 4 brothers (where my football skills come from). We grew up in the country side in Paraguay, where I lived the first 25 years of my life.In Paraguay I learnt a lot of what I know about life, love, social reality, systems and its ironies. I taught language for 5 years in formal settings and also in an indigenous community. I traveled with my family across the country, the continent and within our house - we used to be very nomadic. I lived in Switzerland for 1,5 years. In 2001 I met PoC (www.pioneersofchange.net) during a Learning Journey on Paulo Freire's ideas on Critical Education in Brazil. It changed my life and my ideas of learning, teaching, doing social work...I cried all the way home on the bus, simply for feeling the change going on inside me. In 2002 I spent 3 months in Shikshantar, in Udaipur (India) where I learnt that there are alternatives to schooling, formal learning, the educational ladder, etc. While being there I also took part of another PoC Learning Journey on Gandhi's ideas on Swaraj or self-sufficiency. I went back home and wrote my thesis on the educational and knowledge-sharing practices of the Ayoreo and the impact of schooling in their lifestyle. Soon after that I moved to London where I met The Hub, space where I am putting my skills into practice. At The Hub I am working on the codification of The Hub's practice and approach and developing a business support framework for The Hub London.

Cristina Leal
I'd like to look back at my personal journey and be capable of saying: "Yes, I did it my way!" So far, what I can say is that I'm extremely grateful for how Life has been supporting me in this direction, in the task of actually taking courageous paths ♥… (etymologically, courage comes from heart, right?). When I was a teenager, in one of these boring essay classes, I remember being inspired to compose what later I realized to be the "masterpiece" writing of my life, its title was "Para onde ir?", something like "Where to go?" in English. I could see then a clear call not to follow the "sentiers battus" (over-walked paths) - the first call to be a pioneer?So, from a very early age I was aware that, in my own personal way, I was to rebel against the conventional routes being offered, sometimes even "imposed" by family, society, culture whatever. Hence, I was even to rebel against the convention of what "rebelling" meant... A sense of complete freedom has forever been very alive in my soul! Where did it come from? Who knows...Years later I went to university to study Economics: It was almost 5 years of deep anguish, I disliked it most of the time, and had no idea of what the hell I was doing there! A clue came when I took a course on "Environment and Economics" and bumped into the marvelous "Small is Beautiful", E.F. Schumacher's book. Only then I realized what Economics meant to me, and what kind of "Economist" I would ever want to become...It was definitely a beautiful light, a turning point in my life...After that, many wonders would follow: the first job with an ecological NGO in Rio, amazing experiences with Aiesec, both in Brasil and abroad, a long-term and transformative professional engagement with Amana-Key, Schumacher College in England, Pioneers of Change... And, behind each one of these events there is of course the most important thing of all: the gift of unique relationships, the wonderful people Life has been given me the opportunity to meet, to learn from, to grow with. In short, I'd like to finish this abstract of my personal journey with a quote that kind of sums up much of my feelings: "...when the voice and the vision on the inside becomes more profound, and more clear and loud than the opinions on the outside, you've mastered your life."

Mark Siebert
Mark has an entrepreneurial background from his start-up (www.sprachenmarkt.de) during New economy times. Its purpose and vision of building a virtual learning coach and its operation as language center illustrate Mark's interest in knowledge and change management. He further developed them as intrapreneur and consultant at Siemens IT Solutions and Services into transformational process management (process owner for Customer Relationship Management and Product Lifecycle Management). Therein he also deepened his knowledge of artificial intelligence and social software through scientific research in knowledge creation and semantic software. His interest in social entrepreneuring brought him in contact with PoC already in Slovenian summer school in 2001 knowing founders and participants from inspiring times in the student organization in AIESEC. He followed his interest as co-founder of www.invest4charity.org and participation in a Hub for social entrepreneurs (www.self-germany.de). Based on these network, organizational and project experiences he has been invited to host the cultivation team 2007. With pleasure he's hosting the team to further explore and experience sustainable communities and to bubble (energize) the network. Mark is an analytical mind with strong interest in network dynamics and management. He loves philosophical and visionary discussions without loosing reality. He started questionning the current dynamics and is thriving for a new level of network maturity. Personally spoken: "I'm looking forward to new bubblemakers and inspiring people who wanna make experience sustainable networks".

Supporting role as Newsletter Editor:
Rabea Chaudhary
I am an American learning about pre-violent repression. While learning how to read and write over the past few decades, I have tested the waters of numerous graduate schools, disciplines, professions and Western Schools of Hard Knocks. (Obviously biological and cultural diversity invented that old other spice of life.) Intuitive, shy, and completely simple, I was raised as a Muslim in a southern U.S. technoculture and now live in Berkeley. I will probably spend the next few decades learning how we humans strengthen our capacities to be present with painful memories and astute about painful futures.