Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, a non-profit organization concerned with the protection of both biological and cultural diversity. ISEC runs programs on four continents aimed at strengthening ecological diversity and community. Helena is a co-founder of the International Forum on Globalization, an alliance of sixty leading activists, scholars, economists, researchers and writers formed to stimulate new thinking, joint activity and public education in response to economic globalization. She also directs the Ladakh Project, renowned for its groundbreaking work in sustainable development on the Tibetan plateau, for which she received the Right Livelihood Award or Alternative Nobel Prize.
Norberg-Hodge is a leading analyst of the impact of the global economy on cultures around the world. A linguist by training, she was educated in Sweden, Germany, England and the United States, and speaks seven languages. She has lectured and taught extensively around the world from the Smithsonian Institution to Harvard and Oxford universities.
She is the author of numerous works, including Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, which together with an award-winning film of the same title has been translated into more than 30 languages. She and ISEC have just released a new film on globalization and localization called “The Economics of Happiness.”
