The ICAF Boards

Day-to-day operations are supervised by the Executive Board.

Advisory Board is comprised of influential artists, educators, and business and cultural leaders. The Members are recognized internationally as champions of children’s creativity and art. They serve as spokespersons, offer adviser on educational programs and publications and sometimes represent the ICAF at international events. Each Member decides how best to contribute to the ICAF. At any time, some members are very active with the ICAF programs, festivals or publications. Members also provide creative ideas on fundraising and expanding the ICAF network and outreach. The Members meet every four years at the World Children’s Festival hosted by the ICAF, traditionally on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Those members who are able to attend the festival are recognized as part of the Festival Host Committee. They interact and guide the children through their festival experience, and in turn, the children at a festival select one Member to receive the World Children’s Award.

Youth Board is comprised of some of the most creative and imaginative children and young people in the world. They advise ICAF’s Executive Board on matters relating to programs and events, aesthetics and education. They
write for ChildArt magazine and serve as spokespersons at events. They advance ICAF’s mission by promoting creative development and arts education in their communities. They also serve as MCs at the World Children's Festivals.

Advisory Board

Mr. Igor V. Babailov, MFA, Portrait and Figurative Artist
Professor Robin E. Clark (retired Arts Educator and Curriculum Specialist)

Mr. Chuck Close, Artist

Professor Mark F. Cooper, Boston College, Boston, MA

Professor Marietta Dantonio-Fryer, Cheyney University, Cheyney, PA

Portia Davidson, U.S. Army Headquarters, The Pentagon, Washington, DC
Robin F. Goodman, Ph.D., A.T.R, Psychologist and Art Therapist, New York, NY

Mrs. Claire Ryle Garrison, The Whole Child Initiative, Berkeley, CA

Mrs. Alla Goldin, J.D., International Museum of Children's Art, Oslo, Norway

Professor Sherri R. Klein, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI

Mr. Bakhtiar Mikhak, MIT Media Laboratory, Cambridge, MA
Mr. Daniel H. Pink, Speaker and Author, A Whole New Mind, Washington, DC
Mr. Miha Pogacnik, Violinist and Cultural Entrepreneur, Hamburg, Germany

Mr. George Rodrigue, Artist and Author

Professor George Szekely, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY

Mr. Peter J. Tichansky, President, Business Council for International Understanding, New York, NY

Dr. Brenda K. Wiederhold, Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, CA

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Notes:

1AO = First Arts Olympiad Finalist
2GAP = Second Arts Olympiad Finalist
1998F = ICAF’s very first national festival, ChildArt USA held in Washington in Sept 1998
1999F = 1999 World Children's Festival held in Washington in June/July 1999
2003F = 2003 World Children's Festival held in Washington in September 2003
Ut = Utopia Station Exhibition in Munich, Germany in October 2004
2006F = ICAF's European Children’s Festival held in Munich in May 2006
2007F = 2007 World Children's Festival held in Washington, DC in June 2007

Executive Board

Katty Guerami, Secretary

Ashfaq Ishaq, Ph.D., Executive Director

Peter N.G. Schwartz, Member

Harriet Mayor Fulbright, Chairman Emeritus

Her educational and professional backgrounds are just as diverse. Her fascination with the sciences and physiology led her to a B.S. degree in biology from the George Washington University, where she also gained significant laboratory experience working in botanical and microbiology research. Later she joined the School of Health Services Administration and Policy at GWU as a graduate student. She earned a MHSA degree in marketing and strategic planning and policy from one of the top programs in the country. She has developed marketing plans as a consultant and advised on strategic planning in the health services sector. Since the founding of the ICAF, Ms. Guerami has worked as a volunteer. She has helped develop ICAF�s programs and provides marketing and planning oversigh.

Dr. Ashfaq Ishaq co-founded the ICAF to harness children’s imagination for positive social change. His belief that creativity and empathy are preconditions for a more just, prosperous and nonviolent world is based on his seminal research on entrepreneurship and small business at the World Bank and on military burden and the new economy at the George Washington University. His familiarity with the power of the arts as an effective channel for children’s creative and empathic development stems from his experience as an award-winning child artist.

The Arts Olympiad program he developed to overcome the “4th grade slump” in creativity documented by E. Paul Torrance is today the world’s most prestigious and largest arts-based program for children ages 8 to 12. Approximately three million children participated in the Third Arts Olympiad (2005-2008). The 2007 World Children’s Festival he hosted on the National Mall in Washington, DC was reportedly the largest celebration of children’s creativity and imagination in the world.

Dr. Ishaq secured an exclusive license from the United States Olympic Committee for the ICAF to use “Arts Olympiad” and related marks and has obtained support from some of the world’s most creative companies including Adidas, Disney and LEGO.

In response to the tragedy of 9/11, he worked with psychologists and psychiatrists to develop a Peace through Art program to reduce the inter-generational transmission of trauma and hatred.
In January 2005, he led a team of art therapists to develop a healing arts program that utilized the knowledge and experience gained from the treatment of child survivors of 9/11 to aid child victims of the Asian tsunami. Later that year the ICAF volunteers were using their tsunami program experience to help children affected by Hurricane Katrina.

In addition to his cultural entrepreneurship, Dr. Ishaq has been involved in business since he started his first enterprise at the age of thirteen. More recently, he was founder of USA International, Inc., a project development and consulting company, which played a leading role in private provision of public services, especially private power projects in emerging economies. In 2001, he closed down the company to devote all his time and energy to the ICAF.

An exceptional multi-disciplinary thinker, he has written for diverse publications and is co-author of Success in Small & Medium Scale Enterprises, Oxford University Press, 1987. His writings on peace have been published by the International Network of Museums for Peace in Gurnika-Lumo, Spain and the UNESCO Observatory at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His articles have appeared in the International Monetary Fund’s Finance & Development; the Wall Street’s Institutional Investor; the National Association of State Boards of Education’s State Education Standard; the oldest U.S. art teachers’ magazine SchoolArts; the Arab world’s leading fine art publication Canvas; the Journal of Conflict Resolution; and the U.K.’s leading medical journal The Lancet.

Dr. Ishaq holds a Ph.D. in economics from the George Washington University, Masters in Public Administration from the University of Punjab, and BA in economics and statistics from Government College, Lahore, Pakistan. He has received several awards for leadership and philanthropy, including the prestigious American Muslim Award in 2004. He serves on the program committee of the Cybertherapy Conference and is member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and the International Academy of the Visual Arts.