 | I recently attended a Young Global Leaders Summit, organized and sponsored by Americans for an Informed Democracy (AID), a non-partisan organization that "brings the world home to the next generation of leaders through educational seminars, leadership summits, town hall meetings, opinion pieces, and global videoconferences." |
The Summit focused on Social Entrepreneurship & Global Change, and was devoted to networking, sharing ideas and knowledge, and exploring ways in which each of us could begin to make a difference. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and encourage anyone who who is interested in learning more about how we can shape our world in a positive way to check out the other summits being sponsored by AID.
The day was organized into three "breakout sessions" and two keynote speakers. Breakout sessions consisted of about 10-15 people each and varied by topic, covering things like Middle-East peace, global health, promoting tolerance, and fighting poverty.
The first of my breakout sessions, my favorite of the three, focused on creating a dialogue on investing for social impact. Leah Fish, session moderator, worked for Endeavor Global, an organization that transforms emerging-market economies by identifying and supporting high-impact entrepreneurs. In this session, we discussed poverty alleviation, the new "triple bottom line" that businesses are adopting (social, environmental, fiscal), and the growth of a more philanthropically minded consumer base.
Beyond that, I enjoyed hearing about the other attendees in my group and what they were devoting their lives to, what careers paths they had taken upon graduation, and whether or not they thought those decisions were best. Currently I work as a OneWorld U.S. intern and was given the chance to share some of their resources with the entire group, which was a valuable opportunity in itself.
My second breakout session was moderated by Hannah Kane of the organization Action Without Borders (or Idealist), and focused on non-profit management. While this is not something I intend to pursue as a career, I am a big fan of Idealist, and enjoyed hearing about some of the behind the scenes issues that face an organization like this one. I have used the site mainly as a resource to find internships and browse job postings, but I learned through this session that the site is becoming more of a social network of "Idealists" and that a new organization on their home-page will be launched soon to highlight the other capacities of Idealist.org.
The third breakout session was moderated by Reem Marto, and focused on global development. The session became in fact an informational forum on Soliya, an organization that offers a program for college students that utilizes web based video-conferencing to create an on-line classroom of students from the US and predominantly Muslim Countries in the Middle East. They hope to promote understanding and tolerance through this once-weekly class that most students receive credit for through their higher learning institutions. I myself hope to bring this class to Vanderbilt in the Spring of '08.
The guest speakers of the day included Jeffrey Trexler, a Helene and Grant Wilson Professor of Social Entrepreneurship, and Jacob Gayle, the Deputy Vice President of the special initiative on HIV/AIDS at The Ford Foundation. Both speakers were very dynamic and provided some good advice. Mr. Trexler told us to take initiative, don't mind grunt work, and to avoid demonizing the for-profit sector, as it has the most potential for creating good. Mr. Gayle showed us that we all have our own perspectives and biases, and unless we take them into account we may make important decisions based on those biases. He also pointed out to us that if we are not part of the solution we are effectively part of the problem.
Overall, I left the summit feeling refreshed, motivated, and incredibly inspired. I hope that some of you can take advantage of the opportunities that AID has to offer.
Click here to learn more upcoming AID conferences.
If you were at the conference, comment below to share your own thoughts.