My workshop at the WLU GCC was largely based on the workshop that I developed and delivered in July 2009, entitled Opportunities to Create Social Change, building on the work of Frances Westley and Brenda Zimmerman and their work on complexity and resilience theory. Of course, I tailored it to fit the context of the conference, discussing ways the individual person can adopt a complexity and resilience lens, as well as use the adaptability cycle in a practical manner, to better understand the process of social innovation, or transformative social change.
After I posted a recap and shared the slides from my workshop on my blog last summer, I got a response almost immediately from Melissa Richer, Executive Director of the Ayllu Initiative in Brazil (whom I had previously connected with on Twitter), clearly articulating why young people want to change the world, not out of ‘youthful idealism’, but rather, as an imperative need to survive in a world faced with intractable and increasingly complex social problems.
If you haven’t read Melissa’s guest blog post yet, I would recommend that you read it here.
And finally, I would like to thank the organizers of the WLU Global Citizenship Conference 2010 for the invitation to present my workshop and for putting on a great event.
I would also like to highlight an organization called NationWares, a social enterprise based in the Waterloo Region founded by Amie Sider, an undergrad student at Wilfrid Laurier University, that promotes the pillars of sustainability through micro-enterprise and fair trade.
When it comes to technology I’ve always been of the belief that if it can’t make life easier or simpler, then who cares. So, when it comes to creating positive social change, I’m all ears. Last Friday, Renjie Butalid, Communications Coordinator for Social Innovation Generation at the University of Waterloo, spoke at EPIC’s EpCon 2010 event in Waterloo, Ontario.
Renjie challenged the delegates to question how they could use their education to use technology to transform social dilemmas. Renjie, himself, is passionate about using online communities, technology and social media to create positive social change. Furthermore, he is convinced that young people have the power and opportunity, like never before, to affect positive change in the world.
During his presentation he cited four examples of companies and initiatives that have used technology to create meaningful societal change:
KIVA - A dream of lending to low-income entrepreneurs via the internet is now one of the largest and most successful micro-lending programs in the world with thousands of people now able to live in dignity.
Cell-Life – The vision of Cell-Life is to improve the lives of people affected by AIDS in South Africa through the use of mobile technology.
SIMpill - According to their website, the SIMpill Medication Adherence System monitors the patient’s medication schedule and intake of medication and reminds patients and carers as necessary by sending a text message to the patient and/or carers mobile phone if the patient does not take their medication as prescribed.
MoCa - MoCa connects health workers in developing nations to medical professionals around the world via mobile technology.
To date, more than $10 million has been raised via SMS for Haiti earthquake relief. With two-thirds of Africa’s 4.5 billion people using some sort of mobile technology in the next 2 years, the opportunity for social change is not just a hope anymore: it’s real.
Nick, Mike and I also had a great time capturing video and doing interviews with all the delegates, organizers and speakers at #EpCon last weekend, as part of We Move Media.
We’re hoping to have the videos edited and released in the next week or so. Stay tuned for more details!
Congratulations to the EPIC team for doing an amazing job with running the conference!
Full disclosure: I am one of the lead organizers behind TEDxWaterloo, taking place on February 25, 2010.
If you are a big fan of TED and find yourself watching TEDTalks videos on a seemingly regular basis, why not come out to TEDxWaterloo on February 25, 2010 to experience a TED-like event in the company of like-minded, passionate individuals who believe in ideas worth spreading.
Applications to attend TEDxWaterloo are now open and you can apply to attend here
If you are not located in the Waterloo Region or surrounding area, you can still follow the proceedings of the day’s events on Feb 25 by watching the live webcast on our website www.tedxwaterloo.com
The theme for TEDxWaterloo is Tomorrow Started Yesterday, and will feature an amazing line-up of speakers discussing a broad range of topics and ideas touching on this theme. The speaker line-up for TEDxWaterloo will be announced in the coming weeks, stay tuned!
Why do I have to apply to attend TEDxWaterloo?
I have seen a number of comments to this effect on twitter as well as on facebook, following the announcement yesterday on the TEDxWaterloo twitter account and facebook fanpage. For the sake of openness and transparency, I wanted to clarify a few of the key issues that have been brought to our attention.
To provide a bit of background to the event itself, TEDxWaterloo is organized as an independently organized TED event.
TEDx was created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “ideas worth spreading.” The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.
At TEDx events, unique talks given by live speakers combine with TEDTalks videos to spark deep conversation and connections. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis.
There are some guidelines as well as recommendations that TED provides to organizers to help re-create a TED-like experience at TEDx events. For example, TED encourages prospective TEDx attendees to fill out applications forms in order to showcase their commitment to attending the event.
From my own perspective as one of the organizers of TEDxWaterloo and discussions with other TEDx organizers, this approach also allows organizers to deeply and more meaningfully understand what motivates the audience members. Of course, there are also some practical considerations to this approach, such as capacity limitations of the venue (to be announced soon for TEDxWaterloo!) as well as budget considerations.
There are major differences between actual TED conferences (TED 2010, TEDGlobal 2010, TEDActive) and local TEDx events held in cities around the world. I would like to note that it is free to attend TEDxWaterloo and the application process is open to all, everyone is invited and encouraged to submit an application to attend. We look forward to seeing you there!
N.B. If you’re interested in reading more about this discussion, I would encourage you to check out this page on TED’s website, that addresses a number of probing questions including, ‘Is TED elitist?‘
“In 1998, scientists predicted that the Chacaltaya glacier above La Paz would have completely disappeared by 2015. Now experts say it will already be gone completely early this year.
The 2 million residents of the city of La Paz and its suburb El Alto depend on the surrounding glaciers for some of their water needs. El Alto has expanded from 220,000 residents in 1985 to almost one million today, increasing the demand for water. Half the electricity of the country is also produced from hydro-power, meaning the lack of rain and disappearance of glaciers may create an energy crisis in the future when the glaciers have gone.
I will be sharing a TED Talk every Wednesday beginning this week, in an attempt to personally keep track (as well as document) many of the mind-blowing ideas, perspectives and projects that exceptional people are working on, from all over the world.
This approach to blogging is quite new for me as up until now, my blog posts have been (in)frequent and based on a random schedule of when I feel like putting up a blog post.
Looking over my (rather short) blogging history, there have been certain periods of time where you can tell I was inspired given I was able to produce 3-4 solid blog posts in a week, sustained for weeks at a time. Then there are cases such as September 2009 where there was not a blog post to be found considering how busy the month was for me, together with my lack of motivation for writing (similar to the case between January-March 2009).
This is my attempt at working on my new year’s resolution for 2010 and incorporating ‘working smarter, not harder’ into all aspects of my life, including blogging.
If there is one thing that I have learned from having maintained a blog for a year and a half now, is that the keys to being succesful at blogging are
I am a 20-something young person keenly interested in learning how transformative social change happens, and passionate about building resilient communities. I also have a strong background in student and youth engagement, and I am convinced that young people have the power and opportunities like never before to affect positive change in the world.
meaningful societal change:
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=5e9c1285-7054-444c-8b5c-ba87b4ac024e)
