Renjie Butalid

Opening Keynote, Global Young Leaders Conference
Washington, DC  - July 12, 2010

Check against delivery

Thank you very much for the kind introduction, I appreciate it.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, most especially to the delegates of the Global Young Leaders Conference. My name is Renjie Butalid and I am from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, a city that is home to one of the most famous and recognizable products in the world: the Blackberry smartphone produced by Canadian company Research In Motion. Now for my own curiosity, how many of you own a Blackberry? Well then, I actually own an Apple iPhone myself, but please don’t let that information leave this room, since I do have to go back to Waterloo after all.

It is my sincere pleasure to be with all of you here in Washington, DC this evening.

On a personal level, my presence on this stage is extremely humbling. You see, back in 2002, I was a 17-year old teenager who had just graduated from high school in the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East. That summer soon after finishing high school and before I went off to the University of Waterloo in Canada to eventually earn a degree in Economics and Political Science, I found myself here at the Global Young Leaders Conference as a delegate. At the opening keynote, we were in a room much similar to the one we are in now and I was in the audience surrounded by a group of exceptional young people from all over the world, just like all of you today. Many of the people I met back at the GYLC, I still call friends to this very day.

And just so everyone knows, when I was a delegate at the GYLC eight years ago, I was a delegate representing India. Where are the Team India delegates in the audience this evening? Namaste.

And I remember all I could think of when I sat quietly and reflected, after having traveled thousands of miles to get to this conference, which was also my first visit to the United States of America, was,

“What am I really doing here?”

“Am I really a leader?”

“I don’t even know what it takes to lead, let alone, know what it takes to be a ‘global young leader’.”

Now, if you find yourself asking these very same questions at this particular moment in time, I will let you in on a secret that has taken me a while to discover.

That it is OK to be scared and uncertain, not knowing what to expect and to not have all of the answers all the time. At times, it is ok to even question whether you have the capacity and makings of a leader. I know that I’ve certainly questioned myself in the past, especially when I was a highly involved student leader at the University of Waterloo, where at one point, I had the responsibility of overseeing a budget of over $1.2 million dollars on behalf of 24,000 undergraduate students when I was on student government. I’ve also questioned myself on numerous occasions, most recently as a community organizer involved with a number of local community events back in Waterloo. But I prevailed.

What I have learned throughout my own leadership experience is to let that feeling of self-doubt and uncertainty motivate me and I would encourage all of you to do the same; there is after all, only a very small difference between excitement and fear of uncertainty. Instead of being scared, tell yourself that you’re excited to be here and open yourself up to the possibilities that exist out there in the world. There is a reason why you are all here in Washington, DC and will be in New York City, attending this global conference on youth leadership over the next ten days. This is an opportunity of a lifetime and I really hope that you make the most of it.
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The case below, involving a gay elderly couple who were together for 20 years before they were forcibly kept apart by government officials when one of them fell down and was hospitalized, makes me really angry that I felt the need to speak up about it and be heard.

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.

One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes. Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.

What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold’s lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property.

With the help of a dedicated and persistent court-appointed attorney, Anne Dennis of Santa Rosa, Clay was finally released from the nursing home. Ms. Dennis, along with Stephen O’Neill and Margaret Flynn of Tarkington, O’Neill, Barrack & Chong, now represent Clay in a lawsuit against the county, the auction company, and the nursing home, with technical assistance from NCLR. A trial date has been set for July 16, 2010 in the Superior Court for the County of Sonoma.

If say for example, Monika and I had been living in the United States in the early part of the 20th century, based on our race (i.e. Filipino and German-Portuguese), our relationship would have been looked down upon and in some cases, we may have even been thrown in jail if we decided to get married.

Anti-miscegenetion laws, otherwise known as miscegenation laws, were laws that prohibited interracial marriage. From the 19th century into the 1950s, most US states enforced anti-miscegenation laws. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the landmark case Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional, overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

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My interview with Prashanth Gopalan featured on TechVibes.

Renjie Butalid’s obsessed with change. Not the monetary type, but with the sort that launches movements, spurs creativity, tests organizations and attracts followers.

He’s the Communications Co-ordinator of Social Innovation Generation, a Waterloo-based collaborative partnership between The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, the University of Waterloo, the MaRS Discovery District, and the PLAN Institute. He has also been featured as a speaker at Ignite Waterloo, and was the Lead Co-ordinator for the team that put together the TEDxWaterloo conference last month.

I recently treated Renjie to his very own personalized speaking session, which featured my 7-question barrage.

You were a member of the TEDxWaterloo organizing committee, and were recently featured as a speaker at the Ignite Waterloo conference that took place last Wednesday. How did you make the wide transition from Waterloo student to “socialpreneur” in such a short amount of time?

Transitioning from university student life to working full-time was an interesting experience to say the least. In many respects, helping to organize events such as TEDxWaterloo and Ignite Waterloo in the local Kitchener-Waterloo community was very similar to the many student-run events and initiatives that I was involved with while at the University of Waterloo. This time however, these events (TEDx, Ignite) were done on a much larger scale and had the capacity to impact and connect a lot more people within the broader KW community. At the end of the day, its all about being passionate about what you do, and having fun while you’re doing it.

Could you name perhaps one or two key events in your life so far that has led you to where you are now?

A key turning point in my life happened when I was selected to attend the Global Young Leaders Conference (GYLC) in Washington DC and New York City right after I graduated from high school in the United Arab Emirates in 2002. The GYLC is a leadership development program held every year organized by the Congressional Youth Leadership Council, that brings together young people from around the world to build critical leadership skills in a global context.

In order to understand why this is a key turning point for me, it is important to know that I was born in the Philippines to Filipino parents, raised in the UAE since the age of 5, and only came to Canada for university once I graduated from high school. Given all of this, the GYLC helped to solidify part of my identity as a global citizen, as well as helped to provide me with the necessary confidence and foundational leadership skills at an early age (I was 17 when I attended the GYLC) that has led me to where I am today.

As a Waterloo student, where do you see the University of Waterloo going in the next few years in terms of social change and social leadership? Where do you see the Kitchener-Waterloo region going in the next few years?

Along with the rapid pace of development found within the Region of Waterloo, the University of Waterloo is certainly positioning itself to become a global leader in social innovation and social change. Examples include the recent launch of the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) within the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, with the goal of integrating knowledge on environmental sustainability, business management and economic development.

Another example is the early stage development of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI) being spearheaded by Thomas Homer-Dixon of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Frances Westley of Social Innovation Generation, to help facilitate the trans-disciplinary, collaborative research focused on innovation and resilience within complex adaptive systems. These are just two examples of many coming out of the University of Waterloo that I am sure will help to define UW as well as the Region of Waterloo in the years to come.

Do you have any advice to share with current university students who harbour ambitions of being the social leaders of tomorrow?

For university students who are very interested in the (broad) emerging field of social change, I would highly encourage you to learn as much as you can about the issues that you are passionate about. Read everything you can about the subject matter at hand in books, magazines, blogs, websites, etc. I would also encourage you to reach out to mentors and thought leaders within your own personal network (e.g. professors, community leaders) as well as people/organizations who are on Twitter and are engaged in the space that you are interested in. By reaching out, you are allowing people to help move your thinking along by constantly having your assumptions challenged and therefore, giving you permission to refine your ideas. That, and you never know what opportunities might come your way by putting yourself out there. Also, I firmly believe that you learn by doing, so if you are just starting out, I would encourage you to get involved in whatever way you can.

What do you plan to conquer next on your horizon?

I am planning a trip within the next year or so to the Philippines, with the specific intent of traveling around the country as a photojournalist/blogger for two/three months, illuminating compelling stories of people affective positive change in their local community set within the context of a developing country. The last time I went to visit the country was way back in 2004, a trip back to the Philippines is clearly overdue. This journey for me is driven by a burning desire to learn more about my cultural heritage and history, so if anyone is interested in coming along for the journey, or even interested in working together as a partner of any sort, I would definitely be open to a discussion and sharing of ideas.

I can’t help but throw in a classic interview question, but where do you see yourself in the next 3-5 years? 10 years might I ask?

I see myself continuing to work in the emerging field of social entrepreneurship and social change, having a much deeper understanding of how broad transformational change happens on the ground within a complex system. I also recently obtained my open water scuba diving license, so in 3-5 years, I’m hoping to have a lot more scuba diving experience under my belt. I may even venture into the world of underwater photography.

If you could name one thing that coaxes you to wake up on a daily basis, gives you your drive throughout the day and makes you passionate enough to view sleep as an unwelcome interruption, what would it be?

I continue to imagine what the world will be like twenty years from now when children that were born in the past five years, have all grown up into young adults similar in age to myself and my peers today. Knowing that I have the capacity and the opportunities to help create a better future with the decisions I make today, drives me. Working with others who share this drive and having fun while doing so, is an added bonus and I consider myself to be an extremely lucky person in this regard.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

The question of what it means to be Canadian has always been intriguing to me, given my background as a person born in the Philippines to Filipino parents, raised in the UAE from the age of five to high school graduation at seventeen, and who decided to come to Canada by myself (with the financial help of parents of course) on the basis that tuition fees for international students was much cheaper in Canada compared to the United States.

That was a number of years ago, and I am glad to have obtained my Canadian citizenship earlier this year. Early in our relationship, I used to tell Monika that the only reason I was dating her was to expedite the process of getting my Canadian papers. Jokingly of course.

It certainly makes a difference having a Canadian passport especially when traveling. Even more so when going across the border into the US. I remember having to wait hours at the border to get my fingerprints taken and eyes scanned, simply by virtue of traveling on a Filipino passport and a 10 year multiple-entry US visa. When traveling elsewhere, the reaction has almost always been positive when I mention that I am from Canada.

Copenhagen 2009

That is why when it comes to the issue of the environment, it saddens me to see that Canada is now to climate change, what Japan is to whaling

WIth the Copenhagen talks set to take place next week, the impression that the current Canadian government will do everything in its power to wreck the talks reflects very poorly on Canadians, especially since this is incongruent with the movement building and gaining momentum in Canada right now, especially among young people.

Although the minority Harper government has used stalling tactics to delay a vote on Bill C-311 (Climate Change Accountability Act), an act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change, parliament passed a motion last week that was supported by all three opposition parties, that Canada adopt the first target from the delayed Bill C-311 as its position in Copenhagen.

That, in the opinion of the House, Canada should commit to propose at the Copenhagen conference on climate change

1. reducing, through absolute reduction targets, greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries to 25% lower than 1990 levels, by 2020;
2. the necessity of limiting the rise in global temperatures to less than 2oC higher than in the preindustrial era; and
3. supporting the developing countries in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and adapt to climate change.

Unlike Bill C-311, this motion is not legally binding. However, this does send a powerful message to other countries and world leaders involved with the Copenhagen talks, that the current Canadian government’s position on climate change does not represent the majority view of the Canadian people.

To end on a lighter note, below is an email forward that I received from a friend this morning, that helped to spark this blog post, along with the accompanying photos taken in various Canadian cities over the years, that I feel helps to capture the diversity of the Canadian landscape (or at least the places in Canada that I have visited). I am also looking forward to attending the Guelph Lecture on Being Canadian next week, featuring John Ralston Saul, considered to be one of Canada’s foremost political and economic thinkers. This lecture will certainly help to put what it means to be Canadian into perspective.

An Australian’s Definition of a Canadian

You probably missed it in the local news, but there was a report that someone in Pakistan had advertised in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed a Canadian – any Canadian.

An Australian dentist wrote the following editorial to help define what a Canadian is, so they would know one when they found one:

“A Canadian can be English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. A Canadian can be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Arab, Pakistani or Afghan.

A Canadian may also be a Cree, Métis, Mohawk, Blackfoot, Sioux, or one of the many other tribes known as native Canadians.

A Canadian’s religious beliefs range from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or none. In fact, there are more Muslims in Canada than in Afghanistan. The key difference is that in Canada they are free to worship as each of them chooses. Whether they have a religion or no religion, each Canadian ultimately answers only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

A Canadian lives in one of the most prosperous lands in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which recognize the right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

A Canadian is generous and Canadians have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

Canadians welcome the best of everything: the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services and the best minds. But they also welcome the least – the oppressed, the outcast and the rejected.

These are the people who built Canada .

You can try to kill a Canadian if you must as other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world have tried, but in doing so you could just be killing a relative or a neighbor. This is because Canadians are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, can be a Canadian.”

In light Efren Peñaflorida’s CNN Hero of the Year win, I wanted to share one of my favorite Def Poetry Jam videos, Taylor Mali showcasing that teachers do make a difference in the lives of their students.

That being said, there are so many teachers from elementary, high school through to university, that have made me the person I am today, and I would like to thank each and every one of them. Of course, there are also numerous friends and family members that have taught me a thing or two about life, and I would not be the person I am today without them as well. Thank you.

Video(s) after the jump.

And since it is a Friday after all, I figured that I would include some of my favorite Def Poetry Jam videos as well. See below and enjoy!

Gemineye: Penny for your thoughts

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