- working on my newly launched photography blog, Photography by Renjie; now that I have purchased by first DSLR camera, the Nikon D5000, the possibilities are endless;

- making my way across Canada from Waterloo, ON to Cranbrook, BC at the end of July (details to come) and documenting the entire road trip along the way;

- hiking, swimming, camping and generally exploring the great outdoors of British Columbia while I am there;

- building a kite from scratch, now that I have seemingly found a new hobby after stumbling across it almost by accident back in April;

- beginning to plan TEDxWaterloo 2011 via email and Skype working sessions with a solid team, after the success of the inaugural TEDxWaterloo back in February this year;

- imagining the possibility of an Ignite Cranbrook taking place in mid- to late September, modelled after the success of Ignite Waterloo;

- and of course, looking forward to my keynote speech at the Global Young Leaders Conference in Washington, DC later this month.

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Why I am supporting my friend and former colleague Jeff Henry, for Waterloo City Council

From the website campaign testimonial page:

“During my time as the Vice-President, Administration and Finance for the University of Waterloo’s Federation of Students, I worked closely with Jeff Henry, and can attest firsthand to his skilled leadership and collaborative approach. Among Jeff’s broad set of advocacy skills, his in-depth knowledge of municipal affairs helped to ensure an optimal outcome when we worked with the Region of Waterloo to provide a universal transit pass for University of Waterloo undergraduate students. Thanks to Jeff’s leadership and teamwork skills, more than 24,000 students now have access to affordable and reliable transit that connects them more closely with the Waterloo community.

Even during the more challenging executive experiences that arose during our time working together – and there were many – Jeff showed an even temperament, well thought-out arguments, a team-focused mindset, and capable leadership. I am pleased to support him in his bid for city council, and believe he would serve as an excellent bridge between the community and university students.”

Please visit www.jeffhenry.ca to learn more about Jeff and the issues surrounding Central-Columbia Ward 6 in the City of Waterloo.

Join the Facebook fan page, follow Jeff on Twitter, or subscribe to the campaign blog RSS feed to keep updated on the campaign as it progresses.

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Paul Saltzman is a rather remarkable person, who gave a talk at TEDxWaterloo last February sharing his insight on life and describing his personal journey and magical encounter with The Beatles in India back in the late 1960’s.

This TEDxWaterloo Talk in particular, has emerged as one of my favourites from the one-day event that we organized and held at the Gig Music Hall in Kitchener last February 25.

Paul’s remarkable story of traveling to India on a whim and his chance encounter with the Beatles, was told in a very compelling manner that I find myself watching this particular talk over and over again even after the fact. I remember sitting in the audience at TEDxWaterloo and hanging on to his every word as he shared his insight on humility and the notion of not making yourself small, but understanding your size in the universe.

This life lesson was passed on to him by George Harrison of the Beatles, who was 24 years old and the same age as Paul at the time, who put things into perspective by saying

“We’re the Beatles after all aren’t we? We have all the money you could ever dream of, we have all the fame you could ever wish for, but it isn’t love, it isn’t health, it isn’t peace inside.”

At the end of the day, Paul concluded that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were ordinary people just like him, who were leading very extraordinary lives.

Paul mentioned the word ‘magic’ several times throughout his presentation, defining magic as ‘that which is real, but as yet we do not understand’. This term was set within the context of ‘magical’ coincidences and opportunities that he has had in his life, simply by virtue of paying attention to the broader universe and what it was telling and compelling him to do, even if he did not quite fully understand it at the time.

Perhaps this is one of the major reasons why Paul’s talk at TEDxWaterloo speaks very loudly to me at this point in my life. There are times where I do feel that I don’t know where I am going, but I get the sense and the occasional reassurance that I am on my way there.

Exciting times ahead.

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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.

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After months of hard work, we’re coming down to the wire with the organization for TEDxWaterloo, finally happening next week on February 25 at the Gig Music Hall in downtown Kitchener – and we’re definitely super excited!!!

On a personal note, it’s been quite the journey for me from my initial blog post on a possible TEDxWaterloo event last summer, to opportune meetings with an amazing group of people who are equally as passionate about ideas worth spreading. Credit for putting TEDxWaterloo together really has to go to the entire team of volunteers behind the event, who have collectively given hundreds of hours of their time, energy and commitment towards making TEDxWaterloo a success.

Our diverse range of speakers, all of whom are well recognized and respected in their fields, are also giving us their time and energy because they truly believe in sharing their ideas and experiences with the broader community.

We will be live webstreaming the entire event beginning 2pm EST on February 25 at www.tedxwaterloo.com. All of the TEDxWaterloo Talks will be made available online after the event.

For more information on TEDxWaterloo, please visit: www.tedxwaterloo.com

TEDxWaterloo Speakers

Terry O’Reilly – Advertising visionary and host of the CBC award-winning radio series “The Age of Persuasion“.

***

Philip Beesley – Professor at Waterloo Architecture creating vastly complex ‘living’ environments that can breathe and feel.

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Raymond LaFlamme – Founding Director of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing whose insight changed Stephen Hawking’s mind and theories about our universe.

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Paul Saltzman – Beatles photographer and two-time Emmy Award winning film & television producer-director.

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Caroline Disler – A master of translation with working knowledge of ancient languages including Sumerian, Akkadian, Edomite, Ancient Hebrew, Egyptian, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek.

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Madhur Anand – Internationally recognized scientist, poet, and professor of Global Ecological Change at the University of Guelph.

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Michael Sacco – Chocolatier and social entrepreneur promoting the diversity of production of organic cacao through a structure defined as “horizontal trade”.

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Darren Wershler – Canadian experimental poet, non-fiction writer and cultural critic.

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Marty Avery – A connector and catalyst whose strategic approach offers remarkable insight into the human side of business.

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Amy Krouse Rosenthal – New York Times best-selling children’s author, radio host and creative filmmaker.

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Below is a video segment of Jaclyn and I discussing TEDxWaterloo that appeared on the Waterloo Region Record website, courtesy of Philip Bast.

The full interview with Chris Meidell of Waterloo Tech TV can be found here.

TEDxWaterloo on The Record from Renjie Butalid on Vimeo.

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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.

From www.ted.com/tedx

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.

Taking the cue from the upcoming TED 2010 conference happening February 9-13, 2010 in Long Beach, CA, it seems to me the purpose of curating both the speakers roster as well as the audience members comes down to ensuring a rich and stimulating exchange of ideas among a diverse group of peers.

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?‘

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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

1. Quality of Content
2. Consistency
3. Knowing exactly why you are writing.

Of course, you need to throw in a little spontaneity and randomness every now and then, just to keep things interesting.

Posted via web from renjie’s posterous

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See and download the full gallery on posterous

DigitalMediaCamp Toronto (#dmcamp) took place this past Saturday, where participants gathered in an attempt to address the question,

“How can we work together to propel Toronto’s technology, content and design communities into the future and make Toronto a globally competitive hub of digital media entrepreneurship and innovation?”

Facilitated by Mark Kuznicki, and supported by the Canadian Digital Media Network, some excellent conversation took place throughout the day around this question, with some concrete action items attached to specific timelines emerging at the end of the day. A number of blog posts have popped up following #dmcamp, providing an overview of the day’s proceedings, including a blog post over at TechVibes by Karim Kanji. For a much more comprehensive listing of blog posts to do with #dmcamp, please visit dmcampto.slinkset.com

The day’s events were captured in real-time, on the #dmcamp Toronto wiki, as well as on ScribbleLive, where any tweets or blog posts with the hashtag #dmcamp, were automatically fed into the ScribbleLive feed. It was almost disarming to find a picture of yourself projected on the wall in real time whilst engaged in a group discussion (look closely at picture 6 and 7 in the photo gallery above). It is interesting to see how social media is changing the way conferences and events are being communicated in real-time for those unable to attend, as well as documented for future reference.

#t4change at #dmcamp

Nick (@petten), Ruby (@rubyku) and myself (@renjie), took part in a conversation facilitated by Gabe Sawhney later in the day, where the topic revolved around connecting the technology industry with community organizations in order to create real change on the ground. Notes from this session can be found here.We brought up Time for Change, known as #t4change in #dmcamp-speak, and how this model is based on the original Timeraiser concept where we value time over monetary donations. We highlighted our pilot event on December 3rd as an existing ‘action’ item that we were already pursuing, and we acknowledged that we did not have all the answers as of yet, but were keenly interested in learning and adapting as the project unfolds.

A lot of people seemed to take interest in this, judging from the quality of the conversation at #dmcamp, as well as the number of times the hashtag #t4change appeared alongside the hashtag #dmcamp on Twitter. We outlined that we were looking to redefine the terms ‘volunteer’ and ’service’, and that we were focused in our efforts to engage young professionals working in the corporate sector, utilizing their professional skills and matching them with opportunities in the community best suited to their skills, interests and passions.

Next steps for #t4change

One of the concrete action-items that emerged from #dmcamp was a commitment to host a roundtable discussion on #t4change at the Centre for Social Innovation sometime in early January 2010, with the help of Mark Kuznicki and Gabe Sawhney. Notes from this session can be found here.

We invite all those interested, including those who attended Time for Change on December 3rd, as well as #dmcamp this past Saturday, December 12, to join us to discuss possible next steps forward with #t4change. We will be posting more information on our blog as well as on Twitter once we have finalized a date and time for the roundtable discussion at CSI.

For now, we are extremely excited for what lies ahead with this project, and will continue to learn and adapt as the project emerges. We want to make it clear that we would like to continue to be the holders of the process for #t4change, but we do not want to control the process. We want this emergence to be a product of co-creation, and we certainly welcome any input or critical feedback provided. As of now, we do not know if #t4change could spin-off into its own independent organizational structure, or become a project embedded into an already existing system infrastructure.

It is exciting for us to have people excited about #t4change. This project has certainly resonated with each one of us (myself, Nick, Ruby and Kristina) and perhaps this has to do with the much broader trend of young people in today’s world, wanting to pursue their passions and create meaning in their lives.

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Founded in March 2007 by Nick Petten while an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo, Out in the Cold is a grassroots, student-run event held every November, where students and community members are invited to spend the night outside on campus, to raise money and awareness of homelessness issues in their local community.

We are continuing the Out in the Cold initiative by sharing a model by which other schools and universities can adapt to their respective campus and local community. www.outinthecold.ca was launched in October 2009 as an online portal to document the growth of this grassroots initiative. It is our goal to provide the tools necessary for people in other schools and universities to organize similar events in order to provide a better understanding of issues surrounding homelessness, poverty and housing stability.

Causes of homelessness include poverty and a lack of affordable housing. Root causes of poverty include low income, unemployment or underemployment, social isolation, racism, low literacy, poor education, and many more. Addressing homelessness is effective social, health, and economic policy.

• Learn more about the issues

After three years at the University of Waterloo, the Out in the Cold model was successfully adapted at the University of Toronto campus. In November 2009, Out in the Cold was run simultaneously at both campuses, and was organized by teams of students led by Kaija Saarinen (Waterloo) and Jenna van Draanen (Toronto).

• Learn more about Out in the Cold 2009
• Out in the Cold in the news

Out in the Cold Timeline

Out in the Cold has raised over $10,000 for organizations tackling the issues of poverty and homelessness in the local community.

March 2007: University of Waterloo

November 2007: University of Waterloo

November 2008: University of Waterloo

November 2009:

University of Waterloo & University of Toronto

www.outinthecold.ca launched

November 2010:

Our goal is to apply this model to schools and universities across Canada. Please contact us if you would like to host Out in the Cold in your local community.

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Out in the Cold 2009

A big THANK YOU to InsideToronto.com for putting together this video of Out in the Cold, held at the University of Toronto on November 20-21, 2009.

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