European Summit for Global Transformation, 2009 Archive

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Yes! If you are:

• a social entrepreneur or intrapreneur, whether just starting out or accomplished and award-winning
• an individual or organization deeply committed to social change, environmental sustainability, or a world that works for all
• looking to support and be inspired by remarkable, successful initiatives, individuals and projects worldwide
• building your own network for funding, publicity, entrepreneurs, experts, etc.
• wanting to give back or share your experience, success and expertise with young, successful entrepreneurs
• ready to engage full-out with like-minded indivduals who get things done: we’ll share resources, create action plans and move your commitments forward
• looking to reconnect with your own passion and commitment, create new projects or forward existing ones.

TED Fellow Esra’a Al Shafei calls the European Summit “working sessions for social entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.” It’s a weekend of high-impact, interactive activities. Join an engaged group to pool resources, work together and support each others’ projects and ideas.  Speakers are participants – this isn’t a conference where you just sit and listen.  Whether you’re just getting started or have a successful project underway, the Summit is more than a conference, it’s a weekend to change the world.

There’s a movement on the planet toward sustainability and social justice. All over the world people are standing for freedom of expression, human rights, environmental sustainability, social entrepreneurship, an end to hunger, and much more.  The European Summit features 2 days of content including keynotes, interest group meetups, open space sessions, creative workshops, painting for peace while being serenaded by a TED Fellow, two parties and some surprises!

2009 Program Highlights

• Do Something! Award Winner, Maggie Doyne, from rural Nepal
• Jen Lemen and Innocent Bajeneza on their work building hopeful communities in Rwanda
• The Pachamama Alliance leading an Awakening the Dreamer session
• Bill Liao, diplomatic special envoy of St Kitts and Nevis for the environment and sustainability
• Robb Correll and Judith Meuwly Correll introducing their innovative day school, Tagesschule Sesam, in Switzerland
• Esra’a Al Shafei, founder of mideastyouth.com, with an update on her talk at the 2008 European Summit (she’s become a TED Fellow, an Echoing Green Fellow and attended the Clinton Global Initiative University since then)
• Saturday night social event with Not-So-Silent Auction and Painting for Peace with Andrea Fono
• Friday night movie: Darius Goes West

Here’s how you can participate:

• present your project or idea to a group in a poster session,
• participate in open space & structured sessions with speakers and participants,
• Not-so-Silent Auction: Offer items (products or services) for auction.  At the 2008 event, Bill Liao, co-founder of Xing.com, auctioned 2 hours of business coaching that changed top bidder, Michael Loehr’s, life. What have you got to offer in the Not-so-Silent Auction?

• CONNECT with people living bold commitments in the world
• SHARE your own projects and what you’re up to
• CREATE new partnerships and next steps
• DISTINGUISH your purpose, plans and commitments
• MOVE THINGS FORWARD with a fun, inspiring group!

Register here.

Artists, educators, non-profit directors, corporate executives and employees, people from all walks of life, young and not-as-young, from around the world attended last year’s Summit.  2009 participants come from Bahrain, Latvia, Nepal, Rwanda, the Netherlands, Texas, Uganda, New York, Belgium, the UK, Germany, Sweden, and more…  in 2008 we ranged in age from 20s to 70s (plus one infant and Bo, around 12. He’ll be back!).

It’s not just about sitting and watching speakers; everyone’s a participant.  Whether you’re just starting on a new vision or project or have built a multi-million dollar business or non-profit (or anywhere in between), share resources in a fun-filled, inspiring weekend.

Breakout sessions are designed as meet-ups for networking and project development. The event is interactive.

Here are just a few of this year’s participants:

Ania Lichota is climbing the highest peak on seven continents to raise money for UNICEF.  Only Everest is left, and it’s scheduled for April/May 2010. She’s looking to partner with Nepalese schools or homes for kids — and she’s come to the right place because four participants at this year’s SUmmit either are from or live in Nepal!

Letha Sandison, founder, Wrap Up Africa:

Jen Lemen, of Picture Hope:

Bill Liao, with his latest initiative: Weforest.com:

Meet Janan Shakur and do your holiday shopping: Casa di Culture offers gifts for Global individuals at our Silent Auction.

Amy Sample Ward of Netsquared.org:

Stacey Monk of epic change:

2008 participants included:

• an attorney specializing in consensus and mediation, creating a new a paradigm in the legal world;
• entrepreneurs and venture capitalists devoted to corporate social responsibility,
• educators who’ve founded new schools that promote innovation and creative thinking, and
• a wide range of other individuals committed to social change and transformation.

Stacey Monk and Sanjay Patel met Mama Lucy in 2007 when they went on a volunteer vacation to Tanzania. It changed their lives.  Mama Lucy Kamptoni sold chickens and turned her income into a school that now educates over 350 children in the Moivaro and Kimandolu villages of Arusha, Tanzania. Her hen houses are now classrooms at Shepherds Junior School, where last year her students were ranked #1 out of 117 area schools on national exams.

Stacey Monk is the founder of Epic Change, an organization that shares the stories of remarkable grassroots changemakers like Mama Lucy to amplify their voices and impact. Investments by Epic Change funding by microdonations from across the globe have helped to fund Mama Lucy’s expansion. Her organization has been widely recognized for their innovative use of social media with projects like TweetsGiving & the #TwitterKids of Tanzania.

Maggie Doyne is a 23-year-old American living in rural Nepal, 18 hours from Kathmandu and three from the Indian border, with 27 kids. She funds nearly 100 kids’ school tuition and has found homes for over 700 other children throughout the region. Her accomplishments don’t stop there — she works with medical non-profits like Facing the World to provide treatment for children, too. This recent Huffington Post article outlines her story well.

Meet Maggie at the European Summit for Global Transformation and share in her incredible journey! Her stories of life with the kids will make you laugh and cry. For anyone who’s ever wondered if one person can make a difference, Maggie will you show you how.

To learn more about her work, see her blog or the Blink Now Foundation she’s established. Maggie’s next venture is a school in Surkhet, Nepal. She’s won the $100,000 Do Something! Award to fund it.

Thank you to Jan Doggen and Riet de Vlieger for donating the KLM frequent flier miles that will bring Maggie to the European Summit for Global Transformation.

The 2009 European Summit will begin Saturday, November 21 with the launch of a new, global version of the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream program of The Pachamama Alliance. The interactive and moving workshop serves as a galvanizing space for individuals to explore and formulate who they are in their communities and for the world.

The mission of the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium is to bring forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Planet Earth. Designed with some of the finest scientific, indigenous and activist minds in the world, the Symposium connects participants with a powerful global movement to reclaim our future. Designers of the Symposium will kick off the European Summit for Global Transformation on Saturday 21 November, 2009 with dynamic group interactions, leading edge research, and inspiring multimedia.

Awakening the Dreamer Symposium Trailer from Pachamama Alliance on Vimeo.

Bill Liao is a serial entrepreneur with seven IPOs (co-founder,  XING) and a long history of philanthropic work (as founder of neo.org, as an investor with The Hunger Project). Bill returns to the European Summit for Global Transformation in his new role as a diplomatic special envoy to promote the interests of St. Kitts and Nevis for the environment and sustainability.

Liao says, “The results are now there for you to see; we can heal our world. Planned reforestation can halt global warming, end poverty and provide ample food and water.  We are building a new organization with resources and partners to reforest 20 Million Square Kilometers of our precious Earth.”

Photo courtesy of Jen Lemen

Jen Lemen and Innocent Bajeneza will present their work in Rwanda. How did an American Mom and a man in Rwanda form a partnership that reunites families and builds homes and schools? Hear their story to find out! Jen (with Stephanie Roberts) won the 2009 Lenovo/Microsoft Name Your Dream Assignment contest with her Picture Hope project.

She’ll talk about her mission now: to excavate stories of hope, unleash the power of partnership and community across race, class and socio-economic line.

Innocent, in his first trip outside Africa, will share the notion of “turikumwe,” “we are together,” and how it is fueling Rwanda post-genocide. He’s just opened Turikumwe Nursery School in Rwanda, welcoming 60 students in this vision of hope, community and reconciliation.

To understand Esra’a Al Shafei’s stand for freedom of expression in the Middle East you’d have to see this and this and this and this.

And then you’d need to know she doesn’t agree with a lot of it, and she’s distributed and publicized it globally anyway. Her commitment to freedom of expression runs deeper than any of her personal opinions, which she will gladly spout at you in her trademark caustic, satirical style.

Esra’a is one of the reasons the European Summit for Global Transformation looks the way it does today… because young people like her need communities and resources of all kinds and sizes, some local and some global.  She is ever-devoted to the cause of freedom of expression in the Middle East and is a Master of creating global online communities with extensive press coverage.

She was the student of one of the organizers, who thought she could use a little hook-up, a connection with some folks who didn’t know about her great work yet.

The European Summit community rallied around Esra’a after her 2008 presentation by

• donating as much money in two days as MidEast Youth had raised in its entire three years,
• providing her with part-time employment doing what she loves so she could continue her MidEast Youth work, and
• advising and supporting her TED Fellow application.

“The European Summit is where it’s all happening!” she reported shortly afterward.

In 2009 Esra’a’s attended the Clinton Global Initiative University, TED Global and became an Echoing Green Fellow.  Her life is forever changed and her platform for freedom of expression in the Middle East grows wider and stronger by the day. In whatever small way we can help, we will.  Good work, Esra’a!

Esra’a inspired us to include more young people in this year’s program; she’s why the Summit looks the way it does today.

Saturday Night at the 2009 European Summit promises to be a blast ! TED Fellow Kyra Gaunt will sing while we Paint for Peace with San Francisco artist, Andrea Fono.

We’ve been trying to reach Andrea to plan the specific and discovered in the news today that she’s in Tunisia, painting for peace there!  She’s donated a work, “The Many Universal Stories of Love and Peace”, to the US Embassy there.