Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Recap from the Conference

The conference on Innovative Citizenship which we held at Suffolk Law School on October 18, 2008 was successful in bringing people from the New England community together to discuss, learn, and network. Throughout the day, a group of approximately 60 gathered to listen to each other’s concerns about the issues facing our community, issues directly concerning other communities, and how today’s array of technology can be useful in enabling almost anyone to connect with our neighboring communities, while also redefining the term neighboring to include all other communities of the world into each other’s scope. The advancement of technology in all fields of study have made it easier for any person to act in support of their own ideas, if they so chose, in a number of ways. Technology has advanced and continues to advance so that right now, there are many unimplemented solutions, which in many cases only need to be supported by time, hard work, and thoughtfulness to be realized in the affected communities. Internet, computer and other technologies have made it possible to create an infrastructure to organize around an idea, and move to enable solutions. The conference organized and presented information about how to move from idea to action.

The conference began with a few opening words from Daniel Sullivan, YPIC chair, which gave some background and some context to the day. He thanked our sponsors, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and Suffolk Law School, and acknowledged all of the hard work and assistance provided by the UNAGB and especially, Lisa Unangst, Program Manager.
Dan then introduced Harris and Svetlana Sussman, and the first presentation of the day.

The Sussmans provided an engaging and dynamic presentation of the work they do to improve the quality of life for the blind community in Russia. Their presentation demonstrated how they are using technology to assist them in their efforts, and how technology is especially important to their cause. Advances in computer and internet technology have made it possible for people around the world with sense limitations to communicate over the internet. Walking cane technology has increased the quality of day to day life for the blind, and the Sussmans founded the M.N. Adamov Memorial Fund to help make these technologies available to the blind community in Russia. We discussed the administrative, governmental, and social obstacles that they are up against when trying to achieve their goals, and how these obstacles make their focus on the Russian blind community an especially worthy cause. For more information about the Sussmans, and the M.N. Adamov Memorial Fund, please visit http://mnadamovfund.org/mnaf/index.html. The Sussmans provided an inspirational example of taking a cause from idea to organization based on something that was close to them.

The second presentation of the day was by Gradon Tripp and Rebecca Corliss of Social Media for Social Change (SM4SC.com). They discussed the effect that online social networking applications are having on the way organizations reach their audiences. They discussed how several of these applications work in detail such as Twitter, and Facebook, and showed how they use these to advance their goals. The increasing availability of the internet around the world and the increasing role of the internet as a resource and organizational tool have made it an effective tool in spreading information, and creating relationships. Gradon and Rebecca provided important information, which enabled all participants to take action using the free or and inexpensive tools that anyone with internet access has at their fingertips twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. They demonstrated how easy it is by creating a YPIC Twitter account in minutes as part of their presentation. Check YPICboston out on Twitter.com.

For more information about Gradon, Rebecca, and SM4SC.com see: http://www.sm4sc.com/

YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD WITH THE TOOLS YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW
The social media world has proven that, though still a young and small community within a multitude of industries, we have the power to exact great change.
Social media has broken down walls and created conversations. IBM does product testing in Second Life. Old college classmates reunite on Facebook. Zappos does intra-office communication via Twitter. All great, paradigm shifting events.” - SM4SC.com
The third presentation was by Olanrewaju Soremekun from the Obala Foundation. The Obala Foundation was organized to help the growing infrastructure improvements in Nigeria operate efficiently in order to maximize the benefit to the people. Their presentation gave information about the issues in Nigeria and how they identified the causes and then the solutions. They focus especially on healthcare infrastructure and distribution, and funding needs. The Obala Foundation is run out of Boston and demonstrates the ability for anyone to reach across the world. They demonstrated the importance and effectiveness of a well researched and though out approach. They were an inspiring example. For more information about the Obala Foundation, please visit their website and blog at:
http://obalafoundation.org/obala_demo/blog.html


After lunch, the conference continued with Dr. Clark Abt, who discussed his first hand experiences with social change and what the greater influences of change have been across his life. He discussed what drew him down the various array of paths that he has experienced, which provided additional perspective to the times we are living in today. His long view showed the value of reflection on goals from different perspectives. Dr. Abt was able to tie together all of the themes which were presented throughout the day.

The group switched gears after all of the presentations, and formed a panel of YPIC board members Alessandra Cappelino, and Austin Watroba, UNAGB program manager Lisa Unangst, Dr. Abt, and Abbey Tiderman, Social Media professional. The panel was mediated by Daniel Sullivan, who led the discussion to first address the purpose of the conference, and the thought processes which led to the theme and structure of the day. The panel also discussed what the next steps would be in the way of innovation for social change. The group concluded that there is an increasing wave of online action, which appears to be what will drive much of the efforts going forward, however there is great importance in maintaining a physical contact with those we are working with to ensure that we realize all of the benefits of interaction.

About YPIC and some additional perspective into the bigger picture:

The conference addressed several of our specific higher level goals, including increased understanding of the diversity of cultures and world issues, increase of thoughtful big picture dialogue amongst our young people, and enabling anyone who has the will, to find a course of action which means something to them.

The goals above fit into the beginning stages of a larger methodology. This larger methodology is driven by two critical theories. These theories are supportable by logic and/or psychology, and sociology. We do however welcome criticism of any part of our methodology where flaws should be highlighted, because none of us claim to be experts in the area. The first theory is what drives understanding to be the primary focus, and central theme of our solution by directly linking understanding and rational decision making, and therefore making it the first step in the creation of compassion. The second theory defines our world society as an accumulation of individuals, and focuses on the profound effects each of us individually have on the rest of the world. It is too often that people come to the conclusion that they couldn’t cause any effect that permeates the world, but this is a dangerous and flawed conclusion, because of the concept of emotional contagion, which is eventually exponential.

We concur with some that one of the of the causes of many of the issues that our younger community faces today is the deficiency of care and understanding of many about the facts of each of the many other cultures of the world and social issues we all face. Our first endeavor will be to promote spending some time to move to understand. Understand things one at a time, and we hope that people will realize that their opinions will change. It is everyone’s responsibility to think critically about their views and move to gradually understand their place in the world. Each of our aggregate opinions is presented to the world subtly, but no less powerfully, in every interaction we have with others. The more misconception that exist in the framework which we each have to support our opinions, the less we will understand the truths of what causes our world to look as it does, bad or good, and the more frustrating we will be to others. The most important result of understanding is compassion. When we make decisions, and interact with others with a perspective which cultivates compassion, it is our opinion that we will be making better decisions. We hope that this will also get more young people out to vote in all elections, and to understand the issues such that their vote is well thought out.

Our plan is to promote these ideas through the following:

• Help to organize information specific to particular causes so that anyone interested can understand the issue easier.
• Hold social events and speak with people to get them interested in the world community and social issues.
• Take on issues in the community to help act the solutions.

A detailed listing of YPIC Events are listed on UNA-GB's main calendar.