overloads

over the past 1.5 days, i was able to attend #OneYoungWorld (@oneyoungworld), dubbed as a mini-davos…a very inspiring summit of over 1200 delegates from over 180 countries, all gathered to hear from some pretty big deal cats - Former President Bill Clinton, Professor Mohammad Yunus, Chef Jamie Oliver, Activist Fatima Bhutto, Kiva founder Jessica Jackley, Musician Bob Geldof …and a ton of other A-list business, government, ngo and educational experts (seriously A-list, seriously).

I’m excited to see how the Summit progresses over the years and imagine that in a year or 2 people will say the same thing they do about SXSWi (‘dude, i went to sxswi before it became this huge thing that tens of thousands of people flock to every year and go nuts to get into)…or something like that.

there were so many young leaders, all with ambitions to change deep socio-economic issues in their country…and many delegates that were sponsored by their companies to discover, learn and share ways to answer global challenges around a myriad of topics (e.g., human rights, ethical businesses, food, energy, gender inequalities, etc.).

The premise of One Young World is simple, yet huge - give the young leaders of tomorrow a platform to activate and change the world for the better. And as many of the amazing speakers have said this far (though not in these exact words) - it’s up to you kids, get off your asses and do something. no really, do something…

I think Professor Muhammad Yunus said it best “start simple. start small.”

so i hope to return to #OYW and hear about 1200+ projects that have been launched or are underway or are crazy successful…and for that to happen, all those delegates need to start talking to each other (not just the people they know or the A-list experts), they need to start challenging each other and sharing answers…and they need to start putting pen to paper, or to code to screen (or both)….asap.

And I think that by the end of the 3 days they will….because (as Clinton put it in not these exact words) - none of us are doing social good here. we’re making sure we have all have a world to live in down the road.

so cheers to 2013 and seeing the thousands of awesome projects/businesses/organizations launched.