BE STIRRED'S INAUGURAL EVENT

September 26th, 2006
Creative Artists Agency Beverly Hills, CA

Be Stirred held our first event in Los Angeles and screened 2 short documentaries, hosted by Robert Redford, highlighting social entrepreneur's. Social Entreprenuer's are individuals who use business minds and business models to create social change. Free food and cocktails followed.

To learn more about the documentaries shown visit
www.pbs.org/opb/thenewheroes

"Never to old to learn and never more excited to learn new things in a new and unconditional way. If only college would've been so fun!" - Jessica Robinson (www.mantrajewelry.com)

 

March 2007

In late March some of the Be Stirred team members including Angie, Amanda and Alexis attended the Skoll World Forum at the University of Oxford in England. This was paid for in whole by the Be Stirred Vacation Foundation. The Be Stirred Vacation Foundation is a program that funds the experience of volunteering with a non profit organization at home or abroad and/or attending Social Forums like the Skoll World Forum.

The Skoll World forum is an event that has been taking place for 4 years in Oxford, England. The Skoll World forum honors and rewards the most effective social entrepreneurs around the globe. Social Entrepreneurs can easily be described as individuals who use business minds and business models to create social change.To learn more about the case for definition of a social entrepreneur, kindly view the following PDF document.

Be Stirred also believes that the individuals that were honored at the Skoll World Forum merit some recognition by our peers, friends and extended networks. These Social Entrepreneurs, amongst many others, are making an enormous impact in our global society that will lead towards greater good shared by all. These individuals notice that the government is doing nothing to improve their living conditions so they are forced to passionately take action in their own hands to try and fix the problems themselves. When one has an opportunity to listen to the stories of some of these social entrepreneurs working tirelessly for their causes, one realizes that you also want to join them in their efforts. These social entrepreneurs are in fact the “New Heroes” of our modern world. They are the comic book heroes that come to real life, but their superhuman powers and symbols are activated when: a person is pulled out of poverty, when a child is given an opportunity to be educated, when a woman is empowered to stand up for her human rights, when a homeless person is empowered to learn skills to help him or herself to get off the streets. The list goes on and on about what these individuals are accomplishing!

To learn about the 10 social entrepreneurs that were Skoll World Award receipts log onto: www.skollfoundation.org

On the first day of the event and during the opening ceremony there were several inspirational speeches given by: Steven Chambers (MBA Director of the Said School of Business in Oxford) Jeff Skoll (Founder of the Skoll Foundation and Participant Productions), Charles Handy (Writer, Broadcaster, and Social Philosopher) Muhummud Yunus( Founder of the Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdulah. (formerly Rania Al-Yassin) of the Royal Hashemite Court of Jordon along with many other leaders in their prospective fields in the Social Sector.

The speeches were educational, touching and moving. I especially enjoyed Charles Handy’s speech on the new Philanthropist whom some are describing as the “Philanthrocapitalists”. He went onto describe 4 great stories about 4 individuals. Each story was the tale of normal men that became philanthropists. One story was of a new and emerging successful business man from Australia in the restaurant business, the other of a UK football player who was a recovering alcoholic, another of an career executive who was not wealthy and finally a man who created and permeated the cell phone industry in Africa. All these individuals were stirred at some point in their lives to give up their wealth and live to help humanity. These philanthropists are not necessarily investing in local universities, hospitals or churches, these people are not prepared to write checks to institutions they don’t know. But rather take matters into their own hands and work on social problems from the bottom up. He ends with a thought for us all to contemplate: Wouldn’t it be so wonderful if every corporation had a social venture partner, and one day that corporations saw themselves as social enterprises? Be Stirred would like to help be one of the motivators to help make this happen amongst our networks.

Muhummud Yunus asks us to design and/or create products for the poor people and penetrate that target audience. Why do we focus so on the middle and upper classes? Be innovators of social ventures he urges us! Get creative and truly think outside the box! To learn more visit: http://www.grameen-info.org/

Queen Rania talks about the need to bridge and create a more tolerable world and respect one another’s customs and religions. She believes we have a “new kind of poverty” and the Post Global society is still not prospering with this new kind of poverty. We are all plagued by the poverty of multicultural- knowledge tolerance, and respect. She goes on by describing how negative perceptions go both ways for the east and west. She says, “We have all come to recognize that social inequality is wrong; we must also appreciate that social intolerance is wrong. Both hold us back. She urges that, “Companies must play a key role in bridging the East West divide, in making us better neighbors.” Thus a solution she proposes and plans on further developing in the months to come is to instill what she calls CMR, Corporate Multicultural Responsibility. “As economies become global, so do our obligations to each other. In today’s post-global world, cross-cultural training is just not enough.” To learn more about Queen Rania and her inspirational speech log onto: http://www.queenrania.jo and go to Press
Releases/Speeches/Click Skoll World Forum Speech.

Some ideas that come to mind for us as young adults that either own our own corporations or work for one is to initiate and advocate for the creation of a corporate responsibility programs in each corporation, but one that also instills the CMR approach as apart of it.

The event proceeded with a series of workshops throughout the next few days. I found the one on “mind-mapping” to be the most exciting! This workshop covered a new and innovative way to brainstorm ideas. It was developed by the Design School at Stanford University. We learned to drive multi-disciplinary innovation using design thinking and use rapid prototyping to discover new solutions. Be Stirred uses this new way of “mindmapping” in our brainstorming sessions now!
To learn more visit:
www.stanford.edu/group/dschool/big_picture/our_vision.html

There were several workshops and sessions lead by panelists that are experts in the Social Sectors. We were able to attend at least 2 to 3 sessions each day. Each session provided a means for us to learn and question our current situations within industries we work in, and how we can better improve or create innovative strategies so that there is a positive social impact.

They were also panel interviews conducted with the several of the Social Entrepreneurs. And these were also enlightening and engaging. One walks away with a sense of duty and responsibility to them, which is to help infiltrate their message beyond the ears that are most likely to want to hear it.

This Social Entrepreneurs leadership is a new movement brewing amongst us and I also believe it will be added on the list of Private, Public sectors in the future. Organizations like MBA’s Without Border’s www.mbaswithoutborders.org/ is yet another example of how our world is getting smaller. And there is in fact a need to contribute to the business and social development of upcoming nations through work rotations of MBA professionals. There is a great necessity for us to understand how we can work within our global society. By participating in such programs we become a more self actualized nation for the betterment of our world.

"I left the forum contemplating the following… How can we help those individuals that seek to bring our world towards peace and prosperity? How can we as young adults with our busy, hectic and demanding schedules squeeze in just a little more energy to help with this path? How can we become advocates for at least 1 or 2 of the social causes that move our souls or even spark our interest? I fervently believe by taking action THIS will enable not only ourselves but those that come after us to live lives that are peaceful, harmonious and fulfilling." Alexis Shah

"The Skoll World Forum was truly unforgettable. To be able to interact with people whom genuinely care about making this world a peaceful and better place was such an amazing experience. We really hope to bring some of the leaders from the forum to be featured in our events!" Angie Plumley