If Anheuser-Busch, the brewing company based in St. Louis that’s known for Budweisers and Clydesdales, held a hackathon, attendees would probably dream up the next big app for beer lovers, while overlooking the areas in real need of disruption, like water optimization.
That’s the thinking of Terry Howerton, CEO of the Chicago-based incubator TechNexus. Howerton joined Noah Lewis, managing director of GE Ventures, and Ting Gootee, Chief Investment Officer of Elevate Ventures at last month’s SXSW panel Reinventing America: Betting Big on the Heartland, which was moderated by Paul Noglows, executive producer of the Forbes Reinventing America Project. The conversation between investors making big bets on innovation in the Midwest was part of the Rise of the Rest road trip celebrating entrepreneurship across America.
Here, three important takeaways:
The Midwest is the next Silicon Valley.
The region has a higher density of Fortune 500 companies than anywhere else in the world, accounting for 19 percent of the country’s GDP, yet it receives just 5 percent of venture capital funding — making it a virtually untapped market that’s ripe for innovative thinking. “I really do believe we are going to solve the bigger problems – water, energy, healthcare, transportation. It’s not going to be about the next taxi app or the next Meet Up,” Noglows said.
The middle of the country isn’t lacking in entrepreneurial success stories.
For instance, ExactTarget, an email and mobile marketing technology company, was sold in 2013 to Salesforce for $2.5 billion. The panelists explained how co-founder and CEO Scott Dorsey, started ExactTarget in Indianapolis not only because that’s where he wanted to raise his kids, but also because employee loyalty was stronger there than in Silicon Valley, where the vast majority of his competitors were based.
But, there’s still big challenges preventing the Midwest from becoming an entrepreneurial hub.
The lack of direct flights, and venture capitalists being unwilling to deal with a layover or possible connection delay. To illustrate what a big deal this is, Noglows described how, at The Innovation Summit hosted by Forbes last year, the Indiana secretary of commerce got a standing ovation after announcing a new direct flight from San Francisco to Indianapolis.
[ph]
Tag: SXSW
Watch: Building a Better Government for the 21st Century
Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director of Code for America, a non-partisan group that works to bridge the gap between public and private usage of technology, looks at government as a platform in need of a relaunch.
At SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, Pahlka held a session called “How Government Fails and How You Can Fix It.” She and Mikey Dickerson, who left Google to save the day at the White House, explained, for example, how the U.S. Digital Service changed millions of lives by addressing the problems that plagued the Healthcare.gov launch.
Code for America “believes government can work for the people, by the people in the 21st century.” Through its fellowship — a service year model — the nonprofit organization places designers and developers within local governments to apply their problem solving and app building skills to make government work.
The group brought its message on why government must become competent, or even excellent, at digital to SXSW, with Code for America designers leading a separate SXSW session on urban planning tools.
Pahlka, a former U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer, recently left the beltway and returned to the Bay Area, where she is working to figure out what is next for this “Peace Corps for geeks.” SXSW provided a preview of what’s to come, but to learn more, watch our Google Hangout on Air to continue the conversation with Code for America. This is part of a series of live interviews featuring service opportunities — a way to raise awareness to the mission of the Franklin Project at the Aspen Institute, which is to mobilize a million young people to serve.
The video interview features Molly McLeod, who describes herself as a graphic designer and civic hacker who saves “good causes from bad design,” Alex Soble, who led digital projects at Chicago Public Schools before working with the city of Somerville, Mass., on education, and Nicole Neditch, Code for America fellowship director.
Tune in by watching the video above then click the Take Action button to learn how you can join NationSwell and The Franklin Project to spread the word on service year opportunities.
Can a Museum Unite the Food Movement?
With all the innovations on display at SXSW Interactive — from virtual reality to artificial intelligence — attendees probably didn’t expect to learn about the puffing gun, which actually made its public debut at the 1904 World’s Fair. But this tool, which gives Kix and Trix their crunch and enables cereal to float on top of milk, was a major focal focus of the panel “Making the Museum of Food and Drink.”
The museum’s first mobile exhibit — “BOOM! The Puffing Gun and the Rise of Cereal” — illustrates the power of using food to learn about topics from health and the economy to culture and the environment.
“It’s its own spoonful of sugar,” Dave Arnold, founder of the museum (MOFAD), said of food. “There’s no medicine that needs to get shoved down.” Arnold was joined by program director and executive director of the museum Peter Kim and Emma Boast, who, as program director, coordinates the MOFAD Roundtable, a debate series that tackles topics such as genetically engineered food. The team hopes their museum, which aims to be a brick-and-mortar reality in New York City by 2019, will bridge the divide between food as entertainment and food as politics.
Arnold said his “aha moment” for MOFAD came during a visit to the Museum of Natural History. He was walking through a small exhibit about Vietnam that included a small café where they served what he called slipshod interpretations of Vietnamese dishes. “The first thing that hit me was I would learn a whole lot more about Vietnam if they took this food cart seriously as opposed to these photos they have on the wall,” he said.
Most museums start with either a lot of money or a large collection of things, and Arnold explained that he had neither. But he has built a small team, drawn the support of advisors like musician QuestLove and chef Mario Batali and has already launched projects to put the model of food as an interdisciplinary educational experience to the test.
The MOFAD teams shares a common set of values, like the belief that informed eaters are better eaters and that food is personal, participatory and yes, fun. But don’t expect to see words like “superfood” or “junk food” on any of the gallery walls. Boast and Kim added that the museum aims to make food a less polarized and more constructive part of the national conversation.
“We want at MOFAD to create this kind of space where you can actually just get straight up information in a really fun and accessible way that kids can grasp and that adults can enjoy,” Kim said.
Based on the session’s turnout and level of applause at its end, this is an idea that people are sinking their teeth into.
[ph]
This Man Says American Democracy Is Dead, But He’s Working to Revive It
Tomorrow, Lawrence Lessig will bring his message on the need to get big money out of politics to Austin, Texas.
In a talk called “MAYDAY: The Next Phase in the Fight to Save American Democracy,” the lawyer and activist will address a crowd gathered at SXSW Interactive.
Not among the badge holders? Not to worry. Join the conversation using the hashtags #sxsw and #maydaypac.
Whether you tune in virtually or in person, don’t miss these videos from our NationSwell Council event with Lawrence Lessig.
Here, he describes why the Citizens United ruling was, in fact, a gift to campaign finance reform.
And in less than a minute, he captures the reason for his political action committee.
Lessig has drawn a lot of attention with his mission to raise money for candidates who commit to saving our system. He’s not alone at SXSW Interactive in tackling the issue of making government work, as the conference deals with the intersection of technology and just about everything.
Interested in improving government? You can also tune in online or in person for sessions including “Move Fast, Government, Or Get Out of the Way” and “How Government Fails and How You Can Fix It,” featuring another featured NationSwell Council speaker, Code for America founder Jennifer Pahlka.
These 10 Documentaries Will Change How You See America
Documentary films are known for sparking social change. (Case in point: Who wants to eat at McDonalds after seeing Super Size Me or Food, Inc.? What parent suggests visiting SeaWorld after seeing Blackfish?) Though 2014’s nonfiction films weren’t massive box office hits, they pointed out injustice and lifted our eyes to the doers making a difference. Here are the 10 must-see documentaries that inspired us to action.
10. The Great Invisible
BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 still darkens the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico in the form of altered ecosystems and ruined lives. Named best documentary at the SXSW Film Festival, Margaret Brown’s documentary dives deep beyond the news coverage you may remember into a tale of corporate greed and lasting environmental damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDw1budbZpQ
9. If You Build It
Two designers travel to the poorest county in rural North Carolina to teach a year-long class, culminating in building a structure for the community. In this heartwarming story, 10 students learn much more than construction skills.
http://vimeo.com/79902240
8. The Kill Team
An infantry soldier struggles with his wartime experience after alerting the military his Army platoon had killed civilians in Afghanistan. On the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ long list for best documentary, Dan Krauss’s challenging film shows how morality dissolves in the fog of war and terror of battle.
7. Starfish Throwers
Three people — a renowned cook, a preteen girl and a retired teacher — inspire an international movement to end hunger. Jesse Roesler’s film includes the story of Allan Law, the man who handed out 520,000 sandwiches during the course of a year in Minneapolis, which we featured on NationSwell.
6. Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story
A former Navy SEAL (formerly named Christopher, now Kristin) says that changing genders, not military service, was the biggest battle of her life. In retrospect, her SEAL experience takes on new importance as she comes to understand the true value of the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
5. The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
An online pioneer who developed Creative Commons with the academic and political activist Lawrence Lessig at age 15 and co-founded Reddit at 19, Swartz crusaded for a free and open internet. Another potential Oscar candidate, the film poignantly recounts how Swartz ended his own life at age 26 after aggressive prosecutors initiated a federal case against him.
4. True Son
A 22-year-old black man recently graduated from Stanford returns to his bankrupt hometown of Stockton, Calif., to run for city council. Michael Tubbs convinces his neighbors (and the movie’s audiences) you can have “a father in jail and a mother who had you as a teenager, and still have a seat at the table.”
3. The Hand That Feeds
After years of abuse from their bosses, a group of undocumented immigrants working for a New York City bakery unionize for fair wages and better working conditions. Led by a demure sandwich maker, the employees partner with young activists to fight their case against management and the food chain’s well-connected investors.
2. Rich Hill
Three boys confront impoverishment, learning disabilities and dysfunctional families in this human portrait of growing up in small-town America. The backdrop to the teenagers’ lives is their Missouri hometown of 1,396 residents, where one in five lives in poverty and where the fireworks still glow every Fourth of July.
1. The Overnighters
Our top film and a favorite for an Academy Award nomination details how an oil boom draws a city-sized influx of workers to a small town in North Dakota, where they scrape by on day labor and live in their cars. With the heft, detail and narrative twists of a Steinbeck novel, Jesse Moss profiles the Lutheran pastor Jay Reinke, who welcomes these desperate men into a shelter called “The Overnighters,” to his congregation’s dismay.
Are there any documentaries that should have made the cut? Let us know in the comments below.
SXSW Is Over. Here’s What You Can Do With All That Swag
So much swag and so little room in your suitcase. (What a first-world problem to have.) Anyone who has ever attended a business conference knows the drill. You get a grab-bag, stuff it with stuff, and maybe — just maybe — you’ll use one or two pieces of the various promotional items you accumulate throughout the event. At SXSW, one of the largest conferences in the U.S., the swag flows like water.
Since you can’t take it home with you, what should you do with all that stuff? Medallia, a Silicon Valley-based tech company, had the answer: Give it to the homeless.
MORE: SXSW: How Benevolent Gives a Voice to People Who Aren’t Usually Heard
Throughout the conference, which ended March 16, representatives from Medallia, along with Austin’s Foundation for the Homeless, placed themselves in strategic spots asking for attendee’s unwanted swag. They promoted their efforts via Twitter using the hashtag #SwagDonationSXSW. And it didn’t take long for the swag to come swaggering in. According to a post by Andrew Nunnelly on Medallia’s blog, the swag drive was as a massive success. From hats to backbags to USB drives to food to waterbottles and too many t-shirts to count, conference attendees were quick to rid themselves of their swag to help the homeless. In total, nearly 50 pounds of swag was collected.
“It’s not easy to catch people’s attention at SXSW — there’s simply so much to do and so much to see — but it was clear that the wastefulness of traditional marketing swag immediately resonated with nearly everyone who saw our volunteers,” Nunnelly wrote. “They knew what they had collected from brand booths and street teams was destined for a dark corner of their closets at best, or the landfill at worse. By having volunteers ready to take the swag off their hands though, we provided them with an entirely new (and impactful) ‘best’ option.”
ALSO AT SXSW: NationSwell on the Rise of Online Youth Activists
Nunnelly writes that the goal of the company’s initiative was not only to collect much-needed items to distribute to the community, but also to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness in Austin. According to the city’s website, more than 2,300 people are on the streets in any given night and about 900 individuals in the city are considered chronically homeless.
But we think there’s an even bigger message behind this idea. We already know that Americans are obsessed with stuff. Why? Most of us don’t need any of it. But there are many people who do. As SXSW attendees return to their respective cities across the country and around the world, take a look at your swag bag. Do you really need it? If not, pay it forward by donating it to your local homeless shelter. Let’s keep #SwagDonationSXSW going. Now that’s what we call swagger.
MORE: 10 SXSW Panels That Could Change America
SXSW: How Benevolent Gives a Voice to People Who Aren’t Usually Heard
While others talked about cloud robotics, tried on wearable technology, or watched a 3-D printer spit out custom-made Oreos, Megan Kashner focused her SXSW Interactive session on video interviews with low-income Americans and the lessons that we can learn from listening to people in need.
Kashner, a clinical social worker, is the founder of Benevolent.net, a website that helps low-income people raise funds for things they need. “We at Benevolent are not the only people talking about listening, and not just listening, but following the lead of low-income Americans,” she said of the motivation behind her panel “Listening to People in Need: Lessons for America.”
On Benevolent, people tell their stories and describe what stands in the way of their success. The platform also aims to provide a simple way for those who want to help “to step into the stories of those who are trying to reach their goals” by donating to individuals whose videos and needs are featured.
Here is what we learned from the video interviews with John, Tasha, Kris, Melissa, and Danielle:
Lesson #1: “Getting and keeping a job is expensive.” The costs of uniforms and tools needed for certain jobs are costly and can be a barrier for low income Americans needing work to improve their situation.
Lesson #2: “Transportation is a huge issue.” Sometimes public transportation is the only option — given the cost of buying and maintaining a car. But it can prevent someone with good intentions and a great work ethic from making it to work or class on time.
Lesson #3: “Being employed is not enough.” Finding work is only half the battle, as low wages and high costs of living mean that many people who are working long hours still need food stamps, subsidized energy and childcare, and housing assistance to provide for their families.
Lesson #4: “Kids need more than a roof over their heads.” Housing instability can hold kids back from getting the most out of their education. And beyond a safe place to life, kids also need a parent who can pick them up if they stay after school for activities, who can help them with homework, and who can pack them a school lunch.
Lesson #5: “We need to change the rules.” By listening to the stories of low-income Americans and learning from them, we can fix the systemic problems that lead to poverty.
As Kashner wrote in a Huffington Post piece, where she previewed the five lessons she discussed at SXSW, “How would we re-structure supports and employment practices to make it possible for low-income Americans to set their goals, get help overcoming hurdles, and know that people believed in them? Let’s start that conversation and stop the vitriol that has marked recent conversations about poverty and progress.”
Through these stories — both in the session and on the site — Benevolent is able to simplify an issue as complex as how to pull an individual out of poverty. How does the site do it? By breaking it down in human terms. The story of John, who needed steel-toed boots and precision instruments for his job as a machinist, brought a human face to the American issue of, as Kashner put it, “people needing to spend money they don’t have to take a job they desperately need.” The video featuring Tasha, who was able to escape domestic violence only by moving to a shelter two hours away from where her kids went to school, brought life to this statistic: Low- to moderate-income households spend 42 percent of their total annual income on transportation.
The last lesson built off of a video of Danielle, who looked to Benevolent donors when she needed money for a security deposit in order to live in a safer place with her son. Danielle, who cuts railroad tracks for a living, quoted Robert Reich on how being poor is the hardest job in America. “And I gotta tell you as a poor person, as a working poor person, it definitely is,” she said.
When NationSwell asked what is working when it comes to changing the rules, and who beyond Benevolent is listening to the stories low-income Americans, Kashner mentioned the Family Independence Initiative, which weaves together these experiences with hard data to challenge the stereotypes holding low-income families back, and LIFT, an organization that connects trained advocates and community members to help low-income Americans get ahead.
“They are pioneering some really interesting ways to listen to and shape their policy positions and their programmatic approach based on what their clients are telling them,” Kashner said of the LIFT team.
“The people who are doing the real work everyday to help and walk alongside low-income families as they try and reach their goals are small, local organizations,” she added — saying the solutions lie not with one organization but with the numerous school counselors, social workers, pastors, and others who listen to these stories and use them to change the rules.
Watch one of the videos from the session above then let us know what you think about some of the questions Kashner posed: What would our nation be like if we listened to what low-income Americans had to say? How might that change our approach as a country, as policymakers, as employers, as voters, and as community members?
Watch: How Rock the Vote Is Reaching Millennials
Heather Smith, Rock the Vote board chairwoman, was doing what she does best at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, this week: Donning a #TrendUrVoice T shirt, she stood in the rain on Thursday registering voters alongside both the famous (actress Rosario Dawson, chair of Voto Latino) and the newly converted (student volunteers). “Our strategy is just to go where the young people are,” she says of the Rock the Vote presence at the music and media conference.
That strategy has worked for the nonprofit since its inception. When Rock the Vote was founded in 1990, MTV was one of the surest ways to reach young people. In the last 23 years, however, dozens of new media outlets have hit the scene, while political campaigns drew major stars to political fundraisers and celebs started to take on their own causes.
Rock the Vote had to motivate and mobilize millennials, making them feel that voting, like music, is something that is a part of their identity. “We moved from LA to Washington, DC so we could be in the middle of all this and say, ‘Hey, pay attention to us. Start talking about these issues,’” she says. Rock the Vote has also branched out to launch new programs like Spin the Vote for electronic dance music fans. “The strength of our democracy really does depend on the participation of its citizens,” Smith said, emphasizing the importance of redefining citizenship in our country before heading back in the rain. “It’s showing up on election day and everyday in between.”
MORE: Is Voting Via Smartphone Our Future?
MORE: The Simple Fix That May Change How We Vote Forever
The Average College Graduate Has a Whopping $30,000 in Debt. How One Startup Is Helping Them Pay It Back
Two years ago Rozlynd Awa left Pittsburgh for Kaneohe, armed with a master’s degree in public policy from Carnegie Mellon University. A staggering $140,000 in student loan debt also followed her to the Hawaiian city, where she’s now an analyst for an education nonprofit. For that amount of money, Awa could have purchased a Porsche 911 (with embellishments, no less), flown around the world (roughly 14 times) or bought a home (albeit a modest one). “It’s overwhelming,” she says when she stops to think about it.
The only daughter to a single father, Awa wasn’t immune to hard work: She took on two jobs to help pay for college and grad school. Yet Awa was surprised when she learned she could volunteer at a company that might serve as a launching pad to an engaging career and at the same time earn money to pay down the money she owed. The opportunity came from a small Pittsburgh nonprofit called SponsorChange, which enables college graduates to chip away at their loans through high-level, skills-based volunteer work at sponsoring corporations. SponsorChange’s mission isn’t far off from programs such as AmeriCorps, but its focus on the private sector sets it apart from similar government-sponsored initiatives.
“Nearly two-thirds of students graduate with debt, which at times prevents them from doing the civic work that they really want to pursue,” says Raymar Hampshire, who co-founded SponsorChange in 2009 with personal savings and support from the Sprout Fund, an organization that invests in community projects in Pittsburgh. SponsorChange serves as a bridge between students, dubbed “change agents,” and companies, matching qualified graduates to specific projects. The sponsor businesses, which range from local law firms to the Boys & Girls Club of America, pay $1,000 per project to alleviate each student’s loan debt. So far SponsorChange has matched about 35 students to various projects, from business consulting to web development, which are split into 40-hour stints. “We wanted to give them a way to pay off that pesky debt a bit while still being involved in their community and increasing their network.”
MORE: This State Might Offer a Novel Incentive to Help Teachers Pay Off Loans
It’s a big problem to tackle. A mainstay topic in the debate about education reform, the average student loan debt has nearly tripled over the last 15 years, according to a study from the Pew Research Center, hurting recent graduates as they enter the workforce. In recent years, that growth has begun to set records: Outstanding loans soared past the $1 trillion mark in 2011, exceeding the nation’s total credit-card debt.
Awa’s $140,000 figure is no doubt exceptional, but the average debt for graduates of the class of 2012 was $29,400, up slightly from $26,600 in 2011, according to a report from the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit research group. “Student loan debt is the biggest burden millennials carry into the economy, and it’s crippling their ability to be productive individuals in society who could be growing our economy,” says Joe Bute, president of Hollymead Capital Partners LLC, a consulting firm in Gibsonia, Pa., near Pittsburgh, where Awa completed her SponsorChange project. In fact, student loan debt has become so burdensome that some experts say it’s even hampering a recovering housing market.
Since the program offers only $1,000 per project and participants typically only complete one project, Hampshire, 31, says an equally important part of SponsorChange’s mission is to encourage a love for socially altruistic work among young adults. And students who have participated in the program, such as Awa, are quick to agree. At Hollymead Capital, Awa researched re-entry models and transitional programs for newly released prisoners. “I was less in it for the money, which was really negligible compared to the debt I carried,” says Awa, whose graduate degree focused on education policy. “For me, it was really about exploring a different side of public policy and seeing whether the experience might segue into something else.”
ALSO: This 6-Year High School Challenges Everything We Thought We Knew About American Education
It’s Hampshire’s greatest hope that SponsorChange can become an outlet for new graduates to pursue these kinds of civic-based explorations. Hampshire was motivated to found the organization because he lacked such an opportunity while working in the private sector, which included jobs at companies such as Merrill Lynch. “Yes, I was able to pay my student loans and live comfortably, but I wasn’t feeling 100 percent fulfilled,” he says of his corporate gig. “I wasn’t actually making an impact or contribution to my community. So I wanted other young people to not have to make that decision — to either pay off their student loans or pursue a job that fulfilled them.”
Hampshire says he’s received great enthusiasm from corporate sponsors as well, many of whom are eager to provide millennials a chance to pay off their debt in a productive way. “That’s what I like most about SponsorChange’s model — that they’re creating a scenario for students to engage with companies in a practical way,” says Bute. “It’s not just random work or students getting coffee. It’s very much project-focused. They get the job done. They see the results.”
Hampshire launched SponsorChange in Pittsburgh, though he’s hoping that recent national attention — including a Dewey Winburne Community Service Award in Austin, Texas, at the SXSW Interactive Festival — will help propel the nonprofit to expand further across the country. The nonprofit has plans for a program that can facilitate virtual volunteering, where students can do remote work such as web programming or research for companies in other locations. Hampshire is also planning an aggressive push to involve colleges and universities in recruitment. “We want to scale what we’ve done so far, which is mostly pairing Pittsburgh-based students with Pittsburgh-based companies,” he says. “Universities and colleges have a ton of talent that could be mobilized to do impact volunteering, and we want to be at the center of facilitating that process…and fundamentally changing the way we deal with student debt at a national level.”
DON’T MISS: This Congresswoman Has a Plan to Protect Students from Crippling Debt
SXSW: NationSwell on the Rise of Online Youth Activists
On the final day of SXSW Interactive (that stands for South by Southwest for the uninitiated), two inspiring student activists joined Greg Behrman, Founder and CEO of NationSwell, and Ronnie Cho, the former Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, to discuss how they’ve successfully used technology to address national challenges.
Simone Bernstein, a senior at St. Bonaventure University in New York, said her frustration from the lack of information for teenagers who wanted to volunteer in her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, led her to work with her brother to start a website called St. Louis Volunteen. This later grew into VolunTEEN Nation, a national organization that lists volunteer opportunities for teens while also encouraging organizations to recognize the potential of younger volunteers.
“So many kids wanted to volunteer but there were very few places they could go to find those opportunities,” she said. “A few months after we launched St. Louis Volunteen, we got hundreds then thousands of emails from people who wanted to volunteer in their own cities.”
Bernstein wakes up at 6:30 every morning, runs three miles, then spends six hours each day working on VolunTEEN Nation — all of this on top of her academic work. She says she is grateful for Skype, Twitter, and other online tools that allow her to lead the national team, including 240 ambassadors across the country.
High school senior Charles Orgbon III talked about his work founding and running Greening Forward. The has its roots in a school project that had him picking up litter around the Mill Creek High School campus in Hoschton, Georgia. Initially, his Earth Savers Club only had three members, but the Internet provided Orgbon with a power platform to rally student action. Using a blog called Recycling Education, he shared posts on environmental issues with, as he describes it, “anyone who wanted to listen.”
Describing the transition that led to Greening Forward, which works to provide a diverse group of young people with the resources they need to protect the environment, Orgbon says that he started thinking toward the end of eighth grade about how he might use technology to advance the impact he could have.
“Let’s do more than just post on a website. Let’s build some resources and support tools to help young people build similar projects like the Earth Savers Club in their own communities,” he said.
The audience, many of them working professionals in their 20s and 30s, laughed when Orgbon defined a young person as someone under the age of 25.
This old 26 year old tweeting in the corner captured some other memorable moments from the conversation:
Cho moderated the afternoon session. While serving as President Obama’s liaison to Young Americans and writing the White House’s For the Win blog (which focused on the remarkable initiatives young Americans advance in their own communities) Cho came across many stories of student innovation. He talked about the importance of a platform to “highlight interesting, effective, impactful work” or Americans across the country.
This is exactly where NationSwell comes in, Behrman said, talking about the website’s model of telling stories about individuals making an impact and mobilizing support around innovators like Ben Simon of the Food Recovery Network. He then shared a video outlining the impact of its call to action.
MORE: How Much Food Could Be Rescued if College Dining Halls Saved Their Leftovers?
“The founding impetus is really these guys, people throughout our country who are doing amazing things, and sometimes they’re overlooked and sometimes people who are interested may not know about them, so we want to be a platform for them, a source for their stories,” Behrman said.
Then panel went on to explore the way tools from social media to smart phones have helped Bernstein, Orgbon, and so many student activists advance their causes and achieve national impact. The audience posed questions ranging from the distinction between activism and service to the role of school curriculum in encouraging volunteering. The conversation itself seemed likely to inspire not only more stories about student innovators who have leveraged technology to address national challenges, but strong support for them as well.