Santa Rosa City Laguna Philippines -
attracting investors from all over Asia and the world.
Come meet your
favorite super heroes and mega robots brought to life by SM City Santa Rosa in the thrilling "Toy Fusion" event, happening every day January 6-15, 2012 at the Activity Grounds near SM Supermarket!
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PURSUING PEACE THROUGH EDUCATION
During the Martial Law years, only a few dare to pass Datu Paglas, Maguindanao.
Datu Ibrahim "Toto" Pendatun Paglas III was among the countless victims of violence that rocked the small town of Datu Paglas in the 1970s. Battle-scarred due to decades of war launched by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and later on by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), he and the other residents have no other desire but to achieve peace in their hometown.
This desire to pursue peace and seek economic growth had a leap when Datu Toto was elected to public office in 1998. As mayor, he rallied with his people and worked to regain what was lost from the hostilities. Datu Toto also became one of the founding members of the Philippine Business for Social Progress in Mindanao.
At his passing, the establishment of Datu Ibrahim Paglas Memorial College (DIPMC) strengthened the people's resolve to constantly seek peace and prosperity through education.
"He really desires that people in Datu Paglas will be given equal opportunities like the rest in the country and he believes that it is through education that common good will be achieved," recalled Mrs. Badria Talembo, volunteer and college dean at DIPMC.
Operating a community college like DIMPC is not easy as Talembo disclosed. "We survive from the minimal fee paid by our students. The spirit of volunteerism is very prominent but the need is still big," she said.
An elementary teacher only receives 3,000 pesos a month as honorarium while a college instructor gets 65 pesos per hour. According to Talembo, another concern is the internet connection. Students conducting internet research still have to travel to Tulunan, North Cotabato (about 10 kilometers away from Datu Paglas) just to access the web.
DIMPC hopes that the mission which Datu Toto had started will gain more support from concerned individuals and organizations.
- Grace Muncada and Danny Escabarte
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Epson Precision (Philippines) Inc. president Osamu Koshiishi shares a story of the legendary Japanese dog Hachiko
to Grade 4 pupils during the turnover ceremony for a learning resource corner at Lodlod Elementary School in Lipa City.
LAGUNA-BASED Epson Precision (Philippines) Inc. is one of more than 240 member companies of the Philippine Business for
Social Progress working together to fight poverty in the country. Through the Balik Baterya recycling program of Motolite and
PBSP, Epson donated textbooks, chairs, and tables to beneficiary schools in Lipa, with the generated funds from Epson’s
used lead-acid batteries (ULABs) and additional financial assistance used to sponsor learning resource packages to 12
schools in the city. The Motolite-PBSP Balik Baterya Program, launched in 2006, involves the collection of ULABs for the
recycling and production of new automotive and industrial batteries. Premium value of ULABs are given to donors who opt to
support Project LEAP, an initiative to improve the quality of basic education through provision of textbooks, workbooks,
teacher training, remedial reading camps, and supplemental feeding. - by Amy Melissa Malaluan (Photo courtesy of PBSP.)
Watch the above thought-provoking animated talk by Sir Ken Robinson from RSA Animate, which has achieved more than 5 million downloads from YouTube and is influencing teachers, schools, and education authorities all over the world. He argues that students with restless minds and bodies should be cultivated for their energy and curiosity instead of being ignored or even stigmatized as they are at the moment. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. He challenges the rigidly narrow way that we educate our children at the present time, and he urges a radical rethink of our school systems to cultivate creativity and acknowledge the multiple types of intelligence that are now known to exist but for centuries have been suppressed.
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And below is the mindblowing TED talk given by Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy) -- a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing free world-class education to anyone, anywhere in the world. It now consists of self-paced software and, with over a million unique students per month, the most-used educational video repository on the internet (over 30 million lessons delivered to-date). Khan has posted more than 2,000 free video tutorials, which are viewed nearly 100,000 times around the world each day. Currently they cover math and science from basic addition to advanced calculus, physics, chemistry and biology. Now, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Khan is increasing this range to include many more academic and life-experience subjects.
Welcome to Santa
Rosa Magazine - the accessible
open e-magazine of Santa Rosa City, Laguna, Philippines. No payment, no registration, no
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CONGRATULATIONS TO GWENDOLINE RUAIS FROM MUNTINLUPA!
Her second place at the Miss World beauty pageant in London has only ever been achieved
once before by a Filipina. Read the story
and see more photos on our Opinion
page.
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Congratulations to Miss Universe 2011 above, Leila Lopes from Angola,
and to our own Shamcey Supsup, who was placed 3rd Runner Up,
one position higher than Venus Raj last year. Editorial photo courtesy of Miss Universe Organization. (More...)
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Education
INSPIRATIONAL
QUOTES: (Editor's
note: To be inspired by someone does not mean we agree with every word
they say but we are inspired by their overall vision, their passion and
their personal integrity. For example, like Jim Paredes I am a fan of
Winnie Monsod, although I strongly disagree with her specific views on
OFWs. This does not detract from my admiration of her undoubted
qualities of patriotism and social responsibility in seeking to improve
our nation for all.)
"The
people we really need to be hearing from, the unique and exceptional
talents, crystalline thinkers, creators of astounding beauty, and
people with deep but practical perceptions are exceptions in every
society, whether democratic or not, and are hardly ever heard. They are
the precious grains taken from tons of chaff. They are society's crown
jewels. In short, they are the true elites, rare and valuable human
assets whose gift of brilliance should be shared with everyone. Do you
see many of them in the media? Of course not.
While a circus may be
entertaining, it would be good to balance this with exposure to other
kinds of shows, books, ideas, events that stimulate the spirit, mind
and senses and give audiences a higher sense of awe and thus be
inspired.
I say give the elites more
exposure. We should be hearing and watching more of them. We need
people who are distinguished because of their depth of intelligence and
talent. They have something to share that can change and elevate us.
They are the salt of the earth. They spice up our lives.
We need more people like
Cheche Lazaro and Winnie Monsod. More National Artists exposed on TV.
More museums, libraries, and less malls. More servant leaders like
Jesse Robredo and Leila de Lima instead of the trapos
that inhabit many government posts. We need elites from the academe,
showbiz, arts, politics, media, sports, and religious sectors to expand
our sense of what is possible for us as a society and as a nation."
- Jim Paredes, popular musician and writer, regular columnist of The Philippine Star
"With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice. .... Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. .... Don't back down just to keep the peace. Standing up for your beliefs builds self-confidence and self-esteem. .... The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you're willing to work. .... The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be. .... The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. .... Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you."
- Oprah Winfrey, the most influential woman in the world
"You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don't make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you. .... You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. .... Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. .... We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value."
- Maya Angelou, acclaimed as one of the most inspirational women of our time
EDITORIAL:
WOMEN WHO ARE INSPIRING
THE WORLD IN 2011 - PART 1
Women from around the globe are making a big difference to the whole world
and taking lead roles in finding ways to make it a better place for everyone.
AN
EXCITING NEW WAVE OF INSPIRATIONAL IDEAS IS SWEEPING THE GLOBE and it does not originate, as you might guess, in
the developed First World.
Proving the truth of the old
adage that "necessity is the mother of invention", these amazing educational
ideas have originated in developing countries of the Third World, where
need is greatest and financial resources are lowest. Even more
remarkably, it is creative individuals who are leading the way and are
inspiring enlightened governments to follow up their work with
enthusiastic official support. In Africa, Asia and South America these
ideas have been spreading like wildfire, and last of all they are now
being taken up by the First World which sees itself lagging far behind.
Basically the new ideas seek
to transform education from the bottom up instead of from the top down
as in traditional education systems. In other words they make a fresh
start from ground zero by asking what children want and need most right
now in their own lives however poor their circumstances and however
lacking are the public resources available.
Through the sheer genius of
passionate educators, millions of children in the Third World are
already experiencing the mind expanding joys and opportunities of
elementary education for the very first time. It's giving a whole new
dimension to the phrase "against all odds".
Also, this same approach is
already being extended to adults with little or no education, and even
traditional mainstream government education systems in the First World
are now piloting alternative methods derived from innovative ideas fom
the Third World.
Simultaneously the developed countries are being inspired by a new generation of accomplished and articulate women from both Third World and First World who have built on their own culture, education and experience to reach out and improve the lives of people around the globe in ways that men have never achieved.
To learn more and to see where else and in what other fields innovative individuals are bringing radical improvements and advances, we highly recommend that you take a look at the TED website www.ted.com TED offers a fascinating collection of inspirational online videos covering a great variety of subjects from music and dance to education and social enterprise to architecture and painting to astronomy and quantum physics. All are
performances or talks by leaders from around the world, and all are free for anyone to view on the internet.
Some videos from TED of talks by eminent women can be viewed below together with others from YouTube, and from universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Denver.
***WOMEN INSPIRING THE WORLD IN 2011 - PART 1***
Our selection focuses on some of the women who are inspiring the world right now and whose impact on it will increase dramatically as their ideas spread and their works become increasingly acknowledged by a wider public beyond the immediate fields they specialize in.
(Click here for Part 2)
Dr. Hawa Abdi is an OB/GYN (and a lawyer) who lives and works in Somalia with her daughters, also doctors, Dr. Amina Mohamed and Dr. Deqo Mohamed. In 1983, she opened a small clinic in Somalia -- which became a refuge as Somalia devolved into civil war. Her one-room clinic has grown to encompass a hospital, a school and a refugee camp for some 90,000 women and children, she estimates, who were displaced by war. In 2010, Glamour named Dr. Abdi and her daughters "Women of the Year", and called them the "Saints of Somalia". In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristoff wrote a stirring tribute to her work titled "Heroic, Female and Muslim." And she works largely on her own; as Glamour notes: "While Dr. Abdi has gotten some help, many charities refuse to enter Somalia." "It’s the most dangerous country," says Kati Marton, a board member of Human Rights Watch, and "Dr. Abdi is just about the only one doing anything."
Elizabeth Kapu'uwailani Lindsey wants the world to remember the people who came before us. The actress-turned-anthropologist has made it her mission to find, preserve and share the knowledge and traditions of indigenous populations before they disappear. She’s working with Google to create a geospatial Map of the Human Story, using the indigenous science of wayfinding to chart tales at risk of being lost. In 2011, Lindsey, who's the first female fellow and first Polynesian explorer at the National Geographic Society, will set out on a 186-day global expedition to document what she calls "teachings critical to navigating the complexity of our times." Lindsey’s 1996 documentary 'Then There Were None', which chronicled the near-extinction of native Hawaiians, has become a must-see in many history classrooms. She was named Hawaii’s Woman of the Year in 2004. "To have a Native person research indigenous knowledge and practices marks a new era for National Geographic," she says. "The planet is our canoe, and we are the voyagers. True navigation begins in the human heart. It's the most important map of all. Together, may we journey well."
Patricia Kuhl studies how we learn language as babies, looking at the ways our brains form around language acquisition. Kuhl is co-director of the Institute for Brain and Learning Sciences at the University of Washington. She's internationally recognized for her research on early language and brain development, and studies that show how young children learn. Kuhl’s work has played a major role in demonstrating how early exposure to language alters the brain. It has implications for critical periods in development, for bilingual education and reading readiness, for developmental disabilities involving language, and for research on computer understanding of speech.
Speaking at a London girls' school, Michelle Obama makes a passionate, personal case for each student to take education seriously. It is this new, brilliant generation, she says, that will close the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be. Her life as First Lady of the United States is informed by her early life, growing up as the daughter of a pump operator for the Chicago water department. Though money was tight, her parents emphasized education and possibility for their two brilliant children. Both kids went to Princeton (her older brother, Craig Robinson, was a bond trader, then become a much-respected basketball coach at Brown and now Oregon State University); Michelle went on to Harvard Law School, and returned to Chicago to do corporate law at the firm where she met her future husband, Barack Obama. She left corporate law to become a civil servant, working in planning, social outreach and administration with the city of Chicago, AmeriCorps and the University of Chicago Medical Center. Today, Michelle Obama's personal focus is on raising her own two children, Malia and Sasha, in the glare of White House life. Her more outward focus, as First Lady, also revolves around issues of work-life balance; she's a passionate supporter of military families and of working mothers. She's helping to lead the drive for national service, encouraging Americans to volunteer in their own communities. (And she has become an international fashion icon too.)
As co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda French Gates helps shape and approve foundation strategies, review results, advocate for foundation issues and set the overall direction of the organization. Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health with vaccines and other life-saving tools and giving them a chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to dramatically improve education so that all young people have the opportunity to reach their full potential. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
Iraqi-born Zainab Salbi founded and runs Women for Women International, and has dedicated her life to helping women in war-torn regions rebuild their lives and communities. In her memoirs "Hidden in Plain Sight: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam", she writes of being raised in Saddam Hussein's inner circle -- her father was Saddam's personal pilot. She left Iraq for an arranged marriage in the US, which quickly became another form of tyranny. But in 1993, when she heard of the rape and concentration camps in Bosnia, she realized she could no longer remain passive. Salbi founded Women for Women International to help women who are victims of war in every way -- from those who've been physically harmed to those who suffer from the poverty that war and strife inevitably bring. WFWI provides economic and emotional aid, job-skills training, and rights education, empowering women to stop the cycle of violence and create social
change. In Salbi's latest book, The Other Side of War, she shares personal stories of women's experience in conflict. "War is not a computer-generated missile striking a digital map," Salbi writes. "War is the color of earth as it explodes in our faces, the sound of a child
pleading, the smell of smoke and fear. Women survivors of war are not the single image portrayed on the television screen, but the glue that holds families and countries together. Perhaps by understanding women, and the other side of war ... we will have more humility in our discussions of wars... perhaps it is time to listen to women's side of history."
Sunitha Krishnan is galvanizing India’s battle against sexual slavery by uniting government, corporations and NGOs to end human trafficking. Each year, some two million women and children, many younger than 10 years old, are bought and sold around the globe. Impassioned by the silence surrounding the sex-trafficking epidemic, Sunitha Krishnan co-founded Prajwala, or "eternal flame," a group in Hyderabad that rescues women from brothels and educates their children to prevent second-generation prostitution. Prajwala runs 17 schools throughout Hyderabad for 5,000 children and has rescued more than 2,500 women from prostitution, 1,500 of whom Krishnan personally liberated. At its Asha Niketan center, Prajwala helps young victims prepare for a self-sufficient future. Krishnan has sparked India's anti-trafficking movement by coordinating government, corporations and NGOs. She forged NGO-corporate partnerships with companies like Amul India, Taj Group of Hotels and Heritage Hospitals to find jobs for rehabilitated women. In collaboration with UN agencies and other NGOs, she established printing and furniture shops that have rehabilitated some 300 survivors. Krishnan works closely with the government to define anti-trafficking policy, and her recommendations for rehabilitating sex victims have been passed into state legislation. "The sense that thousands and millions of children and young people are being sexually violated and that there’s this huge silence about it around me angers me."
When Liza Donnelly joined The New Yorker in 1982, she was the youngest cartoonist on staff and one of only three women to hold the job. She’s still there. In 2005, Donnelly wrote the definitive book about her colleagues: "Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Greatest Women Cartoonists and Their Cartoons". She’s been part of many other books, including "Sex and Sensibility", "Cartoon Marriage" (about her life with fellow New Yorker cartoonist Michael Maslin) and a popular series of dinosaur books for kids. Her latest is "When Do They Serve the Wine? The Folly, Flexibility and Fun of Being a Woman". In 2007, Donnelly joined the United Nations initiative Cartooning for Peace. She travels worldwide to speak out about freedom of speech, world peace, and other global issues. Donnelly contributes to dscriber.com as the editor of World Ink, which publishes the timely, political cartoons of artists from around the globe. She's a founding member of the Cartoonists Association, and also teaches women’s studies at Vassar.
Lea
Salonga, the acclaimed Filipino actress and singer, is taking her real-world role of
United Nations Goodwill Ambassador very seriously. Traveling throughout
the Third World she is seeing the poverty at first hand, spreading hope
to the hungry, urging their leaders
to act NOW, and raising funds from national, corporate and private donors to end hunger.
Find out more and give your support at www.1BillionHungry.org.
You'll never sing again, said her doctor. But in a story from the very edge of medical possibility, operatic soprano Charity Tillemann-Dick tells a double story of survival -- of her body, from a double lung transplant, and of her spirit, fueled by an unwavering will to sing. A powerful story from TEDMED 2010. Tillemann-Dick has performed across the United States, Europe, and Asia in venues as diverse as The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Severance Hall in Cleveland, Ohio; Il Giardino Di Boboli in Florence, Italy; The National Symphony Hall in Budapest, Hungary; The Tel Aviv Opera House in Israel; and the American Embassy in Beijing, China. She studied music at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University and the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. She has collaborated and performed with noted conductors and musicians Bruno Rigacci, Joella Jones, Marvin Hamlisch, Bono, Zoltán Kocsis, Joan Dornemann, Eva Marton, and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Some of her operatic roles have included Titania in A Midsummer's Night Dream, Gilda in Rigoletto and Violetta in La Traviata. She has performed for presidents, prime ministers, members of Congress, and world dignitaries. Her performances have been broadcast around the world on the BBC, IRA, Bartok Radio, MTV, PBS and NPR. Tillemann-Dick has served as the national spokesperson for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, working to raise awareness, increase federal research funding, expand stem cell research, and promote preventative and alternative medicine.
Jehane Noujaim is the gutsy filmmaker responsible for Control Room, an astonishing documentary about Al Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq war and the contrasting notions of truth expressed in the US media. Two weeks before the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Jehane Noujaim gained access to both Al Jazeera and the US military's Central Command offices in Qatar. By being in the right place at that very wrong time, she caught the onset and outbreak of the Iraq war on film. The resulting documentary, Control Room, exposed the very divergent ways the Arabs and the West covered the war. Being raised between Egypt and the US, the exploration of culture is one of Jehane's driving forces. Her reason for making the film: "It's important for everyone, simply as individuals, to try to understand different cultures."
Jody Williams won a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to eradicate landmines. Now she's teaming up with five other female peace laureates to empower women to fight violence, injustice and inequality. In more than 100 years of Nobel Peace Prizes, only a dozen women have ever won. Civil-rights and peace activist Jody Williams, received the award in 1997 as the chief strategist of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which established the first global treaty banning antipersonnel mines. Williams believes that peace is defined by human (not national) security and that it must be achieved through sustainable development, environmental justice, and meeting people's basic needs. To this end, she co-founded the Nobel Women's Initiative, endorsed by six of seven living female Peace laureates. She chairs the effort to support activists, researchers, and others working toward peace, justice, and equality for women and thus humanity. Williams also continues to fight for the total global eradication of landmines. Forbes magazine described her as: "A tireless crusader against war and the lingering effects that armed conflict has wrought around the world."
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a film producer and journalist who has worked on 14 films for major networks in the United States and Britain. Her films include Children of the Taliban (with Dan Edge), The Lost Generation (about Iraqi exiles) and Afghanistan Unveiled. Her work has taken her around the world, where she has filmed and worked with refugees, women's advocacy groups and human rights defenders. By bringing their voices to the outside world, she has often helped them bring about a critical change in their community. Obaid-Chinoy helped found the Citizens Archive of Pakistan, a nonprofit, volunteer organization that fosters and promotes community-wide interest in the culture and history of Pakistan. Citizens Archive works with thousands of children, teaching critical thinking skills and instilling a sense of pride about their history and identity.
Obaid-Chinoy is a TED2010 Fellow. "By bringing the voices of the ordinary people faced with extraordinary challenges to television screens around the world, I hope to affect change in one community at a time."
As a journalist reporting on China, Sheryl WuDunn saw the everyday oppression of women around the world. She and her husband Nick Kristof won a Pulitzer Prize for their New York Times coverage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Their joint reporting work in China and other developing nations convinced them both that, just as slavery was the moral issue of the 19th century, sex trafficking, gender-based violence and other abuses make women's rights the moral issue of the 21st. In their book "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide", they make the case for empowering women as a means of development. Women tend to spend more on education, nutrition and business, the economic engines of growth in a community. And if we can find ways to develop the untapped potential of the millions of women who are now left uneducated, denied basic rights, oppressed and threatened -- we'll turn on a firehose of economic power that could transform the developing world.
Before she retired in 2007, Kiran Bedi was one of India's top cops. As the first and highest-ranking female officer in the national police force, she earned a reputation for being tough yet innovative. Her efforts to prevent crime, reform prisons, end drug abuse, and support women's causes earned her a Roman Magsaysay Award, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Bedi also served as a police adviser to the UN Secretary General.
In retirement, she has become one of the most trusted and admired community leaders in India, advocating for social change and civic responsibility through her books, columns, and a popular reality-TV show. She reaches out to over 10,000 people daily through her two NGOs, Navjyoti and India Vision Foundation, which provide education, training, counseling and health care to urban and rural poor. Bedi's latest initiative, Mission Safer India, aims to ensure that police log and address citizen complaints. Her life is the subject of the 2008 documentary "Yes, Madam Sir" narrated by Helen Mirren.
In the developed First World it has already happened, and Hanna Rosin is not afraid to shine a skeptical spotlight on people's cherished ideals, whether it's politically correct dogma or the conservative Christian agenda. Rosin is the sort of journalist who dares to articulate what people are thinking if only they hadn't realized it yet. Born in Israel and raised in Queens, the co-founder of women's site DoubleX (an offshoot of Slate) and contributing editor at the Atlantic Monthly is probably best known for the furor raised by her article titled (not by her) "The End of Men". This asserted that the era of male dominance has come to an end as women have gained power in
the postindustrial economy. A similar furor greeted her well-researched piece "The Case Against Breastfeeding," which questioned the degree to which scientific evidence supports the touted benefits of breast-feeding. Rosin has covered religion and politics for the Washington Post and contributes to such publications as the New Yorker and the New Republic. She makes her most powerful argument when she looks at what is happening on America's college and university campuses: "We can see with absolute clarity that in the coming decades the middle class will
be dominated by women."
For more than three decades Elizabeth Lesser has worked with leading figures in the field of healing self and society. She is the co-founder of Omega Institute, the US? largest lifelong learning center focusing on health, wellness, spirituality, creativity and social change. She's the author of 'Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow' and 'The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure'. For the past ten years, Lesser has spearheaded Omega's popular Women and Power conferences, renowned gatherings featuring women leaders, authors, activists and artists from around the world. In 2008 she helped Oprah Winfrey produce a ten-week online seminar based on Eckhart Tolle's book 'A New Earth', viewed by more than 2 million people worldwide. Since then, she has appeared several times on the Oprah Winfrey television show and Oprah.com webcasts, and is an ongoing host on Oprah's Soul Series, a weekly radio show on Sirius/XM. There's an angry divisive tension in the air that threatens to make modern politics impossible. Lesser explores the two sides of human nature within us (call them "the mystic" and "the warrior") that can be harnessed to elevate the way we treat each other. She shares a simple way to begin real dialogue -- by going to lunch with someone who doesn't agree with you, and asking them three questions to find out what's really in their hearts.
At the helm of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg juggles the tasks of monetizing the world's largest social networking site while keeping its users happy and engaged. Long before she left Google to join Facebook as its Chief Operating Officer in 2008, Sandberg was a fan. Today she manages Facebook's sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy and communications. It's a massive job, but one well suited to Sandberg, who not only built and managed Google's successful online sales and operations program but also served as an economist for the World Bank and Chief of Staff at the US Treasury Department. Her experience navigating the complex and socially sensitive world of international economics has proven useful as she and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg work to strike a balance between helping Facebook users control privacy while finding ways to monetize its most valuable asset: data.
Halla Tomasdottir, co-founder of Audur Capital financial services, has been instrumental in rebuilding Iceland's economy since its collapse in 2008. Her passion is releasing the incredible economic potential of women's ways of doing business. She believes that women's values are key to solving Iceland's economic crisis. In 2007, Halla and her business partner, Kristin Petursdottir, co-founded Audur Capital to bring greater diversity, social responsibility, and "feminine values" to the financial services industry. These values include independence, risk awareness, straight talk, emotional capital, and profit with principles. And Audur's approach appears to be working. The investment firm's innovative offerings such as the national green-tech investment fund they set up with pop icon and homegirl Bjork may just help save banking in Iceland. Tomasdottir began her career in corporate America, working for heavyweights like M&M/Mars and Pepsi-Cola. Back home, she helped create a foundation and the executive education and women entrepreneurship programs at Reykjavik University. She became managing director of the Iceland's Chamber of Commerce, later leaving this post to start Audur.
The company is named after an early Viking settler, Audur the Wise, whose moniker signifies wealth, happiness, and clear space.
Johanna Blakley studies the impact of mass media and entertainment on our world. As the Deputy Director of the Norman Lear Center (a media-focused think tank at the University of Southern California) Blakley spends much of her time exploring how our entertainment interacts with our political, commercial and social habits. She is especially interested in the surprising impact of intellectual property rights on innovation, organizing conferences around the lack of creative ownership in fashion as well as technology and the ownership of creative content. She has worked across a huge variety of media platforms -- producing for the web on a large scale, conducting gaming research, coordinating events for film festivals and executing consumer research on entertainment and politics. Drawing on this vast body of experience, she also lectures at USC and helped develop their masters program in Public Diplomacy.
Reality is broken, says Jane McGonigal, and we need to make it work more like an online game. In the best-designed games, our human experience is optimized: We have important work to do, we're surrounded by potential collaborators, and we learn quickly and in a low-risk environment. In her work as a game designer, McGonigal creates games that use mobile and digital technologies to turn everyday spaces into playing fields, and everyday people into teammates. Her game-world insights can explain -- and improve -- the way we learn, work, solve problems, and lead our real lives. She directs game R&D at the Institute for the Future, a nonprofit forecasting firm where she developed Superstruct, a massive multiplayer game in which players organize society to solve issues that will confront the
world in 2019. She masterminded World Without Oil, which simulated the beginning of a global oil crisis and inspired players to change their daily energy habits. She also works with global companies to develop games that build on our collective-intelligence infrastructure -- like The Lost Ring, a mystery game for McDonald's that became the world's biggest alternate reality game, played by more than 5 million people. She's working on a book called Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Happy and How They Can Change the World.
Amber Case studies the symbiotic interactions between humans and machines -- and considers how our values and culture are being shaped by living lives increasingly mediated by high technology. Case is a cyborg anthropologist, examining the way humans and technology interact and evolve together. Like all anthropologists, she watches people, but her fieldwork involves observing how they participate in digital networks, analyzing the various ways we project our personalities, communicate, work, play, share ideas and even form values. Case founded Geoloqi.com, a private location-sharing application, out of a frustration with existing social protocols around text messaging and wayfinding. She predicts that intensification of the human-technology interface will quickly reduce the distance between individual and community, believes that the convergence of technologies will bring about unprecedented rapid learning and communication. Dubbed a digital philosopher, Case applies her findings to such fields as information architecture, usability and online productivity. She's currently working on a book about using anthropological techniques to understand industry ecosystems. Kris Krug in 'Fast Company' says of Case: "She's a digital native. She's from the future. She's come back to help us figure out how to think."
Kiran Bir Sethi has launched an initiative to make our cities more child-friendly. She looks beyond what exists to ask: "could we do this a better way?" and in 2001 she founded the Riverside School in Ahmedabad, its curriculum and its building from the ground up. Based around six "Beacons of Learning," Sethi's lesson plan focuses on creating curious, competent future citizens. Her latest project, inspired by dialogue with the children of Riverside, is called AProCh -- which stands for "A Protagonist in every Child." Fighting the stereotype image of modern kids as rude and delinquent, it looks for ways to engage children in city life, and to revamp cities to enable kids to learn, actively and by example. "It is possible to organize cities to teach usefulness, social responsibility, ecological skill, the values of good work, and the higher possibilities of adulthood."
In the developing world, access to incubators is limited by cost and distance, and millions of premature babies die each year. Jane Chen shows an invention that could keep millions of these infants warm -- a design that's safe, portable, low-cost and life-saving. Chen has spent years working on health issues in the developing world. She was program director of a nonprofit in China dealing with HIV/AIDS, and worked for the Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative in Tanzania. She is the co-founder and CEO of Embrace, a social enterprise that aims to help the millions of vulnerable babies born every year in developing countries through a low-cost infant warmer. Unlike traditional incubators that cost up to $25,000, the Embrace infant warmer costs less than 1% of this price. The device requires no electricity, has no moving parts, is portable and is safe and intuitive to use. Jane Chen received her Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to her graduate studies, she was the Program Director of Chi Heng Foundation, a nonprofit organization that sponsors the education of children affected by AIDS in central China. She was also formerly a management consultant at Monitor Group. "I have seen firsthand that mothers will do anything they can to save their babies. And yet 450 babies die every hour around the world. In villages where this toll is a reality, it is simply beyond a mother's means to save her children."
***WOMEN INSPIRING THE WORLD IN 2011 - PART 2***
Our selection focuses on some of the women who are inspiring the world right now and whose impact on it will increase dramatically as their ideas spread and their works become increasingly acknowledged by a wider public beyond the immediate fields they specialize in.
(Click here for Part 2)
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Globe continues to lead the way in Sta. Rosa with its innovative customizable broadband plans.
Arnel
Pineda, the popular Filipino lead vocalist of legendary American rock band Journey,
has formed a non-stock, non-profit, independent foundation providing
quality education, health services and medical attention to
underprivileged Philippine children. The stated reason is that "For
millions of youth in developing countries like the Philippines,
education
is seemingly beyond reach. Poverty and inadequate government support
stifle the future aspirations of Filipino children. Hence, Arnel Pineda
Foundation, Inc. (APFI) was formed, principally to address their sad
plight by preparing them for a brighter future through education." Find
out more and give your support at arnelpineda.org.
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VIDEO GAMES ARE GOOD FOR YOU (AND FOR THE WHOLE WORLD)
"This is my daughter. She's playing a computer game. She's only two years old, and
she's having a blast. So she's really the driving force behind the development of graphics
processing units. As long as kids are playing computer games, graphics is getting better
and better and better. So please go back home, tell your kids to play more games, because
that's what I need." - Professor Anders Ynnerman, Ph.D., Linköping University, Sweden
Far from their earlier image of fantasies that wasted kids' time and parents' money,
video games are now acknowledged as a powerful force for improving the
real world we live in. Here's a selection of innovative thinkers and
doers who will open your minds to amazing new possibilities. Click here to read more and see the videos
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HOW SCIENCE IS TRANSFORMING NATIONS AND PEOPLE FASTER THAN SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS COULD EVER HAVE WISHED
We all know that airplanes, submarines, space travel, cell phones, holograms, transplants, cloning, foods in tablet form and many other things were described in science fiction long before they became reality. Even present day security cameras and television's Big Brother show were spawned by the SF novel "1984" written by George Orwell and first published in 1949. New ideas and discoveries are now communicated so widely and rapidly in what is often dubbed the Information Age that scientific developments are overtaking fiction in the current real-life race to create a modern real-world utopian society. Click here to read more and see the videos
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Watch
this YouTube animated video by Ericsson Multimedia about life in 2015
and the networked society.(Read more:)
