Boston garnered the world’s attention and sympathy in what should have been a day of celebration for runners in the events of what took place on the day of this year’s Boston Marathon. While the motives are still unclear, what is for sure is that the events of that day have unified not just Bostonians but people all over the world. Particularly poignant, and moving, is news that Nike, adidas, New Balance, and PUMA have teamed up to present a unified front. Whether this entails a full campaign or just the image is still unclear, but its nice to see several competing companies set aside their differences for the city of Boston and the world of sports in general.
Yesterday, we were invited to attend the launch of Founder and Director of the Moral Courage Project Irshad Manji’s, Moral Courage Project with Dr. Cornel West and listen to their inspiring discussion about power, democracy, innovation, and your own role in all three. Moral courage means standing up when others want you to sit down, and it’s the big idea behind every movement for social change.
On April 16, Irshad launched Moral Courage TV, a web-based channel that tells the stories of morally courageous people worldwide. Partnered with YouTube, Moral Courage TV will be translated and distributed in several languages. The World Economic Forum identifies Irshad as a Young Global Leader. The Jakarta Post in Indonesia – the world’s largest Muslim country – has selected her as one of three Muslim women making a positive change in Islam today. Most recently, the New York Society for Ethical Culture gave Irshad its highest distinction: The Ethical Humanist Award.
As Robert F. Kennedy told students at the University of Cape Town:
“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet is it the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”
Those words are even more true today. The dream of diversity is increasingly twisted by the politics of identity, which puts us in boxes that we’re afraid to bust open. This is why Irshad Manji has founded the Moral Courage Project.
As innovator and instructor of the course, “Public Leadership and Moral Courage,” Irshad teaches that meaningful diversity embraces different ideas and not just identities. Her message to students: “When you exercise your unique voice, your community grows from talent that would otherwise be lost to self-censorship. Dare to develop individuality; it expands community.”
Chime for Change, founded by Gucci, is a new global campaign to raise funds and awareness for girls’ and women’s empowerment. It serves to convene, unite and strengthen the voices speaking out for girls and women around the world and focus on three key areas: Education, Health and Justice with the help from Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini, Beyonce Knowles-Carter and Salma Hayek Pinault.
Chime for Change is powered by Catapult, the first crowd-funding site where people can make real change happen for girls and women. Through Catapult, nonprofit organizations post their projects and people can find and fund the issues that speak to them the most.
VICE has always been one of the media outlets that strive in showing us the world that we really live in versus a lot of the sugar coating that gets delivered to us from traditional media outlets. In their 20 years of existence, they have managed to crawl their way into the dark nooks of world culture and force you to be captivated with their awe and shock content. We were invited to the private screening last night and got a inside look at the VICE team smashing barriers of decorum to cover such stories as out-of-control political assassinations in the Philippines, the sumo/Mixed Martial Arts craze that has swept Senegal and the precarious nuclear stare-down in Kashmir. Watch the trailer above and tune in tonight on HBO at 11pm EST.
In honor of it’s Centennial Year in 2013, the Anti-Defamation League launched the “Imagine a World Without Hate” video and action campaign. The campaigns focuses on a world without racism, homophobia or anti-Semitism — Set to John Lennon’s iconic song “Imagine,” the video pays tribute to the lives of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., hate crime victims Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., Holocaust-era diarist Anne Frank, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and slain Journalist Daniel Pearl, by imagining their impact on society had they survived into the present day. Imagine what these individuals could have continued to contribute to society if bigotry, hate and extremism had not cut their lives tragically short.
After 100 years of fighting bigotry and fostering respect, ADL celebrates its successes, while at the same time recognizing that we still have a long way to go to achieve the reality of a world without hate.
Although we feature content that caters to today’s modern man and women, many of us have little creative thinkers and doers of our own and just as much as we enjoy looking and feeling great, we must do everything in our efforts to keep our little tikes happy as well. More importantly, explain to them certain significances in the world we live in so as they mature and grow, they too will have a better understand of their world.
Partnered with Light Gives Heat (LGH), a Colorado based not-for-profit, and their SUUBI (hope) initiative, mimivail celebrates and supports girls around the world. Each dress comes with an exclusive handcrafted bracelet designed by the women living in Jinja, Uganda, an initiative to help empower these artisans, and their children, through the encouragement of economic sustainability and creative endeavors. Every season a newly designed colorful matching bracelet made of pearl-like beads from recycled paper will be introduced to complement the collection. Little girls can wear their bracelet as a symbol of hope.
Believing in the goodness of little girls and the power of positive role models, the brand is presented through 5 fictional “girls” who hail from all parts of the world and who have their own distinct personalities: Bridget, Scarlet, Emi, Isabelle and Ruby. Each mimivail dress is designed with one of these exceptional girls in mind. As the collection grows so will their stories and wardrobes.
Swedish multinational retailer H&M has joined forces for a three-year global collaboration with the World Wildlife Federation, adding French actress/singer Vanessa Paradis to be the spring face of H&M’s Conscious Collection. Paradis sports fashions made from Conscious materials such as organic cotton, recycled polyester and Tencel.
“I like being part of something like the Conscious collection at H&M,” she said in a statement. “I try my best to shop consciously, and vintage is very much part of my wardrobe. I love the style and it works in an eco-friendly way because I like to use and reuse old clothes.”
Last year, the two brands evaluated H&M’s entire ecosystem. Their findings will inform a new water strategy that begins with designers and buyers, who will receive training in the water impacts of raw material production as well as wet processes that promote more sustainable choices.
The decisive winner in the latest technology branding battle is fittingly symbolic of the rising fortunes of Asia. At the close of 2012, Samsung, a South Korean company, will unseat Finland’s Nokia as the world’s largest cellphone maker, according to a global market analysis by IHS iSuppli.
It’s not even close: Samsung will account for 29% of worldwide cellphone shipments in 2012, up from 24% in 2011, while Nokia will drop from 30% last year to 24% this year. Samsung’s fortunes and Nokia’s troubles are tied largely to smartphones, said Wayne Lam, senior analyst for wireless communications at IHS.
NASA have managed to have a pretty good year, placing the Curiosity Rover on Mars and launching new programs to encourage young and professional women in the field. Now, they’ve released what are possibly the most detailed nighttime shots of our planet ever. Shot by a satellite during 312 orbits around Earth, the images are composites of over 2.5 terabytes of imagery and have been cleaned up to remove all natural light sources (such as gas flares and auroras), leaving us with the beautiful twinkling lights of our towns and cities.
Google is wielding its worldwide clout with a new platform that subtly promotes its foundation and corporate citizenship work by shining the spotlight on worthy non-profits. The brand’s first Global Impact Awards were announced today, recognizing seven startups that are applying innovation and technology to the world’s most daunting human challenges.
Google is putting its money where its brand promise lies — “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” along with its unofficial slogan, “Don’t be evil.”
“From real-time sensors that monitor clean water to DNA barcoding that stops wildlife trafficking, our first round of awards provides $23 million to seven organizations changing the world,” stated Jacquelline Fuller, director of giving at Google, in a blog post.
The seven nonprofits winning the first Google Global Impact Awards:
Charity: Wateris receiving $5 million for water-monitoring technology at 4,000 wells across Africa to ensure better maintenance of and access to clean water for more than 1 million people. “Although our staff and local partners visit our programs frequently, it’s simply not possible to visit every project often enough to ensure that water is flowing all the time. Thanks to this Global Impact Award from Google, we’ll be able to go from hoping that projects function over time, to knowing that they are,” the non-profit stated in a blog post.
