Map Legend –– Changemaker Location
STORIES OF PURPOSE By Under 30 Changemakers
OUR STORY OF PURPOSE It began as a personal research project,
understanding the young social entrepreneur, whistleblower, activist, and artist. What would have moved them into action to create a sustainable, restorative change in a world that brought itself to the very brink of destruction it was now facing? I was on a hunt for patterns to see if there was a reason behind the madness of what I later called “Millennial Misfits,” the leaders of their generation. I wanted to understand what drove them. Was it an inflection point in their life, a teacher who shaped their heart or mind, a pain that stirred their compassion? I started with who I knew were creating a change in their community under the age of thirty. We would hold an hour-long Skype call where I would ask them the simple question that spurred this book you are about to read: Why do you do what you do? I mined their stories for an answer.
Their words revealed one resounding truth: that there was a big difference between the hordes of young entrepreneurs and the emerging collective consciousness of social entrepreneurs. While entrepreneurs were responding to problems, social entrepreneurs were driven by pain, either someone else’s or their own. These social entrepreneurs were so full of love, yet they suffered from the pain they came into contact with each day with their work to heal. Under 30 Changemakers was created to provide space for those who dared to refuse the path of guaranteed success and instead venture into the unknown with the hope some positive change could come from their hard work. So now entrusted to you are these stories. I hope they will serve as beacons of hope and inspiration to you during dark times. I know they do for me. Expecto Patronum! Lots of Love, Tara Byrne, Founder of Under 30 Changemakers
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Chapter One: Adversity
Chapter Two: People
Chapter Three: Freedom
Sanah Jivani
7
Sujan Pariyar
32
Naitik Mehta
56
Ramond Walker
10
Maegan McConnell
35
Rachel Mitton
60
Mariam Shareefy
11
Luisan Suarez
37
Arihant Jain
63
Jenny Nguyen
14
Elvina Kamalova
40
Marcela Fernandez
66
Dane Johnson
16
Jack Hisard
43
Samuel Malinga
68
Reabetswe Molapo
19
Girolama Bui
46
Diane Lenne
70
Aliรงia Raimundo
22
Gerald Hodges
49
Geofrey Bright Kata
73
Norman Tran
25
Prakash Koirala
52
Cesar Romero
76
Tiffany Yu
27
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TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTINUED…
Chapter Four: Passion Sukhneet Singh Verk
80
Jacob Fohtung
82
Gladys Llanes
85
Tanaka Chingonzo
88
Jelena Aleksich
91
Tayo Rockson
95
Lara Frayre
98
Jaxon Stevens
100
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Chapter Four: Passion Continued… Olivia D. Wright
102
Aniqah Zowmi
104
Hassan Bayo Bello
108
Akiraa
112
Zana Kristen Wade
115
Adam Siddiq
119
Geronimo Ramos
123
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Chapter Five: Belief Marcela Falquez
126
Tyler Wagner
129
Sienna Pagett
132
Marko Hrelja
135
Lalit Gautam
137
Paulin Trébulle
140
Soraya Fouladi
142
Safaath Ahmed
145
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Chapter One: Adversity Share This With A Friend
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SANAH
JIVANI
“Be your own definition of beautiful.”
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Sanah Jivani
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I believe that everyone has a turning point in their life. Most people have many turning points. They are points of time in your life when you know that everything is going to be different from this moment forward.
Still, somehow, the hole in my heart was not completely filled. I felt like I was missing something. I looked around and noticed that everyone was still living in insecurity. It seemed as if everyone was hiding something.
My first major turning point came when I was in the seventh grade, when I woke up and found most of my hair on my pillow. I was absolutely terrified, and I had no idea what to expect when I looked in the mirror.
That’s when I developed the idea of an international day of self-love called Natural Day. Natural Day takes place on February 13th. I chose this date because it’s the day before Valentine’s Day, and investing in yourself should come before investing in others.
When I finally found the courage to face myself, I was heart broken. My heart was filled with so much selfhatred. I immediately bought a wig to cover up who I am. The bullying was endless. From an online BurnPage made about me to a note in my locker titled “50 ways to go kill yourself,” the words were painful. Still, the things I said to myself were somehow much worse. I wanted to learn to be kinder to myself. I wanted to learn to love myself again. I hit rock bottom. I knew I had two choices: To continue to live in self-hatred, or to begin practicing self-love. I chose to practice self-love. That day was another turning point in my journey. Since that day, my life has changed completely.
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On this day, schools and communities around the world host movements focused on self-love. It’s a beautiful celebration, and someday, I hope to see it printed on every calendar around the globe. I recently wrote this poem as a reminder of the importance of being transparent and fully who you are. I believe it’s the perfect way to sum up my story:
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Sanah is the creator of Natural Day, an internationally recognized holiday where people celebrate their inner beauty. She is also the founder of a nonprofit organization LYNS (Love Your Natural Self) where she is dedicated to improving self-esteem and empowering others to be the best possible version of themselves.
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The Hidden Parts of You By Sanah Jivani
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Don’t you wish it weren’t true? That there are hidden parts of you.
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Pieces barely held together by the smallest bit of glue. You try to show strength by acting brand new. You act like everything is always okay. You push every bit of darkness away.
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Weakness is something you can’t display. Success is your path, and you won’t stray. When it comes to joy, you always speak out. You speak without any fear or doubt.
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You speak out loud for others to see. You think, “These are the pretty parts of me.” These awards, these smiles, this recognition. They are a sign of your courage and ambition.
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They are are proof that you have moved through pain. And even on bad days, they keep you sane. But inside, you know what’s true. You know these titles don’t define you.
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You know that you are so much more. Inside of you, there is sometimes a war. There is a war that has put cracks in who you are. There is a war that has given you scars.
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There is pain that people cannot even believe. You have learned to stop wearing your heart on your sleeve. You have learned to hide everything you go through. Because you don’t want people to think less of you.
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Social media is just a highlight reel. You don't want people to know what you truly feel. But darling, you are enough. Don’t you know it’s these very scars that have made you so tough?
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It’s these cracks in who you are that let out light. It’s these cracks in who you are that have given you fight. It’s these cracks in who you are that help you shine bright. And I believe these cracks should be displayed in plain sight.
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RAMOND WALKER
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Ramond Walker “How in the world did I get here?” This question repeatedly cycled through my head as I sat at a local park in Orange County, CA. I was eighteen, I didn’t have any money and I was officially without a permanent place to live. Two months earlier, I graduated Valedictorian of my class, was editor of the high school newspaper, and had been elected homecoming king. I was on the path to being one of the school’s best success stories. I was positioned to be an overcomer considering the school was surrounded by three low-income housing projects filled with gangs, drugs, and murder scenes running rampant. Even President Barack Obama was so captivated by the school’s unfortunate statistics that he gave the commencement address years after I graduated. I would have never imagined that a few short months later, I would end up homeless on the streets of southern California eating leftover food from Starbucks and asking people for money. I intended to find a new life of success in the sunny state of California. What I ultimately discovered was frustration and heartache. Eventually, I was able to escape long-term homelessness. However, it was difficult to clear the clutches of generational poverty. For the two and a half years following graduation, I was stuck working one dead end job after another desperately seeking the answer to one central question: “What am I here for?”
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! That theme has become the framework of my life mission. For years, I vested my life trying to figure out who I was and what my purpose was. Now I used the fuel of that frustration to inspire purpose and worth into millennials today. I have had the privilege of creating and hosting one of the leading entrepreneurship conferences for underserved millennials today in Tulsa, OK as well as coaching and consulting small businesses and nonprofits from across the country. Deep inside I always knew I was meant for something greater than where I was as a homeless man. I have now dedicated my life to helping others realize their potential and pursue their passion. My dream was never to be the next _____ (you fill in the blank), but to help others become the best them. Hopelessness is one of the worst feelings to have. That is what Dreamstart is about about: Giving people the inspiration, education, and practical action steps to pursue the God-given extraordinary potential inside of them. I empower ordinary millennials to start extraordinary dreams that align with their purpose, impact their audience, and expand their platform. History books don’t measure intention, but impact. My life’s mission is to lead with intentional impact with everyone who comes across my path. Ramond is the founder of Dreamstart, LLC where he helps underserved entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. He is also an inspirational speaker and branding expert. Page !10
Mariam Shareefy I was born in Afghanistan, luckily in a very progressive family that values power of education and enlightened thoughts in Afghanistan. I left my birthplace at the age of 7 as a result of the Taliban and grow up in Pakistan as an active child who played cricket and climbed from trees to the street lights. After spending eight years as refugees in Pakistan, my family decided to return to Afghanistan. As I traveled from Peshawar to Kabul, I found Afghanistan to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet. I saw the beautiful rock formations of Mahipar, and the beautiful mountains that made me feel like this is home. I decided to learn more about the Afghanistan’s rock faces and learn how to climb them. I learned rock-climbing through the support of some international friends in Kabul, received my climbing teaching certificate and started to instruct other females and street working children. In September 2012, I lost four of my beloved students in a suicide bomb attack carried out by a teenager bomber in Kabul. This incident gave me a drive to change the economic situation for street-children in Afghanistan so I started Afghanistan’s Entrepreneurship and Rock Climbing School; a non-profit organization that combines entrepreneurial and business classes with rock-climbing to empower, educate and develop young entrepreneurs in Afghanistan. In our classes we focus on the student's individual creative skills and business plans. One of our Page !11
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students has a business plan of opening her own decorative items store, and during the creative session she makes flower pots that she could eventually sell. We have also been teaching a leadership course, which teaches the students about effective leadership from a business and entrepreneurial model. In our outdoor sessions we take students to Kabul’s safest mountains and rock faces and teach them how to rock climb.
different background together. It helps unite people from different background. I started a small project for Afghan refugees in Colorado. I teach Afghan refugees specifically females rock-climbing. I want to use rock climbing as a way to make Afghan refugees part of the US culture and not feel isolated.
I have been living in Colorado for over two years now. I am currently working for mGive; world’s best mobile charity and donation software in the world. mGive revolutionizes the way enterprises engage communities to raise funds for mission-based organizations and important causes around the world. How? Using the “remote control for your life” … your mobile device. mGive is the leading mobile and analytics platform helping mission based organizations; attract new supporters, build loyal communities, raise more funds. Through my work at mGive, I am able to help nonprofits achieve their worthy missions.
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Mariam is Afghan, Pashtun, Humanist, Socialist, Rock Climber, Women's Rights Activist, and Refugee Activist. She is the Founder of Afghanistan's Entrepreneurship and Rock Climbing School.
I have also been actively involved with the Afghan immigrant issues here in Colorado. There’s a big Afghan immigrant community here. They feel isolated and find it very hard to adapt to American culture. I found rock climbing as a great tool to empower women, shape their future and also a great tool for bringing people from Page !12
jenny

Jenny Nguyen Page !13
Jenny Nguyen Without sadness we will never appreciate joy. Without fear we will never know of courage. I was bestowed with this clarity and understanding of life, when at 17, I was faced with the possibility of losing my mother to Leukemia. I learnt that sometimes struggles are meant to make us realise our true potential, strength, and heart. But what we take from these challenges, is the ability to grow, learn and then rise from it. After overcoming every obstacle, my mother endured her chemotherapy treatment and made a full recovery. Her diagnosis served as a gentle reminder for us to live life everyday with gratitude, determination, positivity and purposeful action. Our story would have ended very differently had we given up on hope long ago. Every new, healthy and joyful day that we still share together is a gift and we must strive to live our best, active, happiest lives, which will enable us to live to our fullest potential. I have spent the last 7 years studying and working in Pharmaceutical Healthcare and I am passionate towards empowering patients take control of their health conditions and to strive towards living a healthy, vibrant and abundant life. I not only want to build a strong pharmacy business, I also want to build a strong community. My mission spans beyond that of looking after the health of my mum, I am now working closely with key allied health professionals
! in our area to improve the health outcomes of all those living in our community. I am learning every day that life is a deeply felt, growing mosaic of meaningful and life-changing moments. It takes a certain amount of strength to hold a grieving woman as she struggles to cope with the loss of her late husband. Or a certain amount of courage to look a girl in her eyes and tell her that she will be okay, despite her mother’s recent terminal diagnosis. It’s moments like these that I encounter on a regular basis through my work which remind me how blessed I truly am – how blessed we all are – and gives me great strength and determination to operate at the highest levels possible in my field in order to create change, to make a difference and ultimately leave a positive impact in this world.
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Jenny is a 25-year-old Community Pharmacist Proprietor and Entrepreneur. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.
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DANE JOHNSON dane

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Dane Johnson My irritated skin perspired beneath a hazmat suit as screaming revs from a chainsaw sliced through dead stumps and branches encircling me. There were burn piles ablaze throughout the forest and the smoke was tinged with combusted remnants of poison oak leaves and stems, which meant that, through the simple act of breathing, my throat, nose, and lungs would soon know the same relentless itch as my skin. My friend and I were being employed by my father to clear forty acres of overgrown land that was a jungle of blackberry bushes, fallen oak and pine trees and, my nemesis, poison oak. After a month and a half of this work – downing trees, carrying the weightier rounds up the hill to be split into firewood, and hacking down undesired thorny vine and plants into piles – I had had enough. I ripped the duct tape off of my wrist, which was creating a protective seal between my gloves and the sleeve end of my hazmat suit, and motioned to my friend, who was in the middle of felling a tree, with an open hand as if to say: STOP. He set the chainsaw aside and clicked off the sputtering engine. The forest became serene, and in that rare quiet I gasped out my confusion and anger:
! founding fellows in a brand new education startup based in Chicago. We were celebrating the finale of our year in the state-of-the-art office space of an architecture firm in the heart of the city. Parents, colleagues, and mentors from across the country had gathered to hear stories and learnings from our year of self-designing an educational program rooted in apprenticeships and projects. I had dedicated my year to becoming a more skillful writer, leaving all things familiar to pursue a dream I hadn’t yet dared to chase in daylight. The year led to my creating a series of video interviews focused on the female perspective within the male-dominated world of tech; an immersion writing project at a desert monastery; and a writing residency for a nomadic creative agency founded by the most passionate people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working beside. The year proved to be one of the most transformative of my life.
“What the hell am I doing here?”
And yet, after it was officially over, I retreated to a place of familiarity, working for my father as an unskilled manual laborer, feeling paralyzed and unable to work as a writer. I began living as if the year-long pursuit of my vocational dream had been nothing more than an actual dream.
Just months before, the scene couldn’t have been more different. I was standing among four peers – bold, audacious, and remarkable human beings – as one of five
Fortunately for me, and my itchy skin, I have friends who love me enough to draw me out of complacency. Their presence in my life has taught me about the varying Page !16
quality of friendship – good friends accept you as you are, but great friends see what you have yet to become, the most wholehearted version of yourself, and propel you toward that inheritance.
people take risks to learn and grow, and even published my first book of prose and poetry. Saying that I was a writer began to feel less aspirational and more like my present reality.
For months they would reach out and ask how I was doing, offer me perspective, and remind me of all the possibilities that existed in my world. Eventually, with blunt kindness, they intervened: “You are hiding,” they said. “But we know you’re stronger than this. It’s time to get back on your path.”
In the midst of this new course a simple and profound lesson revealed itself to me: we become whatever we dedicate our lives to doing. I determined, then, to offer the same sweat and endurance I’d exerted as a laborer to my work as a writer.
And so, for the final time, after putting a hand up to literally halt the course my life was taking, I stripped off the hazmat suit and threw it into the burnpile. Starting again wasn’t an easy task, however. All my previous momentum toward writing vocationally was lost. I had to backtrack within myself, uncovering a courage I’d forgotten, and re-focus on becoming what I’d already determined to be a year prior – someone who tells stories that compel more conscious living. The commitment felt fragile, like a relationship in the wake of betrayal, and it took time to trust myself again. In fact, trusting my intuition is still a daily requirement in doing the work I love. In the ensuing year, writing opportunities began to offer themselves up to me. I helped create the framework for a community building venture, gathered stories from changemakers to compile into a kit designed to help
In looking back, I feel a bit ashamed that the adversity I faced on those brambled forty acres came as a result of my own cowardice. But I’d venture to guess that much of the adversity all people face is self-inflicted, resulting from fear of change and its promise of challenges. I’ve noticed a theme in the lives of those who strive to change the world for the better; those who are driven by daring and a generous sharing of their gifts. It appears that their fullest and most vibrant seasons are often marked by great discomfort and pain, as if their success correlates with their struggle. While most of us actively work to avoid adversity, it is something that I see embraced by those who are reshaping our world through their work. Ultimately, hardships reveal their resilience, rather than discourage them from pushing onward. I believe that every challenge we face – self-doubt, financial setbacks, lack of community support – provides an opportunity to release all that is not essential to carry Page !17
on the road ahead. This painful shedding is life’s way of keeping us lighter and unhindered, I think, so that we can more fully dedicate ourselves to the work that we are called to complete. I visit those forty acres from time to time. There’s still plenty of brush to clear and wood to split, but now I look on it with gratitude because, by having toiled through it, I was delivered to my work.
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Dane is a freelance writer who regularly contributes to causes and companies that serve people, do good, and think long term. His love for work that is healing and hopeful has led him to collaborations in reimagining higher education, designing eco-friendly communities, and producing works of music and poetry. Currently, he lives in Los Angeles and writes at Ramble with A Plan.
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waking up By Dane Johnson
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I retreat to memory golden hours and smiling faces of the past a cerebral hideaway from what is now a blockade to what could be
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I’m embraced by my favorite illusions keeping my bed warm with the comforts of back when and the elusive dreams of maybe someday if left here, I could sleep through a lifetime
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dawn cues up perspective, waking pain my eyes wince at the probability of hurt my ears pulse with the calamity of doubt my skin shudders in the vulnerability of its tender shield
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then my phone nearly buzzes off the windowsill another work day has begun in Central Time PST finds me in bed Midwestern friends are concerned I won’t get up
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remember the dream you had, they say that daring path you’ve already started down hours spent, hope invested purpose secured
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we can show you the evidence, shuffling papers of course we accept you as you are right now but you’ve grown out of this fear you’re holding dear failure only wins when you refuse to persevere I hang up the phone facing a day that is younger than I usually know a perfect way to begin living true again earlier than I feel ready
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Reabetswe Molapo I am of the belief that it is life’s pains that expose us to our purposes. I discovered my purpose in life through a tough situation. I was a student at one of South Africa’s most prised institutions, the University of Cape Town. I majored in Financial Accounting to receive a Bachelor of Commerce degree with the hope of becoming a Chartered Accountant. I am the only child of a single parent mother, thus growing up for me was tough because somewhere in my childhood she became unemployed for a good 7 years even though she was educated, this then meant that I couldn’t always get what I wanted and I was in some sort of ‘disadvantage’ in comparison to my friends. I grew up valuing education and the doors one can open with it, which was one of the main reasons I put extra effort in my academics whilst growing up which was one of the reasons I was accepted in UCT. Whilst pursuing my degree, I had reached a point in my life where I had reached a crossroad and found I wasn’t passionate about Accounting as I was in high school and on top of that my bursary had dropped me and I could no longer afford the fees. I then realised how uninformed we are about careers whilst still in high school, but mostly how uninformed we are about ourselves, our traits and talents which are the tools we need to use to create our career paths. Page !19
I then took time off from academics to follow my heart and solve this problem which I felt many of my peers and the younger youth seemed to be facing in my community, which was the biggest gamble and risk that I had made in my life to date. I sacrificed a space in an institution ranked as the highest African university in the QS World University Rankings to chart a way in the road less travelled helping the youth discover who they are and what they were created to be. I had an inner conviction and clear understanding of what I wanted to achieve, but I didn’t know how it was going to be achieved. I then decided to go back home and take a year to “find myself”, to try and figure out my purpose. I wanted to find out the true meaning of life, why were we alive, why am I alive and what was I born to do. I wanted to find out if my existence meant anything and if so what was the meaning behind it. Why was I born in the city I was born in and why was I born in a single parent household? I wanted to know why my mother became unemployed early in my life for as long as 7 years. Why did I experience all the hardships I experienced that led to this point and moment in my life? Why did I grow up in a township? Why specifically that environment where a majority of the young boys drop out of school as soon as they reach sixteen years of age, where young girls were lured into the “fast life” by grown men with cars and later left destitute, single, and pregnant.
In this “gap” year, I decided to involve myself more in community outreaches in my own capacity and later partnered with the Local Municipality and it was where I began to see the terrible living conditions that many of our youth live in. I was exposed to some of the most dire locations and villages and felt that something needed to be done. I didn’t have any resources, connections or networks so I began with what I had– my voice. This was how Yung Heirz was born. Yung Heirz is an organisation that was established to motivate, develop and enrich young minds across South Africa. The inception of Yung Heirz came about after a close introspection for the reason and cause of apathy coming from many of the young people of South Africa. I realised quite early in life that if something disturbed me to the same extent that these issues did, then I was the person to change it! I had no resources, skill or any idea how I would accomplish this, but the one thing that I had then that made all the difference was passion. To date, the organisation has grown with the vision of change and as a result in 2014 was a Recipient of the BWASA (Business Women Association of South Africa) Award for Social Entrepreneurship in the Limpopo Region. They have recognised the works that we continuously do without any financial assistance or funding, but simply money from our own pocket.
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Yung Heirz has grown from just a motivational organisation to an active organisation. We aim at transferring skills and knowledge of entrepreneurship, leadership and opportunities. We help young people “find” themselves and also realise the opportunities available to them. We call ourselves the engineers of the mind and have branded ourselves as Mindset Developers. We believe in cultivating a particular mindset within the youth of South Africa where young people begin to see themselves as game-changers and influencers in our generation. We believe that the next biggest international concept or innovation will come from Africa, but we first need to equip our youth and get them to a point where they believe in themselves and their ideas. We were also approached by the African Leadership Academy to partner in various programs of leadership development for their students which is an African Leadership Academy that seeks to transform Africa by developing a powerful network of over 6000 leaders who will work together to address Africa’s greatest challenged, achieve extraordinary social impact and accelerate the continent’s growth trajectory. It has been a painful road and still is we move on and press forward because the vision we have for Africa is massive and needs all the support it can get. Reabetswe Molapo is the Founding Director of Yung Heirz, an organisation in South Africa that aims at motivating, enriching and developing young minds.
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Aliçia Sarah Raimundo
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Around the world, more people die from suicide than Murder and Terrorism. In Canada only 1 in 3 people needing mental health support get it. Why?
so isolated, confused and broken. These poor conversations led me to try and end my own life at the age of thirteen.
Because although more people live with Mental Health concerns than Cancer and heart disease combined, only 8% of health funding is devoted to mental health.
When I woke in the hospital confused and alone, a women walked over to me, took my hand and said, “From one crazy person to another, you will need this.” She handed me a simple silver necklace and wandered off. The charm simply said “Hope.” With this simple action, she showed me people with mental illness are human. Even though she was sick, she connected with me and helped me by giving back exactly what I lost– Hope.
I believe the first step to improving the lives of people living with mental illness is to remove the stigma. Those living with depression suffer in silence because of the way mental illness is viewed by society. It is seen as dangerous and an excuse for bad behaviour. People with mental illness are not someone you want to be friends with. Mental illness is seen as an awful thing to live with. Now let me explain what its like from the other side. As a young girl when my peers were happy, I was anxious and depressed. Whatever was happening around me – my feelings were a constant grey cloud. I had no idea why. My parents are amazing. I lived in a good community, attended school and didn’t want for anything. I tried everything – I exercised, smiled more, tried to think positively and counted my blessings. Nothing helped. I grew increasingly desperate for an answer. Eventually I tried talking to my parents and teacher. Everyone thought I was just being overdramatic, that it was a teenage phase, my teacher said I was crazy. I felt
Overcoming the stigma of mental health means we need to find creative ways to re-educate society, and especially the young. I wrote a book called Red Carnation, telling my story. Having approached the Ministry of Education it has become part of the National Curriculum in Canada. Every eighth grader now learns that living with depression is nothing to be ashamed of. They learn to think critically about mental illness through classroom discussion. Parents across Canada tell me it has helped their children reach out for support and continue living. One child, who understood another classmate’s struggle with depression for the first time, became his best friend. His view of depression has changed forever.
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Recently I’ve worked with the writers of the awardwinning Canadian serial TV drama DeGrassi. It depicts teenagers doing normal teenager stuff in a slightly more dramatic way. By creating a character who lives with depression, Young viewers will see a teenage character facing stigma, trying to get help and living with depression. It’s my hope young people around the world will start to understand you can live with depression, and have a good life. I’ve presented to over one hundred thousand people in person and talked to millions on national radio and TV shows such as CBC, and MTV, CTV about mental illness. From this work, over 200 people have sent me messages saying that my story has helped them turn away from suicide and ask for help. But talking is not enough. We need more services. Through ACCESS open minds, we are developing a new clinical model in Canada. Uniquely designed by and for young people with mental illness. The programme reduces the time between people asking for help and receiving it from 6 months to 72 hours. Our clinicians train young people who have had a mental illness to support those at risk from depression and suicide. They provide support from someone who has been there. Two centres opened this year and have already provided services to over 1000 young people. 11 more will open before the end of the year.
Lastly, young people tell me they to fix the lack of mental health support in their communities themselves. So we are launching Be Change – which offers them mentorship and resources, including the ability to run a crowdfunding campaign on our platform and raise money for their ideas So what can you do? Talking about mental health and listening are the most important. If you are stuck about making changes in mental health. Consider doing this– Close your eyes. Think about the worst time you have had in your life. Think about the person you needed in those moments. Open your eyes and be that person.
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Alicia has been described as a “mental health superhero”, battling serious bouts of anxiety, depression and a suicide attempt since the age of 13. More recently, she used her move to the University of Waterloo as a catalyst to seek help, and eventually, to help others living with mental health issues. She works with government, for and nonprofit businesses, youth, and policy makers to make the world a more mentally healthy place.
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Norman Tran Page !24
Norman Tran In the summer of 2014, I was diagnosed with Grave’s Disease, which attacked my breathing, heart rate, and nervous system. With my bodily functions greatly weakened, I could not even open a water bottle. For the first time in my life, I had to face my own fragility and mortality. Though the illness proved treatable, the sheer human terror of ceasing to exist gripped me. I fell into a deep depression for I still had yet to accomplish my dreams, or figure out my purpose in life.
! discovered a depth in myself that I have never experienced - a wholeness, an awakening. I emerged from that class with a narrative: as a Silicon Valley designer, the real bugs aren’t in the software, but in our hearts. After the edifying journey of discovering and coping with the war within myself, I wish to bring my unique insights as a software maker-turned teacher to teach others how to live an emotionally-grounded life in a 24/7 get-things-done world.
I found clues in the works of spiritual leaders Thich Nhat Hanh, Adyashanti, Sogyal Rinpoche and Miguel Ruiz, which awakened me to the specter of mindlessness haunting our time. Through hundreds of hours reading, meditating, and soul-searching, I saw clearly my own victimization by, and participation in the specter of mindlessness haunting our time. As a victim, I suffered from prescribed definitions of success, as well as a scourge of cognitive biases. As a perpetrator, I harbored apathy, us-vs-them mentality, and selfishness.
It shouldn’t take an autoimmune disorder for a person to discover their place in the world.
Desiring a solution to these inner demons, I participated three times in Stanford’s “Touchy Feely” class, which was an incredible excavation into my internal psyche that allowed me to viscerally experience how by vulnerably sharing my truth, I was not just accepted, but more importantly, heralded as courageous and inspiring. As a former skeptic of spirituality and emotions, I suddenly
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Now, more than ever, in this country’s pandemic of hate, misogyny, and xenophobia, we need individuals who can bravely face their inner demons and inspire others to do the same. This is why I started the Leadership Impact Lab to help other leaders tap into a dormant greatness within. Though the specter of mindlessness casts a vast shadow, together we can usher a new era of mindful leaders who light the way ahead. Norman is a 25-year-old Executive Coach and Learning Experience Designer. He is now facilitating a course called Leadership Impact Lab. You can find him in Silicon Valley, CA.
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TIFFANY YU
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Tiffany Yu November 29, 1997. I was nine years old. It was a Sunday, a few days after Thanksgiving and the day after my dad’s birthday. My mom had to travel for business so my family and I were going to see her off at the airport. I was mentally preparing myself to return to school the next day. On the way home from the airport, my dad lost control of the car. When I regained consciousness, I found myself in a helicopter on my way to the hospital. Not everyone made it out of that accident alive. My dad passed away. When I came home from the hospital after three weeks, it was right around Christmas. My siblings, my mom and I wrapped whatever we could find around the house in newspaper as gifts to each other. It was one of my most meaningful memories growing up because rather than focusing on loss, we focused on what we did have: each other. I broke a couple bones in my leg and suffered severe nerve damage in my right arm, an injury that is still with me to this day. It’s called brachial plexus palsy, a loss of movement or weakness in the arm due to damage to the nerves that send signals from the spine to the arm. After the bones in my leg healed and I relearned how to write (I was originally right-handed), I returned to school.
! Going back to school presented its own set of challenges. Not only was I still grieving the loss in my family, I was also thrust into an environment where I often felt isolated and alone because of my disability. I hated my mandatory physical education class. When it came time to pick teammates, none of my classmates wanted me to be on their team. I sat on the sidelines of the gym and I started to sit on the sidelines of life, too. Having a disability killed my self-esteem and confidence. Growing up, disability was the “elephant in the room.” No one talked about or acknowledged it. I didn’t help the situation by trying to “hide” my disability: I wore long-sleeves all the time and got emotional when people asked me about my arm. In 2009, I was a senior at Georgetown and participating in a diversity training. We were given a pie and asked to cut out slices of our social identities based on how important they were to us (i.e. race, gender, religion, etc.). Disability was almost half of my pie. Though I never publicly discussed it, it was something that I thought about on a daily basis, from carrying my lunch tray in the cafeteria to dropping a letter off in the mailbox. I glanced over at my neighbor’s pie only to realize that being “able-bodied” was the thinnest slice of his pie. It wasn’t even something he thought about. It made me realize that disability was often missing from the conversation Page !27
because of a lack of awareness. Why was the world’s largest minority (one billion people) often overlooked in diversity conversations? Despite an abundance of student groups that addressed diversity, there was a lack of groups aiming to raise disability awareness on campus. It was my “ah-ha” moment to start “Diversability,” a movement to get more people talking and thinking about disability. I introduced the group through an op-ed in the school paper. It was scary and I felt vulnerable, but I thought, “If not now, then when?” We launched with a screening of the documentary “Look Who’s Laughing,” followed by an art night study break, asking participants to paint their interpretation of disability. At the end of the year, the headline on the front page of the school paper read, “Conversation Picks Up for Diversability” with fellow advocate Taylor Price saying “So far this group is really breaking ground. There’s never been a group like this on campus.” I had never considered myself a disability advocate, but I became one that year. Looking back, creating Diversability gave me the confidence I needed to become more comfortable with myself and my story. My involvement in the disability space also made me really value the richness of the perspectives in the community across different types of disabilities (including chronic illness and mental health) as well as everyone’s unique stories and experiences.
I re-launched Diversability in 2015 to the broader community, starting in New York City. This time, our focus is on taking awareness to the next level. Through our work, we seek to unite the disability community, engage allies in the conversation, and celebrate disability pride and empowerment. We foster community to connect, showcase, and empower people of all abilities doing amazing things. Our community exists online on Facebook and offline through curated events in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Montgomery, Ala. and hopefully more to come. The three pillars of our mission are the foundation of everything we do: Connect. Something powerful happens when we bring people with disabilities and allies together and create a space where everyone is included and everyone matters. Inclusion plays a huge role in how we see ourselves, helps us feel empowered and builds self-esteem and selfconfidence. We can start to change perceptions of disability when we connect in-person, humanize disability, and share stories. Showcase. Without the people in our community and organizations doing the work, there would be no Diversability. We were honored to receive the 2015 Bell Greve Memorial Award from the National Rehabilitation Association for our programming and be recognized by Forbes, the Guardian, and the Ford Foundation. Page !28
Empower. We encourage our community to dream bigger and do great things. We oftentimes underestimate our own abilities, but it’s amazing what people can do if just given the chance. I think about people like Amanda Frantz, who has taken her jewelry business to the next level when she created The DiversAble Model Project, or Alisa Goldman, Diversability's former Director of Content and my high school classmate, who went on to create Healing Honestly, an online platform to speak about healing from trauma. They, and many others, are everyday role models who have expanded the world around us. I really believe that people with disabilities are more than their “disability.” Disability is not something to be feared or a problem that needs to be fixed. In fact, disability is just one slice of the pie that makes us unique. I know I’m not the only one with dreams, career aspirations, and a desire to succeed. Together, let’s make sure everyone gets that opportunity. We all– as people with disabilities and/or allies– have a role to play in making that happen. Continue the conversation by joining us online, at our next event, or as an ally in your everyday life. Tiffany is the founder of Diversability, an award-winning social enterprise to rebrand disability through the power of community. She also runs San Francisco admissions and community for the shared living company, Common.
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Chapter Two: People


SUJAN PARIYAR
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Sujan Pariyar When I was a kid my family experienced a civil war which started in 1996 and ended in 2006. My dad was serving in the army and participated in the war. We lived in the city and my dad was in the war zone. We were not allowed to go to our farm house because most of the people of the village were part of Maoist (the communist party of Nepal) and they knew about my father having served in the Nepalese army. This increased the probability of conflict wherever he went. Every day was a nightmare with lots of bad news and emotional breakdown. Never knew what news will show up to us which can be devastating. It was scary time for Nepalese. We didn't visit our grandparents for many years and even didn't go outside of the city. More than 15,000 people were killed and 100,000 to 150,000 people were internally displaced as a result of conflict. After peace was restored, my dad went to Congo for peace development program working with UN for 6 month. During the time, I got opportunity to volunteer and learn about charity and NGO's. My dad got some fund for serving in UN after his arrival in Nepal. With that fund, we decided to help people affected by war/ conflict, needing help in education, empowerment and to support people in need. We proposed our government to help us start a charity "Children Home Nepal" to support children, empower women, and rebuild community. After we officially registered as a non-
! profit, we sheltered ten children who comes from impoverished, orphaned, and underprivileged family who were in need of support for food, education, clothes and home. Currently, we are caring eleven children in "Children Home Nepal" and sponsoring ten children of rural area for education. Our goal is to eventually sponsor one hundred children. We create empowerment projects for women, teach English, crafts, and We also introduce new cultures through our international volunteers by showing them the world through our small laptops. During the devastating earthquake in April 25, 2015, we supported many people and charities with food, cloths, tents, proper water, medical assistance, and shelter. We will continue to support disaster relief in the years to come. After a year of establishment, we struggled with the financial sustainability for our charity. We needed to find some recurring source of income, so we tried everything from chicken and rabbit farming to photo exhibitions and weekend hikes in the National Park. I currently working on better sustainable support of welfare projects. My newest project is "Wanderlust Nepal” where we aim to start a restaurant in upcoming five year for job opportunity for children from different charity after they graduate at the age of eighteen.
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The last five years have been full of serious responsibilities; providing housing, food, formal and inhome education to children, managing volunteers and developing several business ideas as mean to fund our Children Home, village sponsoring, and other grassroots humanitarian efforts. I continue to learn everyday, networking and promoting our efforts with great passion as I know that what we do today will impact the life of our children and other people in Nepal. I hope that through empowerment we can all find a way to help others. I love my country Nepal, my family, my children and my community. I am grateful for all of them and the opportunity to serve.
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Sujan is the Founding Director of Children’s Home Nepal, Inxchan, Budhanil Guest House, and Wanderlust Nepal. He is currently an Engineering student at Morgan International College. If you’d like to volunteer with him, you can email Sujan at inxchan@gmail.com for more information.
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MAEGAN McCONNELL 

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Maegan McConnell By the time I was eighteen I had lost both of my parents, one to cancer and one in an accident. This is where my fire comes from. I learned from a young age that you never know how long you will be here, or what will happen, so you have to live your life exactly the way you want it. It is up to you to make your dreams happen and not waste any time. Going through all of that loss at such an early age, I also learned that I wanted to make sure that anyone, especially youth who was going through stress, trauma or any other difficulty had the skills, strength and support to deal with it in a healthy and productive way. No one ever teaches you how to deal with the loss of a parent, or a divorce. Rarely are our young people even taught healthy and productive coping mechanisms to have resilience in the face of trauma. People often just think someone is or is not resilient. I don’t think that is the case. I’ve always been interested in mental health, especially the ways that different countries and cultures view and treat mental illness. I was working as a social worker in Toronto, Canada when I decided I would go back to school for International Development. I wanted to marry my two interests by way of education, without really knowing what I wanted to do with it all. One day I had dinner with my former 8th grade teacher, Andrew McFadyen, who asked me what I wanted to do after school. I told him I wasn’t sure who I wanted to work for,
! but I knew I wanted to improve mental health education and treatment access around the world. My concern was that there was no organization or agency that I really wanted to work for. It was at this point that Andrew helped me come to the realization that I was definitely not meant to work for anyone else, but was meant to figure out my own path to the dream job that I was creating in my mind. To be perfectly honest, this realization made me feel physically sick for the better part of a day. And I soon found out that this realization is a lot easier than the reality. I didn’t know how to put all my ideas into a concrete plan. I didn’t know how to start a business, or even which type of non-profit/charity I wanted to start. Where did I want to work? Who would I work with? Where would my income come from? Fast forward a year and a half and I have and I feel like I’m well on my path to doing what makes me happy and what I’m really passionate about. I also feel like I need to keep reminding myself to breath and relax. I’ve started a Non-Profit organization based in Canada called Peace In Minds, as well as an international development consulting firm with 3 colleagues from around the world. With the help of my friend and co-founder I am on my way to doing exactly what I always wanted. Improving mental health and wellness for our communities here in Page !35
Canada, as well as developing projects to work abroad. While I might not know exactly what it will all look like in the end, I have an image that I’m striving for. What I have learned, and continue to learn, is that passion and fire is only part of what you need to follow your dreams and be successful. I’m still not successful in my own definition of the word, but I’m definitely on the way. My main lesson to share is not to try and make it all on your own. I’ve had the help and support of many friends, family members and other professionals I have sought out for assistance. Your personal network and ability to constantly talk with people about your cause and your goals will bring more opportunities than you would ever imagine. Also be kind to yourself, Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is my success. Just remember to breathe.
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Maegan is the Founder and Executive Director of Peace In Minds. She is 28-years-old and lives in Kingston, Canada.
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Luisan Suarez I’ll be heading home in a couple of weeks. It has been an interesting year around Europe, but I’m ready to get back into a productive routine – just for a little, at least. Madrid has hosted me well. I got to see my newborn nephew grow up. I found a job and paid rent for the first time. I quit a job where I didn’t feel I was making any progress, for me or for others. Germany and Croatia were nice too– lovely people and lovely beaches. But the first people I ever found who inspired inspired were in Guatemala City, Guatemala, and now I’m ready to keep searching. Life in Guatemala can sound hard to foreigners, but it’s relatively easy if you’re privileged. I grew up inside a well-nurtured bubble where no real work besides grammar homework and popularity is required. It’s impossible to notice not everyone lives like you in a third world country and I was painfully aware of how little I was helping. I decided to do something about it. With Techo, formerly Un Techo para mi País, I built houses for a week for the most unfortunate in the rural areas. While working there I met Pedro. Pedro shared how, living on $6.00 a day working in the fields, sometimes less, he cared for his family of five. Needless to say it was not easy, as I could tell by the old hand-me-down shirts his children wore. Pedro’s most important value was his family. So important was his family to him, that he preferred working the fields in Canada as long as he could provide a better life for his Josue, Madelyn, and Gleidy – even if meant not seeing
! them for an entire year. At the time I was so inspired by Pedro and so enraged by the unfairness of it all, that I made it my personal mission to make sure no one else ever had to leave their family like that again. I volunteered and worked hard for a little over a year. I believed in our cause and I saw no better way to help. Slowly but surely, however, I noticed that people were left with a better house but not way to improve their future. I saw charity wasn’t solving the root of the problem, and conversely that those with jobs didn’t need any charity. Business, I realized not only made life better for people who had jobs; it made life better for all customers. The person that made that switch for me was Elon Musk. Not only was this guy smarter than I ever aspired to be, he built businesses that make this world a much better place – from the very start. Sure, sending money through PayPal doesn’t sound as generous or glamorous as Toms or Apple. But living in a country where 10% of the population immigrates to the U.S. and sends home as much money every year as the state’s tax collection, I know the strong difference people like Elon Musk can make for so many. I understood that, in order to change the world, I needed to make myself a badass. After two years of texting in class but acing tests having only studied the week before, I decided to change. I wanted to learn how to solve world problems, not how to Page !37
write tests. Out of completely unthinkable and inexplicable circumstances, a man named Zachary Caceres came to run the Michael Polanyi College (MPC) program at my university. He was the man who would soon become my director, just a few years my senior, embodying the type of life I believed in: learning all the time, really putting in the work, running his own life, and creating an inspiring business. Interacting with him like that every day for the first year of my new major made me question the limits I imposed on myself and the amount of effort I was putting in to get where I wanted. With such a role model so close to me, I learned that nothing beats facing big challenges and working towards them right away. So, with help of the MPC, I made my education completely remote and left the comfort of my home in Guatemala to master the world. It started in Madrid. It has since been a year.
book, it’s just the beginning of a new chapter.” More than excited to tell my story, I’m excited to write what’s coming. There are many more people that were key in choosing my path, and I’m sad that I can’t do them all justice and include them here. The best I can offer is to keep working to be the best I can be so they know their efforts were worthwhile, and so that I can inspire be to others what they were to me.
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Luisan is a 22-year-old e-commerce entrepreneur who lives in Guatemala and Madrid. He was a student at Michael Polanyi College, an alternative higher education program that offers apprenticeship and travel experience to prepare students for the real world.
It’s been an interesting year. I’m reading Ayn Rand now, and I’m learning to put myself first. It hasn’t diminished my desire to make a change. If anything, it helps me feel proud and morally justified to do what I want to do, what makes me happy: creating a life for me by creating a better life for others. I’m also apprenticing to learn how to set up my own ecommerce business. Financial independence, location independence, and lifelong learning are huge values for me. Europe has been great to me – both kind and a harsh teacher. But like they say, “It’s not the end of the Page !38
Elvina Kamalova “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” –Roald Dahl
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Elvina Kamalova We all have a turning point in our lives. Moments when you know that everything is going to be different from now on. For me it was the day when we shared our dreams about who we want to become when we grow up in a school setting. When it was my turn, I said that I want to build a company focused on providing opportunities for a better life to people. Everyone laughed because it was an unusual statement. But I felt as if my heart was burned down. I became silent while hearing someone saying that for women family should be the most important thing, and creating a company would be too difficult for me. I couldn’t say a word. Mixed feeling of fear and self doubt rushed through my mind and heart. That evening I saw the movie Matrix, and made it my goal to move to a place, where women weren’t afraid to do what they dream about and are not told what is good and what is not. A place where I could learn how to make a change which I wanted to create. I had a strong belief that I can help alter the current ‘norm’ of perceiving female as a human being with less opportunities, and I had the determination to do so. When sitting in the airplane on my way from Russia to the USA, I still felt the hug of my parents on my shoulders. But I knew that I have to leave my home to seize new opportunities and to learn how to be of a great value to the world. Being raised by loving parents, I always cherished our times together. And most importantly, I
! loved the best evenings of the year - New Year evenings, where the whole family comes together to celebrate a new beginning and new opportunities. Little I knew that those moments will be gone for long 6 years, while I was doing what was most important for me - igniting women to pursue their dreams. I had an opportunity to start making a difference in a big scale and shifting the perspective of being a female coworker shortly after I joined a global consulting firm upon graduating with honors from GWU. While developing a multimillion dollar projects for clients in a financial industry, not only I had to quickly grasp the complexities of the work, but to constantly learn to be one of a very few women in the room. Yet I knew I had to succeed in this role and to be an exemplifying young female leader who would inspire other women in my company, so that we can build a sustainable world of opportunities for all of us, regardless of the gender. In the meantime, I continued my work on other frontiers. I joined and shortly was elected as a Vice Chair of Girls in Technology, which is missioned to inspire young women to join technology fields. Thanks to our programs and events, we positively impacted the lives of hundreds of girls, who chose technology as their college degree after completing our programs. Shortly after, together with few friends we launched a nonprofit to provide educational Page !40
and mentorship opportunities to girls in Africa, which has been a wonderful, impactful and rewarding journey. When I was a kid, I dreamt of a beautiful and peaceful world. A world where people are happy and children are laughing while playing on the green grass. I wanted to live in such a world, and had a strong feeling deep inside that I will do all what I can to make my dream a reality. What I believe in is that we can empower women to break the established norms and fearlessly go after their dreams. I strongly believe that together- with both men and women- we can make our world a better place. Elvina is an advocate for a gender equality and a Starting Bloc Fellow. She is a writer for Stanford University, Mentor at Children International, and organizer of Techstars Startup Weekend. Elvina lives in Silicon Valley.
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JACK 

HISARD
Jack Hisard At the age of 19, I founded Mama Clinic, which is a community health clinic and has served over 30,000 patients in the past four years. I believe that this is my responsibility to my country and continent because health care is a fundamental human right. Since childhood, I have always wanted to develop solutions to the healthcare challenge in my country. I lost my father to malaria when I was only four years old. I remember that night clearly because his last moments were spent sitting next to me in our small grass thatched hut in the village. There was no hospital nearby where he could be treated. Life became tough when my mother, having been married so young with no formal education, could not provide for us. She was frustrated and depressed and her condition got worse in the year 1998 when she suffered stroke. I had to work in farms and sell sugarcane in the streets in order to provide for my family. My grandmother who at that time was old and weak was the only person who could take care of us. My dreams were shattered. At the age of 9, I started fishing in Lake Victoria while still attending primary school in the village. This was the only way I could raise my own school fees and support my family. I recall the countless times we went hungry for days and this would force me to go begging in the households and streets. I wanted a better life for my family and community. The only way I could make any
! difference was through school. In pursuit of education, I joined my aunt in Mathare Slums, which is one of the largest slums in Kenya. I walked to school every morning, walked back to the one room shanty in the slums in the evening. This was my shelter for the four years I was in high school. Despite missing school on many occasions due to lack of tuition fees, I still maintained to be the top student in my class for consecutive years. Growing up, I have witnessed friends drop out of school after they were orphaned. This is why I had to act and come up with a solution to this problem. After high school, I returned to fishing and working on farms with the aim of starting a medical clinic that would provide health care to my community. I mobilized medical student volunteers and well-wishers and registered Mama Clinic, which provides free primary healthcare to poor members of the community, free maternal/child health care services and health outreach programs where I walk with volunteers from homesteads to schools providing testing and treatment to the villagers who cannot reach the facility. We also sensitize the youth on the dangers of early pregnancies, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. Healthcare is my commitment to humanity and it is my dream to continue providing these services to more people and to be part of a great team of entrepreneurs working across the globe to come up with solutions in the medical field. Page !43
I hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Jomo Kenyatta University in Kenya. I intend to go to graduate school in order to gain advanced skills which will allow me to contribute to proper health care policy formulation in Africa. In acknowledgement of my attempts in making healthcare accessible, I was selected to represent Kenya through a fellowship program called YALI, Young African Leaders Initiative, which was started by President Barrack Obama to mentor young African leaders who are working to change their communities. I have recently been awarded a full-ride scholarship to Watson University in Colorado, USA for my role in enhancing lives of women in the community through free maternal healthcare.
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Jack is a 23-year-old student at Watson University. He is the Founder and Executive Director of Mama Clinic, an organization that has served over 30,000 patients in the past four years and aims to build the largest hospital and research centre in the region. He was accepted into medical school starting January 2017. 
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Girolama Bui “SURPRISE YOURSELF, SURPRISE THE WORLD.”
Girolama Bui It took my father decades to learn what he taught me– that “you can always make more money tomorrow, so take all the chances today.” In 40 years of my father’s wildest dreams, he wasn’t sure he would ever have the chance to be a successful restaurateur, let alone own the family restaurant he worked at diligently for all those decades. For me, the particular rush of making dreams like his come true has become incredibly addicting, and I am constantly inspired to challenge my own sense of possibility and surprise myself along the way. The dreams I thought most out of reach continually push me to take the chances, risks, and opportunities that allow me to achieve what I thought impossible. My father named me Girolama as an homage to the Italian immigrant who became his own father figure. He came over from the Vietnam War, and my namesake gave him a job and, more importantly, a sense of family–while my father spent years working endless hours to provide for our family, slowly working towards his dream of running a restaurant of his very own. I didn’t get to spend much time with my dad growing up, since he worked ten-hour days, six days a week, all through my childhood. When I was five, I would pretend to be asleep on school days until my dad would come home–sometimes after 11 p.m. – and we would sneak off to go fishing together and enthusiastically enjoy our limited quality time together.
! Watching my father’s struggle is my main reason why I have become so passionate about working with other aspiring entrepreneurs who want to help improve the lives of others. As a first generation American, I grew up learning mostly Vietnamese in my household and learning English in the streets from playing with the other kids or through watching television. But I watched as two immigrant families–one Italian and one Vietnamese–used their broken English and miming gestures to build a successful restaurant together. Decades later, my father finally had the opportunity to be the entrepreneur he had always dreamed of being, and today owns that very restaurant. There is a special feeling you get when you make a dream come to life. However big or small, making one of your dreams come true is the most gratifying feeling you will probably ever experience. While I studied at the College of William & Mary, I majored in biology and public health and researched microbiology, but somewhere along the way I discovered a passion for the field of social entrepreneurship. I always had a knack for fundraising and a relentless drive to passionately make ridiculous or far reaching ideas come true which came in handy upon my introductory experience to social entrepreneurship as a Fellow with the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation. Along with other student fellows, we worked with CEPIA a non-profit leading the effort to create a business plan and Page !46
fundraising strategies to help build out the Community Center of Huacas in Costa Rica building classrooms used for youth programs as well as vocational training spaces for adults and safe spaces for at-risk youths which successfully opened in 2014. Since then, I have been fortunate enough to do work with social impact organizations around entrepreneurship such as Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, the United Nations Foundation, and the Transformative Action Institute over the past couple of years. Over the past year, I was fortunate enough to co-create a 12-week experiential learning program called Launch Academy to empower local high school aged students to become confident risk takers as social entrepreneurs in partnership with the Opportunity Education Foundation. It has taken (and will take) a lot of bumps and bruises to find out where my passions lie but one thing that has become clear through my journey of creating social impact is my inherited passion for taking risks and inspiring others to realize their dreams and take a leap of faith. It took my father decades to take the chance to make his dreams come true and I am continually challenged to enable my own dreams and the dreams of others come to life, there is no time like the present.
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Dance Break! !
Listen to our Spotify Playlist for more motivation.
Girolama is a 25-year old Changemaker and Director of Youth Entrepreneurship Society teaching students social entrepreneurship. He lives in Washington, D.C. 
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GERALD 

HODGES Humble to learn. Strive for perfection.
Gerald D. Hodges I was born at the beginning of Liberia’s civil war which lasted for nearly two decades and interrupted many educational success, including my parents. My survival was quite a miracle. Due to the civil war my parents took refuge with me in neighboring country, Guinea preventing them from completing their education. They taught us to believe in God, value education, appreciate the little we had, love and respect people of different cultural, racial and religious backgrounds - which were major causes of the war in Liberia and many other wars around the world today. My parents’ humility and love for others taught me so many valuable lessons and aspiration for my future family and community. And for the past five years of my life, I have been driven by a deep sense of urgency to be the change I want to see in my country Liberia and the world. This came as a deep revelation and a big turning point in my life. I realized that I had been living a life of fantasy, believing that what mattered was wealth and power. I only thought about me, myself and I. Gerald Hodges having a big house, the latest Range Rover or, and a private plane to travel around the world. It wasn’t until my family and I returned to Liberia in my teens I came face to face with the aftermath of the war. I got a flash for the first time in my life that it wasn’t just about me. Liberia had been through fourteen years of
! civil war, which interrupted the educational success of a whole generation. I had peers who dropped out of school, got pregnant before they were ready, abused harmful substances and struggled in obtaining a job. I became desperate to contribute to the process of renewal and fostering change in this new Liberia and the world, where every youth has access to the tools, resources, and mentors they need to identify their purpose, fulfil their potential and lift their communities out of poverty. In 2013 I founded Mentor for Development in Liberia, with a promise to create the next generation of successful and socially responsible leaders through mentorship, tutorship, leadership and entrepreneurship programs. We believe that today’s youth are the leaders of tomorrow; therefore, there is a huge and immediate need to provide them with guidance, skills, resources and opportunities to fulfil their potential and become positive change agents within their communities. Life is short. Each day passes too fast and before you know it you miss what you could have done to be the change you want to see. Every day that I live, I think of what I want to be remembered for by my family, friends, and the world when I die. And if I was to be remembered for anything, it would be helping others discover the purpose and fulfill their potential. Page !49
Every day I get to interact, contribute and learn from empowering amazing change makers who are thirsty to make a difference in their communities, and it just gives me so much hope about the future. A future in which my neighbors’ kids and my kids can play regardless of our religious, cultural and racial backgrounds. I believe the only way to ensure that this kind of community is created is by inspiring my generation and the generation after me to dream the same.
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Gerald is the Founder of Mentor for Development in Liberia. He is 25 years old and currently resides in Monrovia, Liberia. Gerald is an Educational Social Entrepreneur, Trainer, and Motivational Speaker.
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Prakash Koirala
Prakash Koirala I was born in a very middle family, where our grandfather was used to take and implement any financial and nonfinancial decision. That was my parent’s opportunity to learn from him. He was very sincere and financially discipline. He was committed and had a clear vision regarding how to uplift him entire team from out of limited land and money to a very prosperous family. He was very professional priest. Growing up in that family, I learned so many things that still have a significant role to make sound financial environment of our family. Our family was grooming in a very well manner. Apart from that, our society where we are living, I saw so many bad people and that nature of cycle of poverty. I was depressed by the system and even people too. Every day I saw a quarrel between wife and husband, between elders and juniors, between relatives, between neighbors. While being a student, I made my future plan to become either an economist; to make development plan so that every community can break the cycle of poverty and if or a businessman to create more employment opportunity so that these people can earn money in order to spend their life happily. I was transferred from that village to headquarters of my district for further study of mine, where I saw some wonderful cohesion within people, the standard of living,
! people’s access to finance etc. I was impressed by those financial activities. When I think back about it, a lot of that came from insecurity with me – I felt that why I should not make a plan to educate people regarding how to use their limited resources and money so that they can maintain their life, why I should not make a plan to advocate on the need for financial access and the need for financial literacy. Later on, I commit myself to work on this field. In the meantime of my graduation, i.e. in 2012, I started to reach rural areas of Nepal to teach people about the financial literacy and business literacy education. I felt so overwhelmed while listening to the impact of my work. Then, I continue this project as a volunteer leader in this field. I had a track record of doing more than a hundred workshops with partnering government and nongovernmental agencies. Till this date I have reached more than 43,000 people, to whom I have had played a key role to coach them in terms of doing business, maintaining their cash, making provision of capital while doing business, banking, etc. Most of the people I have helped have started to save. They have opened their bank accounts. They are becoming familiar with banking and financial system. The first place where I witnessed the cycle of poverty, people of that community are now doing business and they are Page !52
maintaining their standard of living. They have to cherish their life. I know the main problem of poverty is access to finance. I will keep fighting to eradicate this from my community, from my district, from my region and from my country. I have a dream to work in National Planning of Commission in order to execute development policies and wish to play a key role to make my country prosperous.
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Prakash is 26-years-old. He received Global Award Winner 2015 in Youth Financial Education Awareness Award from Child and Youth Finance International. He is a Council Member of US Embassy Youth Council 2016. He is a Co-Founder of Nepal Prosperity Institute, Think tank working for entrepreneurship development, financial literacy, and economic reform. He is also the creator and author of FINLICO, the first financial literacy comic books in Nepal.  
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Chapter Three: Freedom
 
Don't wait for anyone or anything to tell you when to start; do it now. !
–Naitik Mehta
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Naitik Mehta
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My experiences with challenging the status quo time and again inspire me to provide the same freedom and opportunities that I've had, to everyone.
textbooks, and let go of the fierce academic competition to explore the world outside an obsolete education system.
I grew up in India, in a city called Pune. Dubbed “The Oxford of the East”, the education system here emphasizes the importance of marks and rote-learning. Like most students, I approached it the same way. More often than not, I would be stressing about memorizing textbook sentences all night long or throughout weekends. All of us students were in a rat race to do better than our neighbours and to ace every subject at school. Families valued grades, and academic rigour was is encouraged as a norm.
At thirteen, owing to a small Fine Arts workshop in school and a supportive family that encouraged exploration, I was exposed to the world of digital art and design when I tried to digitally draw cartoon characters out of everyday vegetables. After a few months of playing around with digital software, I was in awe of the possibilities presented by combining technology and art. I spent all my time learning through tutorials and videos on the internet. School and its academic rigour took the back seat, and at the end of the same year I started taking up external projects to learn on-the-go and build up design skills. Soon enough, I landed my first-ever paid job for an ed-tech startup at age 14– helping with print and digital design. My family nurtured an environment that placed importance on passion and practical learning, instead of academics. I wasn’t in a rat race anymore; I was off to carve my own path, and this notion has inspired my personal journey ever since. I had stopped studying, and started learning.
But my mother had a different approach – unlike most families who were indirectly a part of this education system. She saw me study for long hours day-after-day and stress about the smallest of exams or assignments, and one day, she asked me, “Why are you studying so much? Just go out and have fun.” This question changed my perspective on academics in India, emphasizing the importance of understanding what I was studying and why it was worth putting a 110% of my efforts rote-learning entire pages from outdated textbooks. In grade seven, I put aside all of my outdated
In the tenth grade, every student has to attend the 'Board Exams’ – a set of examinations which are Page !56
understood to make or break your career by determining how academically capable you are and the opportunities you can get after these exams. With academic stress, parental pressure, exam anxiety, fierce competitiveness and other pressures that come with this approach, 60% of students experience various levels of depression (Journal of Indian Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health) and India ranks alarmingly high in suicide rates amongst the youth. To cope with this pressure, most students stop all extracurricular activities, reduce social activities, leave sports fields empty, and everyone in the families and communities around them is dedicated to helping them succeed in these exams. It was all about studying as much as you can and scoring the highest grades possible. I, too, dreaded this year. But how could I stop my job as a designer with a startup, or stop playing football and music - for an entire year?I swam against the tide and decided to continue all my hobbies, not focus on grades and planned a vacation with my family just before my final exams. To avoid studying thousands of pages worth of outdatededucation material, I studied question patterns on exam papers and placed a bet to predict exam papers – I studied around 30% of the assigned textbook material and ended up with a decent score in my final exams. Taking a different path to avoid a faulty
education system, albeit unconventional and risky, was rewarding; I felt happy to spend more time on doing things I loved. Just as I began to think I was free from the education system – I was faced with another systemic norm. Following the Board Exams, students with scores above 90% (A+ grades) are expected to study engineering or medicine, while those with lower scores can choose commerce, and the rest with lower scores can study fine arts. The fervent competition continues in the form of a race to attend the best colleges, get the top degrees and secure the highest-paying jobs. But I wasn’t in a race anymore. With the support of my family and mentors, I dropped out of attending college for 2 years – often stigmatized as “Why would you ruin the start of your career?” and chose home-schooling provided by the government, which was looked down upon as a way for students who could not keep up with the academic pace of conventional schooling. I took up art & design stigmatized as a field with no job security or societal value. There was noticeable social pressure in my daily conversations, with notions implying that I chose the 'wrong’ field despite good grades in school. I persevered through those two years of unconventional learning, experimentation, exploration and practice. During this period, I launched my first company in the form of a Page !57
design studio at age 17, working with international clients across 6 countries, winning 14 design contests and being awarded a runners-up position in 23 others. My path through school, college, and university reflect the values emphasized by family and the mentors around me. Every single opportunity that I’ve had, I credit to this valuable community that was always around - to support and walk with me in every decision that I made. Having been incredibly fortunate in my journey, my passion to empower other people stems from the desire to extend these same resources to those who may never have the chance to access them otherwise. I believe in the importance of creating your own path, taking the unconventional road and embracing the freedom that comes with following your passion. My goal is to empower at least one billion people to reach their full potential, by breaking down educational and societal barriers. Earlier in 2016, I co-founded NextBillion.org, using technology to build a global community that supports and mentors the world’s largest minority people with disabilities. Naitik is a 20-year-old Interaction Designer and Entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder of NextBillion.org where he brings together industry leaders to mentor people with visible and invisible disabilities. 
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Rachel Mitton
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Rachel Mitton
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As a child, I felt powerless and ashamed that I had needs. I thought having needs made me vulnerable and I concealed them until the point of absolute emergency. Not only did this create a high-stress environment, but it kept me from reaching outside of myself and embracing those around me. I felt like I had to do everything on my own, and that feeling of urgency stifled my creativity. I was convinced that debt was the enemy as I worked myself to complete exhaustion. It was not until my last semester of college that the overexertion depleted my energy stores.
food would make me feel and how it affected my energy. This was the beginning of my journey with energy management.
At 22, I was suffering from chronic fatigue and a slew of digestive disorders that forced me to slow down and reevaluate what I was practicing. I had to make the choice to uplift myself or continue to suppress my needs to the point of no return. Without health insurance or a shoulder to lean on I decided to take my health back into my own hands. I became my own doctor and slowly started eliminating foods from my diet that caused discomfort.
We can create what we need in our lives. The words “to do” create a feeling of obligation, sometimes even stress. When we change the words from “to do” to “to create” we become empowered. All of a sudden the tasks we were dreading to complete are now a chance for us to make something that will add value to our lives not strip us of time and energy. Instead of looking at our needs as an inconvenience or something to be ashamed of we can look at them as an opportunity to get creative.
Next, I began a conditioning program that would wake my body up and out of a deep sleep. I realized it was processed foods I was self-medicating on that made me feel groggy and sick. As I began to interact with my food and prepare meals the relationship I had to food changed. I no longer was interested in taste, but how the
Getting out of a survivalist mindset allows us to shift into our creative power. As we begin to feel a sense of security, we know if we have a need we can meet it. We are no longer powerless and at the mercy of corporate America, but in touch with our freedom to create tools that will allow us to live within our means efficiently. I
If we are constantly in a state of emergency our bodies are overworked and this leads to mindless consumption of foods that make us unwell. We look at cooking as an obligation, but it's a chance to express ourselves and interact with the fuel we put in our bodies. If we feel good we produce goodness which uplifts humanity. In order to create goodness in the world we must start with ourselves.
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used to be afraid to create what I needed. I didn't feel my power but once I tapped into it my whole world changed. My Free Life was born out of the desire to connect with the working class humans that live paycheck to paycheck. To provide inspiration and ideas to those looking for a way to create the solutions they need without emptying their bank account. While spending time on a permaculture farm this past year, I found the solution to unlocking our creative potential is simple. Go back to nature; start eating vegetables from the local market, start walking around the neighborhood and connecting with those around you, ask to borrow a cup of sugar instead of going to the store. Asking our community for help when we are in need is the best way to evoke social change because it empowers those around us to reach out and to do something.
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Rachel is a homeless advocate and the founder of My Free Life, an online platform where people can share how they have "freed" themselves from a poverty mindset, discover affordable solutions, and move toward a healthier and more sustainable future.  
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insert arihant
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Things get solved when you get involved! – Arihant Jain
Arihant Jain I was brought up in an upper middle-class family in Dhule, Maharashtra, a small, remote village in Western India. Since my early school days I was always involved in many activities, which helped me win several scholarships from the government of India to pursue Civil Engineering. In search of growth I reached Mumbai, known as the ‘City of Dreams,’ an ocean-like city where I felt I was just a tiny little drop. Several drops fell in this ocean day after day only to eventually lose their identities. While the fear of getting lost in the crowd haunted me more with every day that passed by, I was blessed by a silver lining in the name of i3. I was uplifted when I got the chance to be a part of the most energized, action-oriented, changedriven platform called i3 (influence inspire impact). It’s the motto that inspires entrepreneurship and encourages volunteerism. My life took a complete U-turn. I took part in several social impact projects where I got the opportunity to be mentored by experts from several walks of life. I also got to meet international personalities from various domains who have created a mark of their own at a very young age. I reached out to the underprivileged sections of society and took initiatives to organize several meal donation drives, literacy drives, and women empowerment projects. My work positively impacted Page !63
more than 30,000 people at the grassroots level in different areas of Mumbai. I executed various social projects which created awareness in the society, like 36Meals. We created many different campaigns: Food Not Wasted is Food Created, OHH (Oral Health Hygiene), iUNewspaperbag Campaign (Reduce plastic Campaign), iUOSB (One Sided Book), iUY2C (Youth to Children), and several other impacting more than 30k which took me amongst top performers of the State. I was bestowed with title of TRUE IUITE. I also got involved in organizing many campaigns like the ‘Food Not Wasted is Food Created’ (as a part of 36meals.com), OHH (Oral Health Hygiene), iUNewspaperbag Campaign (a reduce plastics Campaign), iUOSB (One-Sided-Book made from collecting one side-used sheets from those who would otherwise discard them), iUY2C (‘Youth to Children’ project where less privileged students are motivated toward betterment of life, education, and overall wellbeing), and several other projects, which eventually helped distinguish me in my state. I was bestowed with the title of TRUE IUITE, which is rewarded to the best performers each season on the i3 platform. This award opened the gates to several other opportunities, one of which was working on an international project executed for World Merit Day the 24th of July, 2015. I was chosen to be amongst the 24
lead volunteers from across the country who led thousands of volunteers. We were able to set a new record in the country, preparing more than 300,000 iU Newspaper bags in 14 cities of India and 6 other countries, all in a single day. I was then chosen to be the Ambassador for two international initiatives– 36Meals, a non-profit that has supporters in more than 40 countries on UNSDG 2: Zero Hunger, and A Deed A Day, a social network that encourages people to do more good deeds. After organizing and volunteering for several other initiatives, I was invited as a speaker to educational institutions so I could inspire youngsters my age and even older. Inspiration Unlimited eMagazine – the number one inspirational e-magazine on the web– recognized my work and featured my journey of impact, which I believe has inspired other youngsters as well. Social projects made me more practical in life. Once an introvert, I am now someone who loves to explore the world, connect with new people, share ideas, and impact the society. I truly believe communities can help us all impact the world better and faster. Arihant is a 19-year-old engineering student living in Mumbai, India. He is a activist, rising motivational speaker, and a Regional Ambassador for 36Meals and A Deed A Day.
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Marcela
Fernandez
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Marcela Fernandez Three years ago, I realized that dreams can vanish while you are living them, and that, when this happens, you are able to realize it and make turns, true freedom happens and a new reality opens up to help you shape your new dreams. This happen to me, after three universities in three different cities, I decided to "drop out" of traditional education and drop into a new reality. I started taking a non-conventional path using the world as my classroom and researching about new learning methodologies. Two years after the call to become an entrepreneur I came alive. I realized that the program, the way I wanted to learn, was non-existent. So I decided that it must be created. Today that educational program is called ON BOARD. We create learning journeys and transformative travel experiences. I do what I do today because I was brave enough to jump into uncertainty and follow my call for freedom, looking to live a lifestyle that fill every day of my life with what I call flow.
! This lead me to activate flow in others and today, our travel experiences use the flow concept to make each journey unforgettable. I do what I do today because I felt an urge to live authentically knowing that there was much more than what I was living inside 4 walls and that the people I wanted to meet were living somewhere else. I am sure that the people I wanted to meet are the type of people that are reading this book. Therefore, I invite you to take that leap of faith into the lifestyle that will give you the ultimate feeling: freedom.
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Marcela is Founder of Be OnBoard, an alternative higher education travel experience on a bus through Central and South America. She currently lives in Colombia.
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Since breaking a paradigm is quite a challenge, I phased an emotional crisis that later taught me that what I lost during those months and what I was losing in conventional education was my flow, that capacity to feel alive and fully engage in my everyday actions. Page !66


SAMUEL MALINGA
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Samuel Malinga In 2013, I was hired as a Sanitation Engineer Consultant to undertake research and development (R&D) of low cost emptying pumps to empty pits in congested areas. During the R&D process I got to meet a people of different backgrounds ranging from sanitation consultants, fabricators, political leaders, and homemakers. I moved around Kampala slums to fully understand the challenges many households in those areas were experiencing in managing fecal matter, especially during the rainy season. My mentor, Steve Sugden, gave me pointers on how to develop a pump to empty pits in such areas. It was a hard assignment because I spent many sleepless nights working 24/7. I decided to never give up. Upon our initial prototype testing our results were impressive, but after doing several field tests the pump started developing challenges due to rubbish in pits. I had to come up with a new type of valves. I made several adjustments until the pump was market-ready. Unfortunately, after developing this pump as emptying solution to full pits mainly in slums (informal settlements), many people were still skeptical and reluctant to invest in sanitation businesses yet it is a critical sector in everyday life since the population size is on the rise with statistics indicating over 60% of pit in Kampala are always full during the rainy season. It is this very reason that motivated me to set up to SAL to manage waste flows
! using a business approach. I also didn’t want to see the pump that I developed be put to waste. During execution of some projects in Kampala, Masaka and Soroti Districts, I also came to know that people were experiencing more challenges in construction of latrines due to geological challenges such as high water table, collapsible soils, rocky areas. This further motivated me to develop technologies to address such challenges. Also, during my early childhood as I used to trek to school from Kampala slums in Naguru, but many families around were always suffering from water borne diseases such as typhoid, diarrhea, cholera, and dysentery. Such diseases made many families unproductive, this motivated me to practice engineering in order to solve sanitation challenges in the area. We are the leading sanitation company in Uganda offering services innovative toilet construction and latrine upgrade, emptying of pits in congested areas using locally made semi-mechanical pumps, design of Fecal Sludge Treatment Plants and Lagoons. We also provide technical training, business development, and breeding Black Soldier Flies as an alternative feed for livestock instead of silver cyprinid which is getting depleted. Samuel is the Founder and Managing Director of Sanitation Africa Limited. He is 27-years-old and lives in Kigali, Rwanda. He is from Kampala, Uganda.  Page !68
 
Dianne Lenne
Diane Lenne
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I have always been passionate about freedom of expression but it took me 24 years to realize it.
The more I was expressing myself in what I love to do (in my association for example), the more I was becoming confident about my academics and professional choices.
I used to organize weekly free expression parties, where people could write and draw on the walls of my garage (which delighted my parents). But I wanted to take my involvement with freedom of speech further. My life changed when I discovered an association promoting freedom of expression called Esprit Critique. I joined the video reporting division. I also organized moving debates about "money and happiness" confronting social sciences university students and business students ;) Still, I had doubts about my choices because of typical french common beliefs. "Always choose the largest option to give you the largest chance of success.” "You should study finance and begin your career with consulting to succeed.” "You need to have the name of a big company on your CV to succeed.” "You cannot create value with your talents because you don't have an obvious one.”
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Little by little, I decided to make my choice according to what I valued the most in the deepest of my heart instead of what was the most reputable. One of my favorite courses at EMLYON was about "ethos economic and religion" with Philippe Portier, a great strategy teacher:) It was really important for me to continually open my mind. I thought inviting and debating with great personalities who observe and shape our world was a good way to do it. There is one sentence from the writer Francois Begaudeau that struck me. "Never be complacent with experts ! Challenge them, they have been students once". The most audacious - and stupid thing i have done was to perform a one man show in front of ... the most successful one man shower in France : Gad Elmaleh. My conversations with Isaac Getz, author of “Liberté & Cie, Quand la liberte des salaries fait le bonheur des entreprises” in an organizational course supported my way of thinking. I knew then that I wanted to join an organization where I can find and choose my mission.
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Defining my mission in the organization by myself enabled me to discover where I was good at.
Understand & think & act on 21st century biggest challenges
When I joined WikiStage, platform for sharing knowledge with videos, it was a young and open organization. I discovered that coordination and planning was very difficult for me whereas finding new organizers and speakers, implementing new concepts, managing and growing a community was easy and enjoyable. That is how I became responsible for WikiStage Paris. I spent one incredible year leading the production of more than 200 Video Talks giving voice to the most innovative and creative people of Paris!
Give life to any ideas without having someone say that it is impossible. Get an answer about a topic your are not familiar with (design, code, law) in 2 minutes by asking someone just next to you. Be at the edge of innovation by speaking with passionate people around you. Feed your mind with new ideas and topics. Organize & design your own timetable and move as you decide...
I became inexorably attracted by innovation spaces in Paris because they enable me to constantly open my mind and creativity. I began involved in various spaces in Paris: Numa, startups accelerator ; Freespace, a temporary space for a lasting change and creativity ; La Paillasse, open community lab for DIY Science&Tech ; Sensespace, third places for social innovation developed my MakeSense community So much that I decided to initiate partnerships in order to give voice to these communities and in the same time get closer to them. One of the event I organized is the WikiStage La Paillasse. Next edition will happen in November. Here are the things that I love in these places :
Of course, these places are experimental, they may lack a clearly-defined organization, governance, value creation, but they offer a different experience of learning and working. They are acting as "school labs" or "fac labs". Paradoxically, it is where I learnt the most! I started a community enabling people to express their own talents with my sister, Anne-Elise Lenne and backed by my friend Hadrien Glasel, we launched an invitation to very special weekend called On Top Of Hills. For a day or two, each of the participants can express their talents during a 20 min to 1h workshop in a small group of 10. The program is written from participants. Everyone is welcome to bring their contribution in an open and energizing atmosphere. Our forums have spread up every month in different places in France, Europe, US and China. From it, we collected a database (work in progress) of workshops to be used for educational and training purposes. Page !71
I realized we can bring self-organized learning to other organisations. My methodologies could solves following problems: • Slow time to market of the trainings : once they are designed, they are disconnected from the needs • Lack of transmissions of talents, skills, expertise between peers. • Lack of a sense of belonging community in the school or company When peers learn from each other, they feel engaged, they grow on their strength, they collaborate and innovate. This is how I found my vocation. I am now on the way to revolutionize knowledge transfer within organisations for the well-being and engagement of students and employees.
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Limiting beliefs kill more than failure ever will. Most of people’s knowledge and talents stay in their head, because of organizational and self limitations among other reasons. For Diane, this loss is unbearable. She founded WAP - We Are the Projects to allow peers to learn from each other by interactions or activities, for more engagement at work or study. She is currently based in Paris, France.
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Geoffrey Bright Kata Being a natural born thinker, I grew up wandering around, skipping school sometimes just to have a perfect view of my hometown and start sketching my ideal version of it. There always seemed to be something lacking, and I would not leave the hill until I figured out what it was, and what would be needed to set it up. Day after day, I filled my notebooks with plans of earning money that would later be used to finance all the social economic changes to be made. At 5, I collected scrap metal that I would sell off and save the income with my mom. Soon she realised how good I was at making sales, so she allowed me to run the family store at the age of 7. This later on motivated me to start a college canteen, Duka, at United World Colleges Costa Rica, with two of my friends. Those projects are now the KataTimes.Com and WorldForPhotos.Com online communities. I wish to be a mentor to young entrepreneurs and digital nomads aiding them to join hands and ideas with people from all over the world in order to achieve their dreams and help build a better social economy in all countries around the world.’ I am Bright Geofrey Kata, Ugandan born and CEO and founder at KataTimes.Com and WorldForPhotos.Com. Having graduated at United World Colleges Costa Rica earlier this year, I decided to take a year traveling to get
! to know the world better, and offer help whenever I could after integrating into different cultures. While traveling in Ecuador, I kept open minded about new ideas, and ''Digital Nomadism'' is one of the many that caught my attention. A Digital Nomad is a person who uses technology to work everywhere in the world. It caught my interest because being from Uganda and just like other Bottom Of The Pyramid countries in terms of economics, there is not that many opportunities for youths and business owners to use technology for social causes, and to earn a living to support themselves and their families (tuition, medication, clean clothes, food, etc.) I taught English in a local school in Pedernales, Montanita, that had been destroyed by Earthquakes, and thus lacked enough teachers, as most of them stayed home taking care of their families. I also volunteered in Hidden House Hostel Montanita teaching spanish to backpackers who found it difficult to have conversations with locals. I also taught hip hop dancing to inspire young children to follow their dancing dreams. My dance team and I helped create the choreography in a local music video (Hugo Free feat Luis - Amo Mi Tierra Ecuador - Alto KLibre Music)
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Having been inspired by Digital Nomads and a couple of other mentors over the last months, I plan to be traveling through Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, and Hong kong) organizing Entrepreneurship Conferences where I can teach fellow youths not only to be Digital Nomads, but also Global changemakers. That is, by using technology, and their innovation skills to solve problems in their communities, and also be able to contribute to other social causes when they earn money from digital nomadism. I plan on buying computers to be donated to Digital Nomads attending local schools in Asia, Africa, and other developing parts of the world. We will sponsor entrepreneurship and digital nomad conferences that will inspire more people to become social entrepreneurs and thus problem solvers. For hundreds of years, the everyday classroom has remained unchanged. Students sit behind the desks, and raise their hands waiting to be picked on by the teachers to respond to questions whose answers they spent hours memorizing. This is not how innovative minds are created.
they are good at and thus practice it more, in order to increase their efficiency when coming up with solutions in a group. I will be glad to receive social entrepreneurship ideas from you and hopefully facilitate collaborations in the near future to help more Global Citizens achieve their dreams and live better. At age 19, Geoffrey is the creator of Kata Times. He is currently traveling around the world to teach and inspire young entrepreneurs and Digital Nomads to work together on social entrepreneurship projects and help solve problems in different communities around the world.
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Instead, I prefer to see students working together and sharing ideas on how to tackle problems at hand. This could vary from small math problems to big global problems like poverty, global warming and health. Through team work, each student can easily realize what Page !74
insert jaxon

Cesar
Romero
Cesar Romero My job is to facilitate amazing travel experiences around the world where people get to step outside their comfort zone, create memories of a lifetime, make new friends, and get a better understanding about the world. On a deeper level I see my job as a way to spread love, kindness, and empathy around the world with every travel experience; this is what fills my soul and makes me happy. It’s a fun highly demanding job and I get to experience all this awesome places but what really gets me out of bed every morning is the people and the community we have built over the years and continue to serve; that’s the most important part of what I do. At the Under30Experiences Community, we are building a community through travel experiences around the world. Community is so important to me because I believe success is a communal effort and being part of the right community is a critical component to become the best version of yourself and have a bigger impact in the world. Community gives you support, accountability, and a sense of belonging. We focus on giving our members life-changing experiences and a safe space for personal and professional growth. My best friends are from the Under30Experiences community and I even met my wife through this community.
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Back in January 2013, while pretending to do work at a job I wasn’t passionate about and putting up with negative coworkers, I came across this article that totally changed my perspective about the most important things in life.
One day I gave myself permission to travel, be spontaneous, meet different people, explore the world, and spend quality time with the people that matter most to me. I haven’t looked back ever since. It turns out I had the power to give myself permission the whole time.
It made me realize that time is our most important resource and no matter what we do, we cannot get more of it. The only metric that matters in life is how we spend our time. At the end of the day I don’t want to look back and say “I wish I would have done that when I had the chance.”
I love connecting people to other people or experiences that help them move forward in life. I do it to spread love, kindness, and compassion around the world.
Ever since that moment, I have dedicated my life to traveling around the world, accumulating life-changing experiences with amazing people, and building a community of like-minded people. The life I have today is totally different than the one I had 4 years ago. I was working at a job that I wasn’t excited about and hanging out with negative people because I didn’t know any better. Even though I was making good money, I still felt this void inside of me and I knew I needed to make a change. Every morning I’d wake up wishing I was doing something else, hanging out with different people, and spending more time outdoors.
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Cesar is the Experience Instigator at Under 30 Experiences. He currently resides in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. All photo credit goes to The Art of Intentions and Under30Experiences.
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I thought I needed permission from my family and friends to go after the things that make me happy. I was so wrong.
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Chapter Four: Passion
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Sukhneet Singh Virk
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I create because I need to. When I’m creating, it brings me in line with humanity and my place in it. I’m thrust back into the web of the Universe that my ego ripped me out of. When I create, I’m taking my place among the stars. That unique position that enables the forward motion and progress of life.
Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the first Sikh Guru, took these massive walking journeys throughout the Eastern part of the world. On one such journey he encountered some priests knelt down by the Ganges river. He noticed that they were splashing water towards the moon. He asked what they were doing.
When I was 18, my best friend died before my eyes. His car slid sideways across the road as I watched in my rearview mirror. With a BANG!, pieces flew everywhere. I slammed my brakes and spun my car around.
“We’re paying homage to our ancestors who reside in the moon.” Guru Nanak Dev Ji took in what they said. He took a few steps towards the river, knelt down, and began splashing water towards the east.
Running to his car I cried out his name. Flames burst out. They engulfed what was left of his BMW. I heard nothing from the car and never saw him again.
“What are you doing?” they asked.
I’ve reflected back on that day many times. More than the crash I remembered my friend and who he was. What he stood ready to create for the world. For all those he loved and cared about. When I stood trial I found myself prepared to face whatever sentence I received. I made a small prayer to the Eternal Force. A prayer accepting any sentence I received. The jury chose not send me to prison, giving me an opportunity my best friend would never have. It’s been a long journey since the accident. I’ve reflected many times on that day. One Sikh story in particular gave me guidance.
“Well, if your water could reach the moon, then I can reach my fields in the east. They’re dry and need to be watered. So I’m watering my fields.” The priests became angry. “What are you talking about? That’s a disrespect to our ancestors! That’s blasphemy, how dare you mock our rituals!” Guru Nanak Dev Ji remained calm. “You spend your time remembering your ancestors by sending water to the moon. At the same time, many of your friends and family, still alive, suffer. Why not spend your time rejoicing in those who passed? Why not remember their highest virtues? Why not bring what they stood for to life by adopting those virtues yourselves? Why not benefit all those still alive?” Page !80
This story served as a guide ever since the accident. I focused on my friend’s best qualities and tried to live them out in my own life. I tried to be the best I could be at whatever Nature required.
those wasps, which eliminated the wasp problem for others. The spider never tried doing anything special. It did what spiders do. It set up camp and feasted on whatever it could.
Through the years something shifted. As I continued to create and work for a better tomorrow, I began finding my own voice. The thing is, my voice and perspective were always present. I just allowed them to be drowned out in this noisy world. I allowed myself to hold back on my perspective for fear of hurting someone else.
At that moment I said I small prayer to the Eternal Force. I wished to live like that spider. To fulfill my own purpose in life. If that meant I must live as a janitor, I would be the very best I could be.
This belief lay buried deep beneath the surface, that by living fully I might harm those around me. I discovered this belief at Patterns school. We spent 10 minutes scribbling any and all fears onto sticky notes and throwing them on the wall. It was enough time to realize I feared hurting those I loved. As I released myself over time I felt something distinct. I read and listened to the wisdom of the Stoics. One piece of the philosophy focused on our duty as human beings. That when we’re not doing our duty, we’re like a finger that has been cut off from Nature’s body. It’s unnatural, and compels us to find our way back to the body. While cleaning out the attic of a building I managed, I saw an abandoned wasp’s nest. Just outside the entrance sat a spider web with a curled up spider. The spider had positioned itself to capture the wasps. It struck me that the spider lived out its purpose. Its purpose being to eat
I recognized all the times I allowed myself to become a passive consumer and slow down on creating. During those times I felt this indescribable pain, a deep depression that clutched at my heart. One that pulled me into the depths of a personal hell. That feeling of disconnection is one of the most painful I’ve experienced. And so I create. I create to live and give life. I create to enjoy the highest levels of life and joy. Every day I create, even in a small way, I push my limits outward. Every day I create I pave a new path for humanity. Every day I create, the ripples of those creations echo out into the Universe. You have an opportunity right now to expand the Universe. Create. Sukhneet believes in building a better future for all, together. He is a co-founder for City Solvers helping cities engage citizens and businesses to build a better city. He also runs a blog called Art of Change, and does online marketing (website, SEO, social media) for tech companies and medical businesses at Vision Managers. Page !81
Jacob Fohtung While growing up in Cameroon as a youth, I was not provided with the opportunities or resources to motivate me to become a creative thinker, innovator, or an entrepreneur in addressing social needs within the community. This was in part due to the lack of a platform to prepare the youths with an innovative or entrepreneurial mindset around these societal issues affecting the country. Upon a deeper reflection six years later, I decided to start a platform called IlluminateBox to make this a reality. Through this platform, we organize a series of innovation competition in high schools with the intent of motivating and providing funding as well as mentorship for Cameroonian youths. Thus, this will enable them to start thinking creatively about problems in the society and develop projects that can address them. With this approach, the role and participation of the youths will be elevated as they also strive to make a socioeconomic difference. My entrepreneurial journey started in 2012 when I attended an annual hackathon held at MIT media Lab called GrandHack. A hackathon is a 24 to 72 hours’ innovation marathon wherein individuals of various disciplines and backgrounds come together to build products that will mitigate a specific problem from healthcare to education within their community. This hackathon focused on bringing together experts from multiple fields to address problems within the United Page !82
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States healthcare system and beyond. After participating in many more hackathons, I was in awe of the interdisciplinary collaboration and creativity that occurred in these settings. Importantly, the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit spurred during these events were infectious, and this had a significant role to play in the conceptualization and creation of IlluminateBox.
practiced in different countries. Overall, this experience deepened my interest in entrepreneurship and how I could use it as a tool to positively influence people’s lives and their communities.
In the midst of participating in hackathons, I also wanted to understand and get acquainted with the field of entrepreneurship so I decided to take some entrepreneurship courses offered by MIT on the edx platform. I then applied and got accepted into a competitive MITx Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp held at MIT Sloan School of Management in August 2015. This experience provided me with a platform to connect with other entrepreneurs around the world as well as within the MIT entrepreneurial ecosystem. At this bootcamp, my team and I came up with and developed an idea that we coined “IDO.” IDO is a wedding app with an artificial intelligence tool that helps newly Do-ItYourself couples plan their perfect wedding. With support and mentorship, we were able to pitch our idea before experienced judges and received the first-place award among the 10 other teams at the bootcamp. As a result of the diverse cohort of students, I also had the opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship from different perspectives and especially how they are being
With my exposure to and passion for innovation and entrepreneurship, which is not in the education track in Cameroon, I hope to introduce these fields to Cameroonian youths with IlluminateBox in order that they will develop socially impactful projects that make a significance difference.
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Jacob is a social entrepreneur and the leader of Changemakers: Africa, a community uniting all Changemakers across Africa with in-person chapters. He is a 25-years-old Social Entrepreneur and Researcher at MIT D-lab. He lives in Cambridge, MA.
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Gladys Llanes 

Gladys Llanes Passion, I believe, is a connection of dreams, hopes, and circumstances bind together to form our very essence in this world. I had big dreams in my life once but none of those dreams came to life. That was okay, great even! My dreams back then were always in the safe zone anyways. I never dared to go out of the box for my fear of failure, of humiliation, of hurt. But the last two years had changed my life enormously. In the past 2 years, I felt too many different emotions all at once; hurt, anger, empowerment, fulfillment, and passion. Two years ago my dad was horribly murdered. It was the saddest moment in our family and for me was the loneliest since I looked up so much to my dad. He used to talk to me about the essence of leadership and responsibility. That sad day, I thought was the end of my faith in myself but surprisingly it was the opening of everything wonderful, challenging, and fulfilling moments of my life. With the guiding advises I learned from my late father, that horrible day was also the day I seek for my true passion. I am fascinated by different stories of people. I for one has a lot of stories to tell and knowing different stories, seeking any opportunity to help people, if that calls for it, is one of the things I am giddy about. As a media student back then, I calculated all my strengths and weaknesses Page !85
and so one day, with all the calculated possibilities and personal dream, I decided that I do want to be a documentary filmmaker, sharing stories of people to create impact to society. Because I know now what I would want to do, I tried to search for the right people to talk to, right opportunities to have and fortunately, the universe heard me right. It is true that if you set your mind on something, if you know what you are looking for, circumstances will always provide that for you. I emailed, messaged people on Facebook, and even Tweet people I’m interested to talk to. And yes, I got what I was looking for, and much more. I am now working with a renowned documentary filmmaker in my country, doing films for social change. We never knew each other back then. I just connected with her on Facebook and now I am working with her, doing my passion. (Side comment: don’t underestimate the power of social media because it can change lives and create a revolution.)
It’s true that we can’t connect the dots forward but we can connect them backwards. I now know that every dream is not strong enough without passion. And passion cannot be formed without having a strong drive to seek for it. It doesn’t matter if you just found your passion yesterday or last month or years ago. What matters most is that you found it and you did something about it for passion is the key element to self-fulfillment. Because of passion I don’t know what failure means anymore. I just know that going beyond expectation is a scary thing, a painful path, but it always works out in the end, with much more than expected. Gladys is a 20-year-old documentary filmmaker and editor. She is the co-founder of Development Innovation Insider, a platform that assists grassroots organizations and young changemakers to transform global innovations into sustainable local impacts, and create lasting changes that go to scale for the bottom of the pyramid. She lives in the Philippines.
Aside from being a filmmaker, I also ventured with another project which is not far from my passion. I cofounded an online international magazine that features stories of development and innovation in developing countries. With my co-founders who are just as passionate as I am, I’m ready to take the next step further.
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TANAKA CHINGONZO tanaka- need image

Tanaka Chingonzo “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson The first time I did something I truly loved, I was at Harare’s first innovation event. I wore my uniform to an event organised for adults- web developers, investors, designers and finance professionals. I stood out from the fold- the discomfort and oddness of my presence painfully obvious- and I loved it. All the “grownups” marvelled at my audacity to show up at such an event, my audacity to join a team and build a venture in 54 hours- while my age mates watched TV and partied all weekend. At the very least, they regarded me with a curious interest- and everyone was more than willing to speak with me and offer advice. I learnt something invaluable that first day- everyone wants to help you for as long as they don’t perceive you as a threat or competition and as long as you’ll listen. So I listened. In fifty-four hours, I sampled every possible job I knew at the time and a thousand I had never heard of. In each conversation, I was a software developer, a web designer, a cautious yet ambitious investor. In a single weekend, all my career guidance classes were thrown out the window. It was the first time I truly realised how powerful our experiences are and how indelibly they can shape us and impact us. Conversations with software developers
! taught me how creative and difficult yet simultaneously rewarding their work is. It was the first time I ever discovered my passion for making things and found an outlet for it- writing and coding. My passion took me places I never thought I would know. My life began with that one weekend. 54 hours changed me and made me. A few weeks later, I would form a company under the Junior Achievement Worldwide and with a group of classmates who would become our shareholders, we would devise a way to process waste plastic from the nearby dumpsite into floor polish. I would go on to jointly start a company to make citizens communicate with city councils in Zimbabwe- www.rezident.co.zw eventually raising in excess of $3000.00 for the project. A year later, I would be accepted into Watson University in Boulder, Colorado and I would attend the Global Engagement Summit at Northwestern University and the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado- Boulder. Meeting all these immensely inspiring people doing amazing things in such different parts of the world, it was obvious to me that access to opportunity- access to information was the problem back home. I asked myself a very important and personal question, “If my classmates had access to all this information- if they knew the support that exists for them and the projects they are starting, wouldn’t high school look very different than it does today?” Page !88
My answer to my own question was yes. The problem was access and exposure. So I started Apply.co.zw specifically for high school students across Zimbabwe to have access to information and resources for applying to different opportunities. I want young people- my peers and age mates to share my passion for growth, to‌ and I truly believe that knowledge more than anything, inspires passion- so my mission is to perpetuate knowledge.
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Tanaka is a 19-year-old Creative, Collector of People, and online developer. He is a Watson University scholar who is from Harare, Zimbabwe. Tanaka is currently interning at Education USA, a U.S. Department of State network of over 400 international student advising centers in more than 170 countries. 
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Jelena Aleksich
Jelena Aleksich It all began when I quit my job. Everything opened up again - lifelong passions I had repressed, needed rest I had ignored and experience I could now, well, experience. This feeling of independence permeated every fiber of my being. I was happy. I was creative. I began to question everything again. Yes, I was still on my parent’s dime but this novelty never wore off and allowed me to experience the most majestically random sequence of events that became the beginning of my identity. A month later, I found myself at a birthday party for a local DJ. Upon entering, everyone was bombed with glitter. As a bonafide nugget, my hair was full of the sparkle. It was everywhere: in my bed, at the bottom of my shower. For days: coercing me to think back to that night a few days ago. Fast forward two weeks later. I am at the Bowery and am watching Ok Go live. There is confetti falling throughout the show, leaving the entire floor covered by the end. My favorite: a beautiful mess. I naturally begin to hoard it in the pockets of my leather jacket, walk the Williamsburg Bridge for the first time and completely forget about it. Another two weeks pass by as I put on this leather jacket again. It had been a particularly difficult day for me- I was not feeling my bestwhen I put my hands in the pockets and surprisingly found the confetti in them. I was so happy in that moment. My mind begins to formulate a pattern:
! confetti is nostalgic. Confetti is emotive. What the fuck does it even mean? As someone with a background in Psychology, I looked up the definition: little pieces of paper meant to be thrown during a time of celebration. So, confetti = celebration. I became obsessed, scouring the web during consecutive late night benders finding every single photo on the internet that had confetti in it. This was step one of my creative process: gather as much visual research as possible to see how you can stay inside and outside the box. I began to see patterns: confetti raining, confetti kisses, confetti on different body parts. I put them in a powerpoint and began to show them to anyone around me. I also happen to have just moved to Brooklyn a few months ago and was sincerely so captivated by the people around me that I really wanted to know what they celebrated in their lives and why they got out of bed in the morning. Because we could - as young, able-bodied humans - let everything fall apart if we wanted to. But we don’t. Despite the daily feelings of frustration and moments of defeat, especially when doing something outside of the status quo. The answers I was getting were fascinating. It mostly stumped people as we aren’t used to being asked such introspective questions like that. But it also intrigued because there is something magnetic about moving sparkly bits. Pause. In every creative entrepreneurs career there is a point where you have no Page !91
idea what you’re doing but you feel like there is something there that you have a responsibility to explore. This was that moment for me. So I decided to create a three-month photography challenge for myself to break any glass ceiling or limitation I had placed on myself during my twenty-five years of existence. Enter: The Confetti Project. The parameters: profile fifty creative entrepreneurs in three months and make a coffee table book out of it. I wanted to become a better photographer and make a coffee table book -the reason I went into graphic design - but always felt I had to be forty years old to achieve it. I had also never finished anything in my life. Yes, I was the living epitome of a dreamer that had a lot of ideas that were never fully executed. All of these ambitions culminated in inventing an opportunity for myself. I got to experience what it was like to put all of my actions, thoughts and behaviors towards one focus with a definitive end goal. I was relentless and shameless. I actually thought I would be able to get a book deal and have a best-seller. When the literary agent I pitched passed on it, she gave me the most pivotal piece of advice I have ever received: develop the project and expand it even further. From that moment on, I made a vow to myself that I would profile as many amazing humans as possible all around the world. Two hundred people later, I stand by those words.
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Six months into the project, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. For what became a year, whenever someone asked me how I was, I would candidly respond, “my life is cancer and confetti.� For one full year, I was either dousing humans with confetti or supporting my father in his cancer battle. It was suffocating and beautiful. These two things are on opposites sides of the spectrum yet they have a lot more in common than one would think. By cultivating daily celebration with my work, I was able to embrace both the darkness and light in every moment and find gratitude amidst grief when he did pass away in May. This project has changed my life and the lives of many others. I have photographed women about to enter motherhood, friends that have passed away, individuals that have dealt with trauma and disorder but really humans that allow themselves to surrender to the divine art of play for two hours as they forget about how achievement-oriented they are and become fully present in the moment as their stress melt away. Because all of these pieces of confetti are our imperfections, strengths, challenges and trumps - and all deserve to be celebrated equally because that’s what makes us who we are. There really is a silver lining in everything. Jelena is a 26-year-old 26 freelance Graphic Designer in New York City and Los Angeles. She is the Founder and Visual Storyteller of The Confetti Project.
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TAYO ROCKSON USE YOUR DIFFERENCE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Tayo Rockson I grew up as the son of a diplomat and as a result I always found myself always in between cultures having to find different ways to fit in. I essentially had an identity crisis but along the way, I learned how to turn my identity crisis into a gift for understanding people who come from different backgrounds and the motivations behind their actions. You see as a kid, I was always curious. I was fascinated by the ability we all have to make our world a better place. I wanted to know why even though we live in an increasingly globalized and digital world, many fail to act global or digital. Why were people more concerned with building walls instead of bridges? How could we as a society fix the inequalities that exist today? These questions stayed with me even as I went on to college and started working after I graduated. They intensified when I took my first job but alas I didn’t feel like I could do anything meaningful. I had always wanted to build a media empire that made people become the best versions of themselves like Oprah Winfrey did and fight for social justice like the late Nelson Mandela but alas, I wasn’t brave enough. That was until I was involved in a near death experience. I was driving to the place of work I hated when a car cut my lane in half and caused me to spin all over the place on the highway. I was certain I was facing death but all I kept
! saying to myself was “I am 22 and I have not done anything I said I would do!” Luckily, I was able to get out of that incident unscathed. I took that experience as a second chance to pursue my passions. I quit my job, moved to New York City and began to conduct a social experiment. An experiment that sought out the best ways to build a culturally aware generation. This social experiment would later become my podcast which spawned into my company. I interviewed leaders in business, culture, travel and global affairs to discuss what it takes for one to embrace one’s global identity and become a global leader. Fortunately, that got featured on Entrepreneur as the number 2 business podcast. I wrote a short book based on my experiences which led me to speaking at conferences where I started sharing principles based on my cultural observations. All this led me to be invited to speak at the World Bank and the United Nations Foundation. Suddenly, I was on to something. Something that my 22 year old self who almost died would be proud of. I realized that I had become a catalyst for change and now my mission is to use my global identity to make an impact in the world. My work is built on a bedrock of connection, a passion for changing the world for the Page !95
better and a commitment to helping you use your difference to make a difference. Through my content, I want to replace discrimination with appreciation and introduce it to connection. To celebrate uniqueness and encourage diversity, build global mindsets, tell stories about culture and most importantly, educate the world about the beauty in all of us and how we can work together to improve our global identities. Tayo describes himself as an untraditional visionary, storyteller, speaker and activist committed to building a culturally aware generation. He currently resides in New York City where he runs his company UYD Media which produces the popular podcast As Told By Nomads and a YouTube Show called Use Your Difference. 
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Nature sends more life to the living.
–Lara Frayre
Lara Frayre As a multi-disciplinary designer and a multi-passionate person, I spent a great big chunk of my youth stumbling into life instead of me living a fully purposeful one. Having grown up in a traditional, conservative family, I grew up thinking that the “right way” to live life was to have a good job, save up, go to mass regularly, and then retire when you’re 60. It was a conflicted existence, knowing you can do so much more but settling for what society expects of you. I’d say it was a quarter-life crisis. I had followed that path for a long time – took a full time job, tried as hard as I could to be like everybody else, and to appease my family by being “normal”. I failed miserably, and ended up broken, in every aspect of my life. At 23, I had a compromised immune system which got me sick a minimum of 1 week for every 2 months (Bell’s Palsy, measles, colds, flu – you name it). I was in a romantic, verbally-abusive relationship which aggravated my health condition and disintegrated what fragile selfesteem I had. I had alienated myself from friends because I changed, and in a bad way. And every day, as I worked long hours at the office – I wondered what I was painting in big picture. Design was my passion but what is my life? I was at rock bottom. Some of us changemakers begin with rock-bottom. For me, rock-bottom is a catalyst for 360-degree, holistic change. Rock-bottom is where some serious magic happens. For me at least, this was where I let go of every
! “brule” (bullshit rule, as Vishen Lakhiani founder of MindValley calls it) and just resigned myself to living in alignment of my values. So I cut ties with everyone who and everything that doesn’t match what I stand for. I also resigned from my job and spent the next month soulsearching in the beautiful Palawan island of the Philippines. It was one of the craziest things I’ve done in life considering I didn’t have a safety net of a savings account and the security of a full-time job waiting for me when I returned. It was my first time traveling alone and I didn’t know anyone at Palawan. All I had were the faith that the universe always finds a way to give you what you need to grow, and that there is innate good in every human being. By many people’s standards, my actions at the time were absurd, somewhat exciting, but ultimately, reckless. But, the universe gives you what you expect of it. I expected growth and it gave me challenges. I expected good and it gave me friends and serendipitous encounters. I lived my life the best I knew how and the universe sent me more opportunities to live a full life. Nature sends more life to the living. Lesson learned: live more. When you serve a higher calling bigger than yourself, you’ll find life falling into place.
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It was in Palawan where I met the vanishing Batak Tribe of the Philippines at a construction project I volunteered at. Traditionally, the Batak are hunters-gatherers. Research showed that their population has decreased by about half since the 1900s, and likened them to a “dying tribe” – literally, as the Batak die out of disease and malnutrition, and figuratively as modern culture encroaches on their traditional models of belief and systems of living. With the forest resources on a steady decline, the Batak are losing more and more of their food, livelihood, and cultural identity. This pushes them further into poverty, with not enough government laws and social safeguards to provide them an adequate level of protection. It is one thing to see the research and another to actually experience life on the ground. I moved to Palawan for a while and dedicated the following months to fieldwork research – to actually living on-site with the Batak over weekends and freelancing as a designer on weekdays so I could fund the trips. Over the course of two years, I have since gotten to know the Batak more intimately than I had ever dreamed. My team and I were able to document parts of Batak culture to create a brand showcasing their existing bamboo handicrafts. At Batak Craft, we help facilitate the Batak Tribe’s cultural transition through livelihood development, so the Batak can survive and thrive in the modern economy.
I believe our responsibility as human beings is to live to the fullest and to serve a role that contributes to the bigger whole. When you try your best to help yourself, you inevitably help others in the process. And vice versa. When you try your best to help others, you inevitably help yourself in the process. And with our striving for growth personally and collectively, we make the world a better place for everyone else. It’s win-win-win. This is what drives what I do: to make the most of what exists, and make something of it, and spread it around so everyone in this earth benefits. Lara is a 27-year-old Social Entrepreneur, Designer, and Eternal Optimist. She is the Founder of Batak Craft helping the Vanishing Batak Tribe of the Philippines survive and thrive in the modern economy. She lives in Quezon City, Philippines.
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Jaxon Stevens If you could ask anyone one question what would it be? What would that one question be that you could ask anyone and represents who you are? 40,000 - 70,000 thoughts per day is an estimate of how much each and everyone of us thinks everyday but we don't say. The problem that exists today is that there are a lot of people thinking of great ideas that could solve real world problems, but rarely do people put that idea into action. If everyone that thought of a idea launched a startup or reached out to solve the problem then most of our problems in the world we face everyday would be solved. I believe that there is much more we can all do to change education for the better and improve students lives.
ARE YOU A CHANGEMAKER? !
Many students around the globe in high school and secondary education are being bullied and abused every day and sometimes bullying even occurs when you are at work, in your office or even in your family! As a student in junior high, I was picked on in the hallway and had many friends who were also victims. My car was paint balled several times. It got to the point where I had to actually switch schools because I could not deal with it anymore.
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While still in high school, I had an idea for an app to help report and prevent bullying. OutBully is a platform for Page !100
! communicating and responding to incidents of bullying in school. The app, which launches with the start of the new school year, allows students to semi anonymously report incidents if they experience bullying. If you're a student and see someone being bullied, see someone who has been bullied, or you are being bullied,"you can go online and submit a report in less than two minutes� OutBully was created and founded on the idea that students can come together and stand up against bullying because in reality there are very few bullies that are affecting so many students lives, if we can come
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together as a whole and show each and every student that we are against bullying then it should be reduced dramatically. Our founders of OutBully include Tristan Wiley, Sienna Pagett, and myself. All of the founding members of OutBully are dedicated to bringing the OutBully to every eligible school in North America and beyond. We want to make schools a safer place for people to learn and grow without fear. That is why we created OutBully. No longer should a child not feel welcome on their school campus or miss school because of another students behavior. Reporting officials and administrators can receive anonymous witness statements to prevent further dismissal of this pressing issue. To solve a problem it takes more than drive; it takes initiative, a willingness to go out every day and actively work on finding a method to fix that problem. So why do I do what I do? I do it because I love changing lives for the better and creating the positive impact we need in our world.
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Jaxon is the Founder of OutBully and is dedicated to creating change in education. He resides in Vancouver, BC Canada.  ! Page !101
Olivia D. Wright The number one word to describe my story would have to be passion; passion sprinkled with a lot of very beautiful moments. I guess you could say I’ve been passionately determined ever since I spoke my very first words, laced with a very severe speech impediment. A speech impediment that, when overcame, encouraged me to use the voice I had fought so hard for to make a difference. I made that difference by speaking for people who have no voice at all, the people with voices snuffed out by poverty. My second journey toward being heard and understood began at the age of nine years old, when watching a ‘Feed the Children’ program with my family. My heart broke when I laid my eyes upon those barefoot children of the Appalachian Mountains, I had to shoe those feet! The wheels in my mind immediately began whirling, and a few days and a pair of supportive parents later the first H.U.G.S. (Help Us Give Shoes) shoe drive was commenced at First Baptist Church of Hendersonville! It was a huge success, and afterwards a mini team of H.U.G.S. volunteers and I took the 650 pairs of shoes and headed to the place that had touched my heart over television. We distributed our shoes at a clothing giveaway with a local church, and I watched my dream become a reality. I got to talk to the people of the community- hear their stories, hopes, and needs, and I fell in love! A deep determination was born within me to
! make sure that these people who had so little, were at least able to have their needs heard and met. From than onward, my story has taken me to places farther than I could have ever imagined. A lot has changed, I now take on the title of Founder and CEO of this swell organization, and with the help of so many volunteers, world changers, family, and friends, we have reached 100,870 pairs of shoes; shoes that we have taken to 6 continents, 13 countries, and 11 U.S. states! Nine years after the foundation of H.U.G.S., my determination and love for these people continues to become even more fierce. The more and more I see of little feet cut up from walking barefoot in unseemly places, of families that are not able to provide shoes for their children because the first priority is food and shelter, and of teary eyes and huge smiles from people who are so over the moon thankful to have a simple pair of shoes, the more I know that our mission is no longer providing a want, we’re providing needs. Where does my story find me right now? Well, I am in the midst of heading a project very near and dear to my heart, the establishment of the first ever ‘H.U.G.S. Forthward Home Orphanage’. My best friend and little brother was adopted from Russia when he was 21 months old, and I was four. When coming up with long term goals for H.U.G.S. nine years ago, starting an orphanage was at the top of my list, so kid’s like Sergei Page !102
could have a home. I am now working with a H.U.G.S. team in Rajahmundry, India, and in the process of housing five amazing ‘street children’, giving them a home, a family, safety, and a future. We hope to have our home fundraised for and erected by the end of this year. I don’t know how my stories going to end! One of the lessons that H.U.G.S. has taught me is that life is absolutely crazy and unpredictable, and that that is a wonderful thing. I do know this for sure, no matter where I go, I will continue to be Olivia D. Wright, a very human girl who happens to be very blessed. At the end of the day I’m just a teen who loves playing chess, and binge watches crack comedies. I aspire to be an astrophysicist, and can often be found outside getting lost in the stars. I’m more than a bit of a nerd, and am always in the mood for joking around. That’s me, I’m just your average 18 year old kid on her way to giving a voice to the silenced, meeting the global need of shoes and smiles, and in the process, hopefully, changing the world one sole at a time.
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Olivia is an eighteen-year-old senior from Nashville, Tennessee. She is the CEO and founder of the organization H.U.G.S., Inc, and lives life with the personal mission to bring those in need shoes, and smiles.
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Aniqah Zowmi One of the most thought-provoking questions I have ever been asked was simple: What’s your six-word story? Put simply, I want to empower youth to change the world. I grew up in a post-9/11 world. Being a young Muslim woman in a world of Islamophobia presented a struggle for the formative years of my life. This was compounded by the media sensationalism that portrayed Muslims in a negative light, contributing to my altered perception of the world. I found myself to be in the midst of an identity crisis: how could the world be telling me I am one thing unjust and regressive due to my religion - but my internal compass telling me I was not? I was put in a position to define my identity by my own experiences and beliefs, and not allow myself to be subjected to what society or the media defined me. Influenced by my constant questioning of society's definitions of people, I utilized my own experience and frustration in shaping my identity to inspire other young people to do the same. I vowed to dedicate my career to leveraging the voices and experiences – especially adverse experiences and backgrounds - of young people to co-create solutions to the world's problems. I began this mission at a micro scale, starting in my first year of university.
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! Recognizing a gap in my university community of students speaking out about their passions, I co-founded ‘BrockU Talks’, a series of mini-talks which served to project young leaders onto a platform to speak about their passions. I founded this organization in my first year with the help of upper year mentors. As a university, students often hear the opinions of professors and faculty members, but BrockU Talks was created as an effort to allow students’ voices to be heard. The reception and impact of BrockU Talks and the learning opportunities afforded as an attendee and an organizer of the event have strengthened the local, Brock University community by serving as inspiration to students and faculty alike to reach their goals. Building on the success of BrockU Talks, I was motivated and encouraged to begin other pursuits to advance alternative learning opportunities within the postsecondary environment, as well as allowing safe spaces for youth to share ideas. I took part in a shadow shift at a local youth detention centre which housed young offenders. Entering, I had subjected them to a stereotype, believing them to be hardened criminals. Engaging with them, my belief was unfounded: I had painted these youth to be beyond redemption, but my experience showed me otherwise - these were children, struggling to achieve their dreams and to be heard. As a result, I founded The ReConnect Page !104
Movement, which initially aimed to mentor marginalized youth to aspire to university education. Though The ReConnect Movement had to be set aside for the time being, the lesson in shaping educational programs, empowering youth though social innovation, leveraging their voices and stories to create large-scale change was a tool to ‘fail-forward.’ In the short year I worked on The ReConnect Movement, I learned the disillusionment of privilege, and how my understanding and perceived equivalence of success with postsecondary education had the potential to be damaging to those who had the least ability to achieve it. I was prompted to reshape my idea of ‘success’ and begin asking the question ‘What does success mean to you?’ in lieu of oppressing others with my beliefs. This experience showed me the power of allowing others to co-create solutions to their own obstacles to success, and the importance of having marginalized voices at all levels of society in order to become inclusive. It was this lesson that inspired me to pursue a career of communityfocused solutions, solutions that are steered and shaped by the very people they aim to serve. I harnessed this experience in non-profit leadership to work towards my goal to inspire other young people to do the same. I focused next on mentoring young people in creating community-focused solutions to social problems around the world, sharing my own experiences from The ReConnect Movement and BrockU Talks. I have Aniqah, 2015, Pen and InkPage !105 by Alexandra Yakovleva
served and continue to serve as a mentor to young people looking to change the world, through facilitating social innovation camps for young people. To date, I have personally mentored over 100 young people interested in social innovation and entrepreneurship. I also developed a passion for youth engagement at all level of civic organizations and governments, playing a part to lobby the Canadian Government for the creation of a Canadian Youth Delegate Position to the United Nations. I was also nominated as a member of the Joint Youth Delegation to the Commonwealth Youth Forum in Malta in November 2015. I spoke directly to the challenges facing and resources needed for young people looking to engage in social entrepreneurship and innovation. My recommendations on social economics contributed to a communiqué presented to Prince Charles and the Commonwealth Heads of Government that outlined an action plan to empower and equip youth for sustainable international development. In November 2016, I was highlighted at Rotary International’s annual UN Day as a young Sustainable Development Goals Advocate for my dedication and contribution to SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities through my work in social innovation.
expedition, with challenges and bumps along the road. With every setback, however, are detours that lead you to more beautiful destinations than the one you had originally set out to reach. It is incumbent upon all of us to find the beauty in those stops along the way, and remember that each experience in life is a lesson.
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Aniqah is a 21-year-old social entrepreneur and youth empowerment activist. Zowmi's focus is on marginalized youth in order to help them leverage their stories for social and global change through addressing barriers to inclusion for marginalized populations. Aniqah was one of 2015’s Ashoka’s American Express Emerging Social Innovators, 33Sixty’s Leadership Programme Canada’s Delegate, and 3M’s National Student Fellow. She lives in Toronto, Canada.
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My journey has not been traditional, and the highs have been met with as many lows. But the older I get, the more I realize that life is not meant to be an arrow arriving unfettered and uninterrupted at its target: it is an Page !106


Hassan Bayo Bello
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Hassan Adebayo Bello This is the story of what Ajala meant to me as a boy. If you traveled a lot, had a global mindset, or liked to explore you would be called Ajala. At that time, I thought Ajala was a mystical figure or something out of a fairy tale. There were songs written about someone called ‘Ajala’ who traveled all over the world, so I dreamt that one day I would travel all over the world like Ajala did. At the age of 17, I left Nigeria to pursue a degree in Computer Science and Digital Systems Security in the United Arab Emirates, and before that time i already had an Associate Diploma in Software Engineering. While studying in Dubai I would visit part of the cities very few people knew anything about. During my university breaks, instead of going back to Nigeria I would travel to remote villages in distant countries and different islands Central Asia and the South East. I backpacked, hitchhiked, Couchsurfed, slept under the stars, rocks, on the beach and in temples. I learnt new languages, tried new dishes, explored new interests – AcroYoga, rock climbing, cliff jumping, I was always on the lookout for new experiences. I was on the path of a bohemian, techsavvy, new age nomad with dreams of being the black Indiana Jones. I felt like some of the adventurers and nomads I have read so much about and some of whom I met and even became good friends with. I never questioned how
! different I was from other adventurers, I didn’t think being a young black African backpacker was exotic. I came to realize from people I met during my travels, that i was different and often enough African authenticity was questioned. I realized the stereotypical narratives about Africans been poor, dirty and uncultured as portrayed by mainstream media has being taken at face value. What was meant to entertain has now being associated as the way of life. Ignorance is real, and the sad bit is that I also fell prey to this. The notions people had of Africa and most developing countries was completely outrageous, ridiculous and extremely biased. At some point I also believed the biased stories being spread about Nigerians and Africans. There would be times when I would be scared of being around other Africans, as if they would they take advantage of me or try to lure me into a scam. Mainstream media has circulated stories and imagery that dehumanizes a huge part of the world. The narrative used to describe minorities and the underprivileged is so inconsiderate and makes you wonder why nothing is done to change it. History profits those whose narrative lasted the longest. We have lost touch of our origin and our identity. Our stories, customs, culture, arts, engineering prowess and all the wonderful things that made us unique, proud and Page !108
beautiful in a very special way disappeared to be replaced with one single mainstream culture that we all have to conform with. There was a time when lands, oceans and mountains were the only things that divided us, now the things that separates us go as far as the eye can reach. The powerful blocs of our time have profited on the negative stereotypes and perceptions fabricated about the majority world, developing countries and minorities. People who were not given the chance to tell their own stories, ‘until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter’. I ventured into social entrepreneurship, after working as a software engineer for over two years. Initially, I embarked on projects that used technology for social good, and I felt like I was starting to do something tangible with life. I started different social projects, but some of them did not really pick up. On May 21st, 2016, a small fraction of the vision for the Ajala surfaced. I decided to name the project after Ajalathe mystical traveler I grew up dreaming to be like. It was when I was trying to get a domain name on the Web that I came across a small URL link that went along the lines of ‘The Untold Story of Ajala’. I came across the story that inspired the folk songs and tales of Ajala, the mystical animal and god of adventure that I grew up aspiring to be like. Ajala was in fact a person, an actual human who traveled the world, a man who went to over 87 countries over the period of six years on a scooter for the purpose Page !109
of spreading a positive message around the world and to change the stereotypes people had of Africa and Africans. I was unable to find adequate information on him, the book he wrote ‘An African Abroad’ was already out of print, there was no Wikipedia page or a single piece of information source on him. The bits of information I was able to find on him were all scattered across the web. That’s when it dawned on me that all of the pains and difficulties of the 6 years of traveling to 87 countries to spread a positive message has been forgotten. The man died an unsung hero as like most nomads and change makers of this era who are creating a social impact through their journey but no one knows about what they them and what they do, those who are aren’t true explorers are the ones who are celebrated and glorified by mainstream media. I decided I would retrace Ajala’s journey and travel to all the 87 countries he visited to write and showcase the unknown heroes from this countries, but I wasn’t even able to get a copy of his book, let alone find the list of countries he visited. That is how the idea of creating a platform that uses art to showcase nomads and changemakers creating a social impact through their journey, promoting a positive message through a global causes and changing stereotypical notions of minorities, underprivileged people and the developing world started. The decision to immortalize Ajala and all of what he stood for was
inspired by the man himself. An artful narrative to tell the stories of nomads changing the world and people creating a social impact was important, because art paints a clearer picture than words do. It gives other the chance to understand a story deeper and without bias. Art celebrates people and humanizes them. With art more people would interact with a single story, an artist from one end of the world is inspired by the story of a nomad from another end of the globe. An artist’s interpretation of an inspiring story of someone spreading a positive message may drive people to take initiative to do the same. Art leaves a lasting impression and tells an engaging story. Why not make this story, one of unity, inclusiveness, happiness, equality and love?
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Bayo is the Founder of The AJALA Project, a movement that uses artwork to showcase changemakers and inspiring nomads creating a social impact in marginal communities. He is also a software consultant at Blueshift, a Dubai-based IT consulting firm specializing in creating bilingual (Arabic and English) digital strategies for governments and businesses in the Middle East. He currently lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
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Akiraa Your Story Must Be Heard.
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Akiraa When I was a child I used to sit and read stories of people for hours and hours in my school and village library. I even used to collect clips from magazines of the innovative solution stories that fought global poverty. I was reading stories of leaders and business people who were changing the world because I was so inspired by their actions. I wanted to implement their solutions whenever I got the chance. I never thought this hobby would turn into a passion and later as a business opportunity. If you see recent news media it is full of useless stories. They publish stories about politics, sports, and movies; they are not trying to publish articles about problems of world. I believe newspapers or journalists not only for reporting the problems, they must propose solutions also. But they didn’t. One day I asked myself, “What if I publish the stories of social innovations and social business models that are changing the world inspired by impact solution based journalism methods?” From there I started social enablers digital media platform. Social enabler is community of journalists and technologists. We utilize our storytelling skills to promote socially benefitting business models and ideas happening around the world, to get funds for venture and thereby motivate people to
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! replicate or get inspired by the impact created by those activities.
! When I started working on this concept I was selected for The Do School- Germany “Entrepreneurship for Good Program” one-year program. I was in a situation where I wasn’t sure how I was going to join the program; I was facing financial problems. But I took risk anyway and flew to Germany with only forty Euros in my pocket to join the program. I spent 3 months in Berlin. Those days showed me how to survive hard times. It was a lesson for me because every social entrepreneur faces problems to get funds to run a venture and I learned how to run a venture with even less funds. Page !112
During the program at the Do School in Berlin I met Axel Springer’s CTO, Ulrich Schmitz. He told me that whatever idea you have in mind you just make it happen. Yes, make it happen. It’s a powerful phrase and it worked on me. I had an idea on paper but little money in pocket, but I want to do build social enablers because it’s not only my passion, but I believed it could really help people.
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This is the reason why I started building Social Enablers. My life started to change. I got funding from angel investors, and we launched the Social Enablers platform. We got a good response from readers, and we also noticed the gap between young talents in the professional and social sector. They desperately wanted to be a part of social change but they didn’t know how to. At Social Enablers we thought to build a bridge for the gap. I started Social Enablers jobs platform. It connects young talents with social sector vacancies. If you ask me why I do what I do, I would say that the best thing you can do for society is to start and be part of a social organization.
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Akiraa is the Founder & CEO of Social Enablers, a publication on leading social innovation stories. He is 26years-old and lives in Berlin, Germany while studying at The DO School. Page !113


Zana Kristen Wade Page !114
Zana Kristen Wade So who am I you ask? Well I am no one. I come from an extremely small third world country some have never heard before. What is my voice in a world of Billions? My environment, my world, its people, its animals have always intrigued me. Imagine this, a little girl walking through the forest, butterflies and birds all around her, the trees hugging her, complete and utter bliss just living in peace. That is until that little girl realized it was being smothered to death both figuratively and literally right in front of her eyes. I grew up in a Catholic school both at the primary and secondary level. I would say I’ve always been spiritual in a sense, trying to make the best decisions based off of principle. One thing that stuck with me the most through religious teachings was the thought of stewardship. The concept that we as humans were meant to help and nurture the earth. We were never meant to “protect it,” it shouldn't need protecting. But even so …. how do we protect it from ourselves? Imagine me sitting in class in my little uniform trying to grasp such a big concept at such a young impressionable age! Then came Michael Jackson’s death and the reminder of “Earth Song” and “Heal the World” that basically presented my heart on a silver platter, not to mention the pain my niece at the time held for the now dislocation and unknown future for Michael's beloved monkey bubbles. I cried for days when
! I grasped the concept of greed. I could not stop thinking about pain we as a species cause! “What about sunrise What about rain What about all the things That you said we were to gain... What about killing fields Is there a time What about all the things That you said was yours and mine... Did you ever stop to notice All the blood we've shed before Did you ever stop to notice The crying Earth the weeping shores?” – Michael Jackson, “Earth Song” As I grew up, I enrolled myself in different community groups. Thanks to my parents I studied Natural Resource Management at my local college, The University of Belize. There I found my passion for Conservation Leadership by using my voice and skills as best as I could to make some sort of change. I joined many national environmental clubs, regionally and internationally. In 2016, I interned at both the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre and the United Nations Development Program - Belize where I worked hand in Page !115
hand with some pretty big fishes in the “environmental world.” That was all in preparation for my big break. I was to be at the United Nations a couple months later as a part of a Sustainable Development Goal Group hosted by World Merit. I chose to be in… you guessed it. Goal 13: Climate Action. The purpose of this trip was a part of a program known as Merit360. Each SDG group was to come up with one project to help tackle their sustainable development goal. Climate change however has been and will be the hardest to even conceptualize tackling. Our group came up with “The Climate Express,” a bus that will help vulnerable marginalized communities adapt to Climate Change in order to be more resilient. Sounds awesome huh? World Merit opened my eyes to the Sustainable Development Goals and what that means for future generations. The hope we seem to materialize. Discouragement has also been a part of my story. More and more I see people posting about conferences, workshops, different opportunities… and more often than not I see those are the same people that do absolutely nothing with those opportunities. In the end, it was just for the fame of tackling a big issue. I’m driven for the world– equality, justice, and peace. My heart physically hurts when I see our world deteriorate. I cry when I see there are people in this world that will do anything just to see pain or make a gain. I want justice Page !116
for all! I work for all women, men, children. I serve all cultures, races, ethnicities, disabilities, colors, sizes, shapes, sexualities, etc. Our hearts and voices for peace should be what matters, not our differences. I congratulate all who I know have worked hard on making their voice strong and impactful. But in that same light, we need to constantly remind ourselves why we do the work we do and highlight some of the biggest issues not only facing our youth but the earth itself. For the SDG goals to be reached, everyone needs to do their part: governments, the private sector, civil society, and individuals. That includes each of you reading this book now. It is imperative we as a community stop constantly visualizing about tomorrow but start working today. Our world has never been on such a precipice. Leonardo DiCaprio gave one of the best speeches to date at the United Nation on Earth Day, April 22nd 2016, when the Paris Agreement was signed, which was featured in the documentary “Before the Flood.” Here is his quote: “All that I have seen on my journey absolutely terrifies me. Think about the shame we will carry when our children and grandchildren look back and realize, we had the means of stopping this devastation but simply lack the political will to do so. We can congratulate each other today but it will mean absolutely nothing if we fail to push beyond words. We will be lauded by future generations or vilified by them. You are the last best hope.”
I recited this on the very day the Paris Agreement comes into effect at an annual Belize Youth Award hosted in my country, which was broadcasted live nationally. I reiterated the concept that my people need to grasp the concept that nothing gets done without you. Standing for what it right in even the smallest ways makes a difference. Nothing gets done without YOUth. Believe in their crazy dreams, now more than ever is the time for bold, unprecedented action. This lead to the creation of a blog called Orenda WYPED. ORENDA WYPED was founded by Saith Usama J. Chitrali of Pakistan and myself Zana Kristen Wade of Belize. Orenda means a supernatural, divine force within every human being. Always omnipresent. It empowers people to change the world in a positive, loving way. It is the energy that affects change in one's own life. This book was created to talk about just that! How can we get involved? Different mind sets of society. We focus on everything from the environment and climate change to development, empowerment and social sectors. My journey has just begun! All you need to know is that I stand for you. Not the you who hides behind the veil of what’s popular or trending, but the you at your core, the true you. I started with a question so I’ll end with one. My question to you is… can you say the same? Zana is a 21-year-old conservationist and activist. She lives in Belize, Central America.
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Adam Siddiq 

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Adam Siddiq “What happened on November 26th, 1932?” “It was just like any other school day. I walked home from school with all of my brothers and cousins. When we arrived, all of our parents were busy talking amongst each other. Some of us started to work on our homework while others played in the courtyard. On this particular day, my homework assignment was to make a minimodel home. My older brother and cousin agreed to help me. They told me it’d be better if we climbed the roof. That way, we’d be able to look down at the neighboring one-story homes and use them as a model for my school project. We joyfully worked together for some time and just as I was placing the roof on the minimodel home, screams of terror came from below. I looked down and saw a crowd of family members, chefs, maids, and babysitters forming a circle in the center of the courtyard. I carefully climbed down the roof and rushed over in curiosity. My mom picked me up immediately, sobbing heavily as she pushed my head against her chest. She put me down after a minute as my aunt came to embrace her in sympathy. I crawled my way through the adults, only to come across the most horrific sight I’ve ever seen: the brutally beaten, bloodied corpse of my beloved uncle. That moment marked the beginning of my imprisonment,” said my grandpa.
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! My grandpa was only 6-years-old when he was politically imprisoned. It was my great grandpa (my grandma’s father) who was murdered that day by the King of Afghanistan, Nadir Shah. It all happened after the Civil War came to an end and Nadir Shah betrayed the previous King of Afghanistan by stealing his throne. The King had been previously working very closely with Nadir Shah, my great grandfathers, their brothers, and cousins. Nadir Shah consistently referred to all of them as dear brothers only days before he imprisoned, exiled or executed them, their families, friends, and anybody he saw as a threat to his rule. During my grandpa’s 20 years of political imprisonment, his teenage cousins were executed brutally, his brother and cousins died of tuberculosis, he witnessed men get whipped until they were bloodily unconscious, he was locked up in horrible conditions where he almost starved and dehydrated to death, he was deprived of education and the most basic human rights, and he was consistently treated inhumanely. Even after he was released from prison, he was put under heavy restrictions, making it nearly impossible to live life like a normal citizen. He wasn’t allowed to go to school or even work for a long time. It also took him 7 years of consistent petitioning until he obtained a visa that permitted him to meet his father, who was exiled in Germany, for the first time in his life. He refers to the union with his father as the greatest Page !119
time in his life, and it was only a few months after he left Germany that his father passed away. I have known the general details of my grandpa’s story since I was 6-years-old. The main thing I learned back then was that I don’t have any problems. Nothing even seemingly compares to the challenges my grandpa endured, and yet he’s still a bright, joyful man with a strong mindset and positive attitude. Because of my grandpa’s strength, I chose to never dwell in anything that challenged me. Instead, I chose that no matter what, I’d always get hungry for solutions and resourceful to make a positive change. To this day, my grandpa breathes joy as much as he breathes oxygen. I must confess that there were several times where I really wondered… how could someone go through all this suffering and crisis and turn out to be such a strong beacon of light? After all, my grandpa has written many love songs that have been sung by the most famous Afghan and Iranian singers, published several books and collections of poetry, consistently made anonymous contributions to those in need, and at 90 years old today, he’s writing another book. After a few years of interviewing him for our book, Shackled, I realized that although he couldn’t control his circumstances, he chose how he would respond to them, and my grandfather consistently chose to lead his life with kindness, love, generosity, care, wisdom and the simple habit of improving himself everyday. Page !120
When I was born, my grandpa named me Adam. I’ve definitely received odd stares when people see my first name paired with my last name, Siddiq. It’s just not normal for a boy of Afghan heritage to bear the name Adam. What’s more abnormal is that my name in Farsi translates out to “human”. When people asked my grandpa why he named me human, he said that the world needed more humans to create humanity. He said that I would bring more humanity.
has been influenced by my grandpa. That is why he’s my hero and why humanity is my why.
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Adam is the podcast host of The Soulfully Optimized Life. He currently resides in San Diego, California. All photo credit goes to Jackie Epstein/Donny Epstein's 170th Transformational Gate.
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Funny enough, I didn’t know this story about my name until we were writing Shackled, yet humanity has always been a focal point for my why. During the random conversations when people would ask me what my wish would be if I was granted one, I’d answer, “For abundance and love to be the baseline for humanity.” That’s what really drives everything I do. Whether it’s writing an article on evolutionary strategies, growing a podcast to create an archive of wisdom, creating the brand for purpose-driven entrepreneurs, or something as simple as having a random conversation, my focal point is on supporting abundance, love and the evolution of consciousness. Although I don’t know how things pan out the majority of the time, I do believe that something as simple as a random act of kindness can spur a butterfly effect that can create a positive impact greater than we could imagine. So kindness, gratitude, and contribution… those are all part of my focal point in life, much of which
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Geronimo Ramos
Geronimo C Ramos I was in seventh grade when I experienced my first taste of racial discrimination. The school board decided to expel me from the entire school district on unjust grounds. At twelve years old, I experienced racial prejudice that changed my entire view of the world. To give context, I brought a knife to a school field trip because I thought it made me look cool and handy. Think Boy Scouts - which I never had the opportunity to join. During the field trip, I would stop the boys to show them the cool design of my knife. Mind you, I wasn't the only kid who would bring knives to school. One day, the vice principal and a police officer pulled me out of my 6th period class. The pair sent me to an office, cuffed me to a chair, and made me sit in the room alone where I was freaking out of my mind. The officer came in, interrogated me, and told me that someone reported me for bringing a knife. Since I was a preteen who didn’t understand my rights, I admitted to bringing a knife to the field trip. The officer then proceeded to threaten tearing up my home if I didn't tell him where I stored my knives. My father later came, turned in my knives to the cop, and the school suspended me for the remaining semester. Fast forward to my trial in front of the school board. Upon hearing my potential verdict of expulsion, my parents decided to hire a lawyer who specialized in Page !123
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juvenile behavior. We made the case that I was a good student in honor roll, played first chair in concert band and participated in church every Sunday. Despite my good behavior and performance, the board decided to continue with my expulsion from all schools in the district. Upon hearing this, our lawyer wanted to challenge the case with racial discrimination. With knowledge that the board gave less severe punishments to white kids who committed the same crime, our lawyer knew we would win. Knowing that they were guilty, the school board decided to lessen my punishment and send me to another school the following year. I learned what it felt like to receive unequal treatment based on the color of my skin.
How does this influence my work today? I do what I do today because I believe in the potential of people despite their differences. It doesn't matter what they look like, how they grew up, or how they dress - everyone has something to bring to the table. As a human-centered designer, it is my job to listen and to observe the lives of those underserved. As a changemaker, I reserve my assumptions and listen to all stakeholders affected by the problem at hand. I do my best to remove my implicit biases by entering new spaces with an open mind and heart. I dislike taking action off assumptions and set the intention to learn deeply about people. I believe that everyone deserves equal opportunity, equal voice, and equal treatment. And that is why I am a social designer because if everyone practiced a little more empathy, we could all come up with better solutions to problems.
So how has this affected me? Well first off, I learned what it felt like to disappoint my immigrant parents who worked hard to help me get a good education in a public school district of Los Angeles. They hired an expensive lawyer to increase my chances of staying in the school district. Second, I felt the sting of people judging me and punishing me for looking different. A group of educators punished me on unjust grounds based off racial differences. Educators did this. If they sent me to one of the neighboring school districts, I most likely would not be who I am today.
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Geronimo is a social entrepreneur, designer, and aspiring chef. He previously improved the design culture at Ashoka. 
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Chapter Five: Belief Page !125
Marcela Falquez For me, entrepreneurship is a way of life. It is not a question of whether one has a business idea that is set in motion or not, it is a mentality and a way of facing all the opportunities and obstacles that are presented to us. For this reason, I consider myself an entrepreneur. Achieving goals and objectives gives me more adrenaline than even a 10K marathon. Today I will try to communicate what has been my experience in entrepreneurship, and to transmit the experience to those who read this small sample of the world in which I live in. As a child, always understood my way with numbers, math, and science. Thus, when I graduated from college, the career I chose was directly related to these subjects: Industrial Engineering. It made sense since I liked numbers, organizations, processes, optimization, etc. I followed the traditional path, which society dictated, and by being an Industrial Engineer with an emphasis on Finance, I started my career in the financial sector. After some time of work experience, I realized that the work I was doing did not fulfill me. I felt that working only for a salary was not enough. I reached out to a Foundation where I had been a volunteer while I was in college, and it turned out that I was often more enthusiastic about “working for free� towards a purpose, than for my actual work.
! I was presented with the opportunity to work for my country, which I accepted it without hesitation, looking for a way to bring together my two passions: finance and social projects. While I was there, I spoke again with two college friends, and we decided to embark together in the construction of a dream: to contribute to a more humane society, through a social enterprise. Our idea was based on the problem that we saw constantly in the social sector: projects fail in time if there is no structuring from the beginning to be financially and economically sustainable. The separation between philanthropy and commercial enterprise began to fade, and the concept of Social Enterprise was emerging in the world, while in Colombia was brand new. This is how we started this journey more almost three years ago, with great learning and knowledge. We have been able to work with non-profits, entrepreneurs and medium-size businesses, to show them how through project structuring and project management, triple bottom line businesses can be built. Economic, social and environmental impacts are gaining more relevance each time, and it is our job as young people shaping the world, to lead the way, and to get together with the brightest and the best we may encounter in this journey of life.
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My advice today is to analyze very well what it takes to launch an idea and get it out. It is not enough to have a very good idea. I love a phrase that I read: entrepreneurs do not fail to have a bad idea, a very good idea can fail with a bad team, but a very good team will get ahead even the worst ideas. In this sense, I invite you all today to take risks, to put into practice your ideas, always trying to build a team, get to know each other well, what each one is good for, not only in the professional field but also in the personal field. In ID Social today we can say that we build our team from the strengths, and we are not interested in a resume, we are interested in a connection with our mission and values, the fundamental root of any organization.
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Marcela is co-Founder and Executive Director of ID Social, a social enterprise that seeks to bring together the for-profit and non-profit world. She is from Barranquilla, Colombia and currently lives in Bogotå, Colombia.  
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Make It Fun . !
–TYLER WAGNER
Tyler Wagner There are 2 Why’s I ask before embarking on any business endeavor. 1. Why am I doing this? 2. Why would others want to join me? When I dropped out of college, I wasn’t clear on what I wanted to do. All I knew was that the piece of paper college planned on giving me wasn’t going to get me there. The thought of putting a suit and tie on every morning made my stomach wheezy. Hard to be successful when your stomach hurts every day, I thought. So, I kept moving forward. Not forward as in a direction. Just movement. I started a couple businesses. Failed. And, I had some minor successes. And then, my first big success came knocking at the door. Luckily, I was close by, so I answered it I’ll never forget the day my first book arrived in the mail. I looked at it. Felt the pages. Smelled it (not as weird as it seems). I was overwhelmed with joy. All the time I had spent on writing and marketing this book had finally produced a physical product. Not only that, it was on Kindle and Audible too. People were actually listening to my book on their phones!
! The book is called “Conference Crushing”. A book to help people maximize their return on investment at networking events. It was downloaded 3,700+ times within the first 72 hours of its release. This success was slightly by accident. I had gathered information from the internet and had a few friends help out, but I had never launched a book before. It was as shocking to me as it was to most of my friends. After all, I was a college drop out with little direction. Next thing you know, my book was on the top of the charts for Business, Money and Self-Help categories on Amazon. Resulting from this, dozens of people reached out to me with questions on how I was able to accomplish this. Turns out, A LOT of people want to write a book.Unfortunately, most people never accomplish this due to various reasons. I decided to help a select few (around 10) for free in exchange for testimonials. I helped them through the writing, publishing, and marketing process of their books. Turned out that all their books did very well too. They had all hit #1 in their respective categories and all of them were very pleased with the final result. Shortly thereafter, I realized I could turn this into a business. There were 2 main reasons I wanted to do this:
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1. I’ll never forget the emotional roller coaster of launching my first book. The feeling of feeling the first physical copy. I wanted as many people as possible to experience this. 2. I was tired of being broke and having my parents support me. I wanted to make money. That answers the 2 above questions and this is where it all started. Authors Unite, my company, has had its ups and downs just like any other company, but has ultimately been growing in the right direction for the past 2 years. Recently, it’s had a large spike due to us branching out our services. The root of this spike is much deeper than that though. My dreams for the company have grown. The answers to the 2 above questions have grown. That has made all the difference. So...
fun, see successful results, help each other, and to create a positive impact for society. And, have some more fun. Your story can move mountains. Now, it’s your turn to answer these questions for yourself. Why are you doing this? Why would others want to join you?
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Tyler is the Head Honcho at Authors Unite, a community helping first-time self-published authors get to market and get noticed.
Why do I run Authors Unite and why did I create this 100 Person Book? I want people to hop on that emotional roller coaster and embrace the ride. I want people to have the support they need to get through the process. I want as many people as possible to achieve their goal of becoming a successful author. I want their to be one place where all authors go to have fun, support each other, and create a positive impact for society. I call this place, Authors Unite. Why would others want to join me? There are many reasons. My hope is that the main reasons are to have Page !130


SIENNA PAGETT
Sienna Pagett I could say that I was born with the drive for entrepreneurship, or that I had some special quality that made me more adept to becoming a business owner. However, the reality is that my natural creativity was merely catalyzed by a single spark that was continually nurtured through a variety of educational experiences and opportunities as I grew up. Now, that may not sound too exciting, but most thriller movies usually start in a small suburban town just like mine. The point is, that it only takes one person/ idea/ or plot twist to change the story line. In my case, it was an unimpressive day in the 5th grade when my road towards social entrepreneurship began. I was 10, and it was then that I learned and adopted the importance of 100%, all encompassing, conviction for what you work for and believe in. That was sparked by Miss Susan B. Anthony. She fought for women’s rights and believed them to be so innate, that she saw no wrong doing in breaking laws that she knew were unjust. “I stand before you under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted… It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus doing, I not only committed no crime, but instead simply exercised my citizen’s right, guaranteed to me…” – Susan B. Anthony’s ‘Constitutional Argument’ (1872)
! Despite over half of the United States pressuring her and her followers to have different views she acted with 100% conviction, passion, and authenticity. Refusing to even pay a single penny for bail, after being arrested for illegally voting as a women, she cut through my young mind and into a place in my soul that would drive me onwards for years to come. That spark made me understand that life had greater meaning when it was lived with 100% involvement. I contemplated in my ten year old mind, while envisioning a penny in my own hand, would I have payed that penny to receive her bail? The little voice of consciousness in my head said yes, but I was not satisfied with that answer. Wasn’t there something that believed in that I was willing to sacrifice for? I wanted to love, value and fight for what I believed in just like Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King Jr. and the many other heroes of my classroom did. But Susan B. Anthony, a woman, a leader, a public speaker, and my inspiration struck a chord that no other classroom hero did. So I wanted passion. I wanted to feel conviction for what I believed in… and I went searching for what was a worthy cause to fight for, and how. Flash forward many years later, and I begin to understand what I have conviction to fight for. My freshman year, I joined Model United Nations in high school. That was the Page !132
first time that I was exposed to an in depth understanding of international humanitarian issues that I considered to be basic human rights in the U.S. Access to clean water, shelter, education, nourishment, health care, etc. And then the even bigger eye opener, I had to come to acknowledge that the lack of some of those most basic human rights dwelled within my own nation. I had experienced poverty similar to the other children in countries I represented in Mock United Nations debates. The difference was that I had the basic human rights that they didn’t. Thus, I was able to hope for a future beyond my present circumstances and excel despite stifling circumstances. I wanted that same opportunity for every child, and I still do. What could a high schooler do? That spark I spoke of that was starting a fire in me in a little 5th grade classroom, was growing into roaring flames that I had no direction for. Debating in Model UN conferences was all mock debate and resolutions that would never be carried out. I wanted to do something real. I wanted to make an Impact. My Junior year I heard of a class on campus that was going to start a company. I was accepted through the series of admissions interviews and I started my first company with my classmates as the COO. We donated 100% of our proceeds to a non-profit in Africa and named our company Impact Design Co to embody our
mission of entrepreneurial philanthropy. We wanted to spread a message of social activism with our company name, and empower an entire community in Kenya with a well of fresh water. That is when my eyes were opened. They were opened to the world of social entrepreneurialism and all that entails. Business ventures could become non-profits or partner with them to bring change to their community or the international community. The fact that an idea of a product in my head, could sit in my hands two months later enthralled me… the fact that it could also change someone else’s life with that product, left me speechless. I’ve been involved in both non-profits and for profit ventures since my first company. However, one thing has always stayed the same, keeping my focus on something worth fighting for. Money and power are fleeting. I have one life to live, and I intend on making it count for those who weren’t as lucky as me in life. If I can change just one person’s life, then all the work that I do will be worth it. Susan B. Anthony changed my life. I just want to help change somebody else’s, too.
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Sienna is the Co-Founder at OutBully and Lemona Software. She is 19 years old and is taking a gap year in Silicon Valley, California. Page !133


Marko Hrelja I’m building a software company that tells how people feel as they move. We work where people talk and interact in public spaces - shopping malls, sidewalks, etc. One of the great things about this life is being able to get in other people’s shoes. To understand what they value, why they pay attention to things and how it makes them take action. That’s why I decided to create a company that works all over the world. Working on global company, I have the opportunity to do just that. There’s so much to see beyond the places where I grew up in. Best of all, it impact on how we survive and thrive as a human species. I was born in Sarajevo. My grandfather was a sports administrator He was even on the Olympic committee. He cared about making peoples movement smoother and achieve things they didn’t think possible. My dad is an architect. He creates buildings. He cares about how people can interact and have a comfortable design and practical experience. How these buildings learn around people. For me, its about using software to learn about human interaction. I got interested in human interaction after a professor hired me to work with him on a research project. Before I knew it, I stayed later and later reading more about the topic on my own. I thought it would be awesome if I collected some smart people and try and answer: “what do people pay attention to in crowds?”
! Our company now works all over the world with offices in California, Toronto and London. I was at Makerfaire in San Mateo with a friend. We stopped to this lady who was reading a novel under the only shady area in the yard. Alton asked her: What’s the most important thing in life? She looked up and said: “participating.” Its been about three years, but I still remember it vividly. Participating in creating the life you want. Participating in creating the rules you live by. Participating in enacting the change you want in the world. It goes on endlessly. So here’s to participating and pushing the limits of whats possible in your life and in this world.
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Marko is the founder and CEO of 10X Crowds where he measures social attention. He is originally from the UK but is currently traveling around the world.
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The best way to predict the future is to create it.
LALIT
GAUTAM
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Lalit Gautam
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I believe in one thing: when you decide to do something good, no matter what other people think of you, you have to aim for your goal and nothing else.
To give you some context, the typical life cycle of Indian youth is get two degrees, land a well paid job, marry a wife, have kids and die.
My dad came from Uttar Pradesh, one of the largest most backwards states in India. He grew up in a middle class family, and he left his ancestor village when he was sixteen and migrated to Rajasthan, where I was born and now reside. He left his home with just one small suitcase and because of all his struggles with work and starting over from scratch, I can now proudly say he is a selfmade man. Due to this, we kids never faced any difficulties in our life. Yet I always knew that I would have to start from scratch, so my belief always push me toward my goal to do something different, shaping me into rebel because of my views and beliefs.
My foreign friend generally ask me, “What’s wrong with this life, isn't this normal?” I know it’s normal but when you have default life choice for your youth which is completely unrelated to what a youth want in his life than it’s not normal. Unlike normal Indian guys, I left my first job, then second, then third and when I left my seventh job people started talking. My parents got serious about my career choices, which is quite typical here, but luckily my parents understood quite easily what I wanted to do in life.
During graduation when I was 21, I successfully created a unisex emergency contraceptive battery-operated device that got me my first university grant. that was a successful test based on the curiosity of mind not because of my dream of social innovation. Time passed and I done completed my MBA and started a corporate journey into different cities across India. by one by in different MNCs in luxury offices with boring business suits and business meetings in large auditoriums.
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I started traveling India villages, cities, towns to explore the solution of the problems which I already knew and then I started my first venture handscart.com- From artisans hand. A platform for artisans and artisan goods from all over world that empowers rural communities through a 3E model- Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship. When I came back from my extensive, incredible India trip, I started my project Handscart with my 40,000 Indian rupees saved from my past jobs. I started Handscart in my backyard at home with. Startups have never been popular in India especially since Indians value career security, so I heard no’s from all of my friends when I Page !137
asked them to join me. Although one person who said no at the time now wants to invest in the company, so there’s a lesson in perseverance no matter what others think of your idea. My first exposure and in-depth understanding of crafts happened when I worked on an UNESCO-Crafts Council project while pursuing my MBA in Marketing Management. The project gave me the opportunity to interact with artisans and understand their struggles firsthand. All around me I saw a culture rich with traditional values and crafts, but no takers around. With livelihood opportunities through craft slowly dwindling, artisans were moving to alternative sources of income generation – like agriculture and daily wage labour. I realized that what was desperately needed was to revive the art forms and spread awareness through them in urban spaces. That way we would ensure that the artisans made a decent living through crafts. The idea was to have a world where the term 'handmade' was given the respect it deserves, and the artisan was recognized for his/her efforts. It was important for the artisan to be taught Fair Trade with an all-around understanding of the pros and cons, profits and losses involved in the global market. For arts and crafts to remain alive, they had to interact with consumers. Handscart started as an idea with four artisans who were willing to be a part of the “handmade revolution”. As I travelled from village to village, I
realized that the story of crafts was a never-ending story, which the world needed to hear. With my previous experience of communication and brand related projects, I strived to explain the concept of markets and brands to villagers, and today, they understand the concepts of pricing and packaging too. I recently started another similar project, MakeYouGreenGreen Clothing, with sustainable handmade fabrics from India, Latin America, Africa, and more. We help women weavers from villages create sustainable fabrics which are climate-friendly and recycled materials. We empower women and break the taboo in countries where women are not able to go to schools for education and forced to stay at home by giving them dignified work. The goal for both projects is to make them selfsustainable and self-dependent. Major problems in developing countries are unemployment, illiteracy, lack of internet education, poverty, etc. The lives of some underprivileged people depend on donations to charities, which can lead to exploitation. This is a major issue in India. With Handscart, my hope is to bring some impact into the world with each small step. This is not the end of journey, this is just the beginning.
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Lalit is a 27-year-old social entrepreneur and a political analyst located in Jaipur, India. He is the founder of Handscart, MakeYouGreen and outreach at RhoLabs. Page !138
Pauline
Trébulle
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Pauline Trébulle I believe people are curious by nature. Children crave to understand the world and to question it. They look at it with sparkles in their eyes and ask thousands of questions to challenge what they know, to improve what already exists and to understand how things work. I wanted to work for the greatest good, I considered being a lawyer or maybe a physician. But in the end, those careers didn’t really fit me. I think I have always found the complexity and beauty of nature breathtaking. In particular, I wondered: how can life arise from something as simple as two cells? How does the sum of non-living components lead to such complex organisms? Those questions were fascinating to me. I believe science and art are two lenses through which we can study our world. I love both, but I chose to pursue a career in the former. I enrolled in a biotechnology school and studied many topics, with variable degrees of enjoyment depending on my level of interest in the subject. In 4th year, I decided to specialize in research and bioinformatics. I did my last year as a dual-degree program through which I learned more about systems and synthetic biology. I am now working on a PhD to create bioinformatics tools for the production of compounds of interest such as biofuels,in an environment-friendly way thanks to microorganisms. I have learned and I am still learning a lot and the more I know the more I realize we will never have a complete knowledge of our world.
! I think people should never stop learning. Most problems come from our ignorance and misconceptions: we do not know our mind, we do not know our world, and we do not know other people. From this lack of knowledge come fear and conflict while we should learn from our difference and respect our diversity. Research is all about learning and bringing to light the unknown in order to deepen global human knowledge. It is about looking for solutions in the greatest library ever: nature. It is also about sharing knowledge. Of course, this field is not perfect, and there is still a long way to go until everyone benefits from the most recent advances and until we start a real conversation between scientists and citizens. However, initiatives such as citizen fab-labs, and openscience make me believe that we will achieve a lot in the next few years to bring curiosity back where it belongs: in school and in our everyday life. Biology taught me that a system needs to evolve to adapt itself and to live in harmony with its environment. It is not always easy and sometimes mistakes are made, but each step is a lesson we can learn from, to explore and go forward. This is why I do what I do and this is why I would like to encourage others to embrace their own curiosity.
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Pauline is a 23-year-old PhD Student in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics.
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SORAYA FOUL ADI
Soraya Fouladi “Why are you always happy?” That is the question I most often get asked. Short answer? I am a story of resilience. I have learned that the hardest thing a person can do, is live. Living requires comfort in your own mind, comfort in the homes you live in, comfort in the environments and people you surround yourself with, and mostly, living requires effort. I choose to not let myself be defined by the hard times in my life, by the darkness. I have worked so hard my whole life to get to the point where I could wake up everyday excited about what I am going to do. Excited about simply being alive. Designing a life that I truly enjoy. My happiness is something I have worked extremely hard for, for a very long time. People often want to know what my darkest times are, where my pain lies, what has burned my core, all the ways in which I have been hurt in life. Yes, life has hurt me before, ohhhh has life gotten to me, so many times in so many ways… but that is not the main story I tell because I have made the decision to not be defined by my darkness. I choose to define myself on what makes me thrive, makes my heart race with thrill and excitement, by what truly fulfills me.
! Life has been tough… and I know I am not alone in saying that. What I have learned is to always choose love, even in adversity. Love for yourself, for those you know and don't know, and love for the world. That is the stronger thing to do. Once a person works their way out of the darkness and into the light, they have now scaled one of the toughest mountains in life. That should be celebrated as opposed to their darkness being stigmatized or infatuated upon by others. After one of my extremely difficult periods in life, I was on the hunt for something to live for, a life goal. I spent hours and hours everyday working to come up with a life goal. Then it hit me - Goals are not sustainable. You either finish them, or fail at them. Both of those options were unappealing to me. This is when I pivoted to finding a purpose. Something sustainable. I then developed the purpose of accelerating positive change in this world. A purpose that is inexhaustible, infinite, that has no means to an end. I wanted to embody this, become this. So I started doing this on small scales - tutoring people, volunteering at shelters, working on environmental efforts. Once I regularly got in a cycle of naturally accelerating positive change on a small scale, I moved onto doing this on a medium scale - helping out small communities of people, Page !142
founding short-term non-profits. After about a year of doing this, I decided I wanted to do this on the largest scale that I could think of. I mapped out all of the problems in the world that I learned about at the United Nations International School - wars, racism, misogyny, modern-day slavery, inequality, and many more, to find out their roots. Why do all of these issues exist? I determined that it was because of lack of access to education. That is when I made it part of my mission to accelerate positive change in this world by increasing access to education, globally. I have been chasing this whole-heartedly for years and until I became my mission, I have never felt so fulfilled and driven in my life. A huge revelation has been that people do not need saving, unless it is truly a life or death situation. No one wants to be “saved”, there are people who would rather die than be “saved”. What people need is empowerment, agency, and tools. Everyone deserves to wake up excited about what they are going to do. So why am I always happy? Honestly, I am not. I am human, I come with this fun thing called the human-error, so I feel a wide range of emotions besides happiness. But I am happy more often than not, especially around people, because I am in awe of each person’s existence. Each one of us is a phenomenon. The fact that we exist is mind-blowing, sublime. We each exist in our own minds
as a unique entity, and we navigate the world with a different perspective and with distinct emotions attached to each experience. Everyone is the sum of their experiences and the sum of their genetics… Despite what many people say, we are actually incredibly unique. To me, each person is a beautifully intricate vessel of ever-growing knowledge and wisdom that I could learn so much from. Whoever you are, reading this, you are a phenomenon. I would love to meet you, be in awe of you, and learn from you. And if you want my support, I will gladly give it. As humans, we need each other. We need love. I am not my darkness. I am me, Soraya Fouladi, one of the most resilient catalysts for the acceleration of positive change in this world.
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Soraya is a 22-year-old Lover of Life, Corgi Enthusiast, and Co-Founder of edu. She currently resides in San Francisco, California.
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Safaath Ahmed
Safaath Ahmed Zahir I began to promote women’s rights and democracy in the Maldives as a result of my own experiences in the working world. After completing my Master’s degree in finance abroad, I returned to my country with the hope and optimism to bring new innovations into the financial sector of the Maldives. However, during my job interviews I found people being more interested in my “family achievements” than my academic ones. These events strongly influenced my decision to start an advocacy for women’s empowerment within my country. I went on to assist a group of dynamic ladies to create an NGO called Women On Boards (WOB) in the Maldives, the first NGO advocating for gender diversity and the importance of women at all levels of the economy. My focus was mainly to promote the importance of women's economic empowerment and to encourage women to take up leadership roles. I served as the Secretary General of WOB for nearly two years and focused on creating awareness for gender equality, as well as the important role of Small Island Developing (SID) States. WOB became the first NGO in the Maldives to specifically advocate for women on boards and for women in leadership. In the Maldives the issue of underrepresentation of women was less spoken of, but with this campaign the whole of the Maldives is recognizing
! the need to address this issue. More people are confident that women can lead all spheres of our economy and young people are very supportive of this notion. Today, WOB has over 400 members, more than 12 corporate partners, a large number of volunteers and a leading NGO in the Maldives. Moreover, my work at WOB has been recognized by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and I was among the 60 recipients of the Queen’s Young Leaders Award 2016, which recognises young people who are changing their communities. After nearly two years of work in the arena, I have currently set up an NGO named Women & Democracy in the Maldives. The NGO, recently launched, will highlight the issue of under-representation of women in political leadership. We intend to empower women in economic segments, political leadership while promoting the essential role of women in building a democracy. I passionately believe that democracy empowers people. It empowers me to be a good leader and to stand up for what’s right. I care about free speech; about voting to express my passion and about having a greater stake in the development and peace of my own community. Safaath is a 25-year-old women’s rights activist from the Republic of Maldives. Page !145


UNDER 30 CHANGEMAKERS
Check out our previous edition of Stories of Purpose! !
Read Here
About Under 30 Changemakers
About Tara Byrne, Senior Editor
Under 30 Changemakers raises Millennial Misfits into powerhouse social entrepreneurs ready to tackle the world’s toughest issues. We believe that change starts from within, so we focus on teaching responsibility, emotional processing, and resilience. We facilitate online support groups and other community hangouts. Members receive an unmatched community of peers leading intentional, impactful lives of their own creation.
Tara Byrne, connector, social entrepreneur, and cross-sector partnership expert, is the founder of Under 30 Changemakers– a community of over 1800 social entrepreneurs, whistleblowers, inventors, and coders who are creating solutions to the world’s biggest issues. She supports those who lead movements for change, providing facilitated emotional and mental support group and mentorship by leading social impact professionals. She has initiated hundreds of global cross-sector partnerships for non-profit and for-profit collaboration. Tara envisions a connected world where young changemakers can live, work, and learn anywhere that helps them grow into an intentional global leader.
Under 30 Changemakers hosts a bi-annual Changemaker Summit to provide in-person professional and personal growth. Our programming is split into ChangeU, our social impact skill-building classes, and Connect Workshops, our facilitated selfhelp groups. Changemaker Summit will happen August, 2017 in Seattle, WA.
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→ www.under30changemakers.com
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the help of all the people involved in this collaborative project and, more specifically, to the contributors who entrusted their stories to me so I could share them with the world. This book and your words belong to you. To my best friends, Soraya Fouladi and Tanya Willard, thank you for keeping me sane while I compiled this book. There were many times when I wanted to give up, and you both helped me keep going. You both are my greatest resource, driving me toward completing even my wildest ideas. I am unendingly grateful for you both to be in my life. Thank you to Randy Wu for editing sections of this book. Thank you again for Tanya for giving me feedback and advice on the design elements of this book.
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To everyone who backed our crowdfunding campaign for the book– Arihant Jain, Tiffany Yu, Girolama Bui, Naitik Mehta, Jordana Armstrong, Aniqah Zowmi, Olivia Wright, Bleys Goodson, Ella Brown, Aatash Parikh, Hossay Shareefy, Jake Tital, Roselinda Ortiz, Marcela Falquez, Sanah Jivani, Jean-Loïck Michaux, Jaxon Stevens, Michael Merchant, Marko Hrelja, Kayla Stannard, Gerald Hodges, Adam Siddiq, Randy Bernard, Maegan McConnell, Zachary Caceres, and Nick van Breda– thank you for transform ing these stories into a real, tangible book. And finally, thank you to each and every member of Under 30 Changemakers. You are my purpose. Thank you for inspiring my work. Without you, this book would not exist.