I missed the first session, which featured guest speakers Howard Buffett, Geena Davis and Soledad O'Brien, but I did make it to the second. Doc Hendley's story was particularly interesting: a former bartender who founded the Wine to Water organization, which provides clean drinking water to impoverished regions all over the world, funded by the proceeds of the sale of wine. He had no experience in philanthropy or fundraising - he was just a regular guy who had a great idea on how to provide something that most of us take for granted - water that won't make you sick.
Actor Edward Norton spoke about Crowdrise, a social fundraising/volunteering organization he founded. Soon after his talk ended, a large number of people exited the event, and missed what turned out to be the most entertaining part of the day: Mashable founder Pete Cashmore interviewing Ted Turner.
I knew Ted Turner was a bit eccentric, but his comments were friggan priceless (and made a lot of sense, for the most part). If I didn't have HORRIBLE AT&T mobile service I would have tweeted everything he said as he spoke. Since I do have AT&T and it DOESN'T WORK IN MANHATTAN, I'm going from memory here, but some of the more memorable comments were:
"we don't need armed forces here"
"war is obsolete"
"I don't wanna bomb anybody. Do you wanna bomb anybody?"
"all you with your twitter, or twinkle, or whatever"
"print itself is going to fade away"
"I don't like media that talks about who's dating who"
"I was a scrapper. We scrapped"
"We sweated every payroll in our first seven years" (re the first years of CNN)
"I had a guy have a heart attack in my office. I've never seen anyone have a heart attack before. I said 'you don't look so good', he said 'I don't feel so good' and that was it. We called the ambulance, then I yelled for someone to find me a new chief finance officer."
"There are over seven billion people in the world. When I was born there were two billion, and that was only 70 yrs ago. Well... 72."
In all, a great event that made you think, laugh and feel inspired. If you're inspired to DO something, check out the UN's Millenium Goals and find a cause that inspires you: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/getinvolved.shtml
taken from the back of the auditoreum
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