FINDINGS

The new reality of our global society has led to the need for unprecedented communication and collaboration. Investments in information technology can power transformative impact for the private sector, the public sector and the civil sector. Acceleration and improvements in governance, productivity, creativity, participation and innovation are all possible. Many of the technological tools may already exist, but may not be in a form useable by people looking for a lightweight, inexpensive yet agile solution.

YGL RESPONSE

In collaboration with the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer community and other leading technology organizations and individuals, our initiative in this area focuses on extending accessibility to these technologies to as many people as possible by developing, sharing and promoting platforms and applications to the global commons. We will unite all relevant, existent open source resources and projects to create the building blocks needed by organizations around the world. We will also raise awareness around the solutions available, and assist with solution deployment.

Key technical areas of focus will be on open source software hosted on cloud infrastructure. We will provide guidance and documentation for the consumption of public clouds and blue prints for the construction of private clouds. In these clouds we will utilize open source software for web presence and communication and collaboration tools that we will curate, localize and provide documentation for.

We will achieve development of vertical solutions through a combination of funded development, community integration and stakeholder alignment. Segments such as eGovernment, eEducation, eHealth and others will have technical solutions coming out of our collaborative creation processes.

GOALS

Our goal is to achieve reference implementations of our lightweight, highly agile technical solutions by the end of the year.

Finding

The oceans provide hundreds of millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars to the world economy, in addition to invaluable and irreplaceable functions such as oxygen production, climate regulation, carbon sequestration and as a source of food. However, climate change, overfishing and pollution are devastating the oceans at an unprecedented rate, depleting ocean life at a planetary scale, diminishing the ability of the ocean to provide the above essential ecosystem functions, and causing job and economic losses globally.

YGL Response

A global policy to restore ocean health would reverse the global ocean degradation and restore ocean productivity of goods and services to its maximum for the benefit ocean life, human health and society, and the global economy.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

Major contribution to the Global Redesign Initiative Report. Was able to increase the amount of protected oceans by X %.

Working with Oceana-Chile, inspired creation of Sala y Gomez Marine Park, covering 4.4% of Chile’s water

Next Milestones

- Development of financial risk and economic models pointing to the benefits of marine protected areas
- Doubling of the marine protected area of Costa Rica
- Commitment from Mediterranean political and business leaders to help protect at least 10% of the Mediterranean – Monaco leader summit, February 13-14
- Commitments from Seychelles and Kiribati to expand protection in their waters
2012:
- Major session at WEF- Davos 2012 on the economic and social benefits of marine protected areas and other economic ocean solutions that work – with participation of key political, business, and non-profit leaders
- Commitments from additional countries towards 20% by 2020

Leadership

Alfredo Capote, Matthew Anderson, Cristina Bitar, David de Rothschild, Enric Sala, Ricken Patel, Jayne Plunkett, Josh Spear, Kevin Casas-Zamora, Kohey Takashima, Kristin Rechberger, Leo Schlesinger, Marco Fiorese, Matthew Anderson, Mattias Klum, Kohey Takashima.

More Information:

Finding

It is widely accepted that the climatic change that will occur in much of the first half of this century is already locked into the climate system. As a result, there will be significant increases in water scarcity beyond that already predicted (affecting 700 million people today to 3 billion people by 2025, according to the UN), greater intense-weather events such as floods, and a decline in water quality as groundwater supplies become polluted. These issues will exacerbate the development challenges already faced, with more people lacking access to clean water and sanitation.

YGL Response

This project will ensure that water – a critical component for health, education, economic growth, industrial production and food production – is discussed at the right levels in every market with a major scarcity or quality risk.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

Formation of YGL initiative to dove-tail the Forum’s broader Water Initiative. The YGL component will focues on the media campaign and multimedia outreach.

Next Milestones

To be determined…

Leadership

Mina Guli

More Information:

Finding

There is an emerging common “ethos” in the YGL Community, which can help guide the activities of the community, its individual members and could even serve as a road-map for other leaders.

YGL Response

A “collaborative study across the entire YGL community [which] seeks to hold a web-based conversation about ‘who we are’, what is universal to all of us and, also, to identify differences . A journey to discover the “DNA” of a Young Global Leader.”

Key 2010 Accomplishments

Outline agreed, funding secured, questionnaire developed with outside consultants (Blu-Prints)

Next Milestones

On-line survey to be sent

Leadership

Emile Cubeisy, Vuyo Jack, and Jason Yat-sen Li

More Information:

Finding

Traditionally, cross-border capital tended to flow from developed to developing countries, while today emerging economies are becoming both the source and destination of cross-border flows. The tri-party relationships between the recipient countries, traditional investors/donors and the new emerging market investors have become dynamic and sensitive.

YGL Response

This task force seeks to understand the key issues related to investments between emerging economies and promote sustainable capital flows from economic, financial, social and environment perspectives. The task force covers a wide range of activities carried out by YGL members, including promoting best practice on sustainability in specific investment transactions, organizing programmes and events to deepen understanding among the three parties and developing thought leadership analysis on this topic.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

First workshops held (during World Economic Forum on Africa and Annual Meeting of New Champions), third-party consultations held (e.g. Goldman Sachs meeting in China) and concept finalized.

Next Milestones

To define what success measure they should be aiming for. What strategic opportunities should they get attached to?

Leadership

Kevin Lu, Martyn Davis, Hafsat Abiola, Karim Wade

More Information:

Finding

Based on the experiences of the Young Global Leaders in Argentina, Mozambique and Venezuela, the group intends to create a new non-profit, nongovernmental organization whose mission is to deploy new technologies to empower citizens around the world to ensure that their right to free and fair elections is respected.

YGL Response

Civic Eye will engage in three general activities: 1. Adapt existing crowd sourcing technology for election contexts; 2. Provide training and technical support for adapting and deploying this technology to local NGOs; 3. Aggregate best practices and regularly update the methods it employs. As a result of these efforts, the group expects to see mass participation in election monitoring become the norm and, in so doing, enhance accountability, transparency and citizen engagement.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

2011 accomplishments limited to the ways in which Andy and Jared have pushed this in their respective areas of influence.

Next Milestones

The initial plan is to launch the Civic Eyes 2.0 version in the upcoming national elections in Argentina in 2011 and share those learnings with others.

Leadership

Andy Freire, Jared Genser

More Information:

Finding

Companies that drive responsibility and sustainability issues through their company also have power to effectuate change through their supply chains. A global standard could help accelerate this trend.

YGL Response

Establishing a Global Sourcing Governance Code that reaches beyond company borders through the entire supply chain could address a larger portion of responsibility issues and bring measurable and sustainable improvement to the world.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

The initiative is strongly supported by the EBS University’s Supply Chain Management Institute, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and BrainNet Supply Management Consultants. The formed core team is talking on a regular (at least!) monthly, but mostly bi-weekly basis. I am hoping to activate more YGL members at the end of January.

Next Milestones

1. Completion of more workshops with major companies on a worldwide scale in order to carve out the final concept
2. Onboarding of a core YGL taskforce (one person per major region, probably 4-6) in order to conduct workshops and drive the pilot implementation worldwide
Later next year:
3. Successful first pilot runs and implementation initiatives with corporate partners (cp. workshop participants above) in order to generate success stories for triple bottom-line impact and benefits
4. Institutional anchoring and networking with lobbies, organizations and governments worldwide via WEF and UNGC in order to drive a solid framework, which can enable sustainable change and success.

Leadership

Christopher Jahns, Christopher Logan and Leo Schlesinger

More Information:

Finding

The Department of the Environment in the UK estimates that 2 billion tonnes of waste products is generated in the European Union each year: a third from agriculture and forestry, another third from construction and demolition, and the remainder from mining and quarrying, manufacturing, municipal waste and energy production. The most predominant form of waste management is landfill use: in 2004, a survey of waste management in the European Union found that eight countries rely on landfill for over 50% of their waste disposal, and five use incineration to meet over a third of their waste management needs. Only a few countries relied on recycling as their primary waste management solution, and in the United States recycling adoption has only reached 28%.

YGL Response

Closed-loop economics will call for a re-examination of company strategy. Consumer goods companies, for example, will be forced to go beyond their position as value-adding intermediaries between raw material suppliers and end consumers, and instead broaden their reach into new sectors of the economic loop. Far from buying raw materials, manufacturing products, and selling them on to retailers or end consumers, consumer goods companies will have to take responsibility for the impact of their products at every stage from production and manufacture to consumption and recycling. This extended reach will require companies to manage larger and more complex networks of relationships beyond the traditional supplier-customer dynamic, and to more actively manage the whole-life impact of their products.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

Held session with YGLs in Tianjin, China and held a Webinar with interested YGLs

Next Milestones

Taskforce reception and Davos launch of the YGL Taskforce position paper (private side event). Will include Bill McDonough the father of Cradle to Cradle as keynote.

Leadership

Peter Lacy, David Rosenberg, and Jill Otto.

More Information:

Finding

According to the UN, upwards of 20 million people have been affected – greater than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake combined. The need is huge and with winter  having set in the hardship is immense. According to officials, at least 381 villages in Khairpur Natahn Shah, Sindh have been demolished.

YGL Response

While we cannot help 20 million people, we can help those in dire need – one village at a time. We have sought advice on this from senior practitioners and lead agencies and concluded that long, medium and short-term strategies are clearly needed. We are developing a strategy for longer-term structural engagement, but we can also make a difference in the immediate term. We know that lives will be lost in the harsh winter weeks. This need not be the case. Pakistani YGL colleagues say that Sindh is one of the most underserved and at-risk provinces. Here is where we can make a difference. We have decided to support relief efforts in one of these – Bhadurpur village -where 600 houses have been destroyed by the flood and floodwaters are still standing.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

Creating a core group of Pakistani and Indian YGLs to work towards a better future in South Asia

Next Milestones

Just launched a campaign to support the village of Bhadarpur in the Khaiour Natahn Shah, Sindh region. Moving forward need to identify the next steps.

Leadership

Malini Mehra, Kasim Kasuri, Munizae Jahangir, Umar Saif, and Sandeep Naik

More Information:



AppBridge.com: Empower Through Mobile

Mission:

The AppBridge mission is to empower “The Bottom Billion” youth through universally accessible, demand-driven and market-oriented educational mobile applications by synergizing an open source technology platform with a cooperative ecosystem of education and health content providers, academic institutions, developers, telecom operators, sponsors and end-users.

Overview:

Through collaboration and in partnership with others, we are developing an open source, cloud-based digital platform designed to connect talented mobile application developers with formal and informal education and health content providers, and co-create a powerful distribution channel to bridge the digital divide and educate young people in the bottom billion through their cellular phones.  

Each educational app will be submitted to The AppBridge platform, vetted, distributed to partner Telecom Operators and promoted in “The AppBridge Zone”, where it will be available to end-users.  The AppBridge platform will track the download activity and usage of each distributed App, enabling “real time” feedback and allowing for a dynamic, evolving virtual educational experience for users.

With an estimated 3.8 billion mobile subscribers in the developing world, there is enormous opportunity to provide formal and informal educational tools to individuals who do not otherwise have access to basic math, literacy, and health information. The AppBridge is committed to co-creating an important “blueprint” for how digital and information based solutions can be launched in a frictionless way in critical environments. This is a non-profit social enterprise.

History

The AppBridge concept grew out of collaboration between Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan, YGL and Professor Umar Saif, his students and YGL Margo Drakos in the fall of 2010.  Umar and Margo oversaw the development of two interactive Mathematics SMS App Games by two teams of engineering students at LUMS. The games emulate the experience of a student sitting through a math quiz in a classroom and enable a group of people to compete with each other using their cell phones. We asked the LUMS students to document their app development and testing on their own blogs:

http://EducationBySMS.blogspot.com/
http://SMStoLearn.blogspot.com/

After the Apps were developed, Margo found the challenge was promoting and distributing the Apps to the target end-users. While in Davos this January at the annual World Economic Forum Summit, Margo discussed the concept in a number of meetings with academic institutions, corporate leaders, education content providers and telecom partners.  She discovered there was overwhelming commitment to create, sponsor, and distribute educational Apps for young adults with limited access to education and a number of fellow Young Global Leaders who shared her passion.  The AppBridge was conceived.

Next Steps

• We are currently establishing a 501(c)(3).
• We are working to develop the open source, cloud based platform to receive and distribute the mobile apps.
• In the next year, our objective is to launch two pilot programs in India and the Middle East focusing on English Language Training. Each pilot program will include the following work-flow and testing:
• Create our first cooperative ecosystem of education and health content providers, academic institutions, developers, telecom operators, sponsors and end-users.
• Build the open source cloud-based platform.
• Enable student developers to “adopt-an-app” through the platform and go through the content request process with our educational content providers to build an effective app for the target population in India.
• Receive the apps, test the apps and distribute to the appropriate App Stores.
• Work with our partners in India to effectively promote the “AppBridge Zone” Apps to the target end-users.
• Track the download activity and usage of each distributed App to our ecosystem.
• Engage with and garner feedback from our ecosystem.
• Refine our ecosystem accordingly and scale our platform to other regions.

Partnerships:
We are a 2011 Member of the Clinton Global Initiative

We are currently working with the following Partners:

• Accel Partners
• InfoSys
• Lahore University of Management and Sciences
• McGraw-Hill
• Mobile Movements
• MorphLabs
• Openwave
• SwitchCase Group
• World Economic Forum and Forum of Young Global Leader