TEDx Nairobi 2010 Event Photos

Check out photos from the just completed TEDx Nairobi held at the Leakey Auditorium at the Nairobi National Museum. In the above photo TEDx Nairobi Host Juliana Rotich interviews Nairobi’s X FM
radio host Rabia.

Click for photos from Africa Knows – TEDx Nairobi Flickr Set

Click for photos from Zulu Safari

2010 Speakers

Caesar Mwangi

He is the Managing Director at Sasini Tea Ltd, where he is in charge of overseeing the operations of this agribusiness which is primarily involved in the growing, processing and marketing of tea and coffee products. They have recently ventured on a small scale in the growing and marketing of dairy and horticultural products in Kenya

Eric Kigada

Eric Kigada is an Architectural Engineer and member of the both the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) and the Board of Registration of Architects and Quantity Surveyors of Kenya (BORAQS). He has worked in Kenya and Germany on various projects. He is currently working with Planning Systems Services Ltd on projects including new factories; real estate planning, high-rise buildings and a fibre optic landing station that will change the Nairobi landscape.

James Nyoro

James Nyoro is an agricultural economist with special passion on food security issues in Africa and Kenya in particular. James is the Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, Africa office based in Nairobi, Kenya. He oversees the Rockefeller Foundation’s work across Africa, strengthening and complementing the foundation’s initiatives around the globe.

Jon Bøhmer

Jon is a serial entrepreneur who founded Scala one of the world’s biggest digital signage vendors. He has also founded other companies in technology space such as Snap TV and Pronto TV AS. Jon has been living in Kenya for the past 20 years and currently runs Kyoto Energy. Kyoto Energy focuses on developing renewable energy system development and manufacturing for developing countries. Its headquarters is in Thika, Kenya and in 2009 one of their products the Kyoto Box won the 2009 FT Climate Change Challenge. It was also featured on CNET.

Julie Gichuru

Julie Gichuru is a TV Host and Group Business Digital Manager at the fastest growing media house in East Africa; Royal Media Services. Julie is also responsible for spearheading RMS’s move towards establishing a global presence through the internet and raising revenue through digital platforms.Julie is the first African woman to receive the Martin Luther King Salute to Greatness Award for Advocacy of Active Non-Violence and Peace. She is a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Laila Macharia

Laila holds a doctorate in law from Stanford University and has practised law in the US and Kenya. She is the Principal and Founder of Scion Real one the region’s leading real estate infrastructure and investment firm. Laila has extensive experience in urban development and corporate finance.

Njeri Wangari

Njeri is a multi talented Kenyan poet, performer, IT specialist and arts blogger. She has been running her blog for over 3 years now – a project that she initially started in order to publishing her poetry online. It has since grown to incorporate other forms of art as well as played host other poets.

Su Kahumbu-Stephanou

Su founded an organic farm in Tigoni, Kenya dedicated in serving local consumers. Her company, Green Dreams Ltd later went on to market and certify regional organic produce. She has also been involved in empowering small scale organic farmers through providing them with education and markets for their organic products. Her focus is on developing new marketing models for the farmers by challenging the current bias, business and trade regulations that favour big business locally and internationally.

Yvonne Owuor

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Kenya) plays in the worlds of creativity, heritage, technology, imagination and innovation. She works with interdisciplinary teams in the arts and has been a key facilitator of creative, innovation and knowledge economy conversations and events. She intends to expand the regional stake and play in the global knowledge economy through practical and multi-sectoral strategies. Yvonne was formerly the Executive Director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival/Festival of the Dhow countries (2003-5) after which she joined the, then start-up, Aga Khan University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences planning project as Project Co-ordinator. At present, she works as Programme Specialist (Arts and Digital Media) working with concepts, models and facilitating spaces where proposals for higher education strategies in and proposals for creativity, arts, design, innovation, research in the arts and performative sciences that resonate with East Africa’s ambitions are explored. Yvonne is engaged with different conservation and cultural initiatives that co-opt cultural imagination and life, landscape memory, art, technology, story into futures. Better known as a creative writer who won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story, Weight of Whispers, another of her stories, The Knife Grinder’s Tale, was made into a short film in 2005. She has had several pieces–fiction and non-fiction, published worldwide and is in the process of finishing her first novel, Dust and Memory.

Green City In The Sun

Photo Courtesy of Africa Knows - www.africaknows.com

Well over 100 years ago, a patch of marshland about half way between the planned East African Railway between the seaside town of Mombasa and Kampala, Uganda was a place referred to as ‘Enkare Nyorobi’  by Maasai herdsmen. It simply meant a ‘place of cool waters’ and was an area they frequently visited to water and graze their cattle. It provided an ideal resting place for the railway engineers and workers building the Lunatic Express to recoup and reenergise.

Nairobi soon became a major commercial and administrative centre and later grew into Kenya’s capital city. The pleasant climate and green leafy neighbourhoods surrounded by virgin plains of savannah gave it the name ‘Green City In The Sun’. In the early post independence times, Nairobi was the envy of most of Africa and the developing world as it rose to prominence and held lots of promise. Somewhere along the line this promise faded and the city wallowed its way amongst the challenges of the times.

Today though, the promise of a shining city beams clearly from the not too distant sky. Although wounded from previous battles and growing pains, a 21^st century Nairobi is in the works.  Everything from really smart people, technology and urban infrastructure is being rejuvenated. Very few cities in the world have access to efficient, affordable and effective world class mobile communication facilities that converge everything from commerce, to voice and data communication.

You could say that Nairobi today is a petri-dish of ‘Development 2.0;’ a new paradigm that seeks to inculcate inward oriented sustainable development. Success stories such as Safaricom and Equity Bank have defied many development theories and theorists. This year’s theme; ‘Green City In The Sun’ seeks to inspire Nairobi’s thinkers and doers to jump on to the ‘Green’ mantra and work towards building a city of ‘Green’ excellence on all fronts from technology, science, social science, art and design.

So what exactly is ‘Green’? Well, it is a term that has heavy connotations to environmental activism and politics. We at TEDxNairobi view it from a more macroscopic perspective, whereby we seek to enthuse a culture that is environmentally friendly and to chart out positive development of clean technology and innovation that will sustain ecosystems and economies for many generations to come.

The hullaballoo of Nairobi’s development comes at a pivotal time in world history. Upstream innovation from the developing to the developed world is now being accepted as a norm and there is also high diffusion of cutting edge technology to the developing world as can be seen with mobile communication technology which furthermore lead various innovative business models and services. One does not have to venture far to realise that the ‘Green’ bug has hit town, walk past Parliament Way and you will see solar powered street lamps, on a clear day look towards Ngong Hills and you will see a couple of windmills, Safaricom also has some its base stations running on green energy and the Turkana Wind Farm project is poised to be sub-Saharan Africa’s largest wind farm in terms of capacity.

Kenya certainly has its own challenges but also has a unique opportunity to leap frog and emerge as a leader both in industrial and micro innovation of the ‘Green’ economy. This year’s event is certainly worth attending and will without doubt bring together  Nairobi’s leading minds who will definitely craft and co-operate in creating a sustainable, prosperous and promising ‘Green’ future for Africa’s one and only ‘Green City In The Sun.’

Registration is now open and places are limited, so blank out the afternoon of September 18^th 2010 on your diary and book a place right away to avoid disappointment.

TEDxNairobi 2010: Going Green with the Web

It’s 2010 and TEDxNairobi is back and this time, we’re going green!

The signs of the times are clear. Our lifestyles and the choices we’ve made as the human race are having a degenerative effect on our planet. For this reason among many others, and because TEDx is in the spirit of ideas worth sharing, spreading and acting upon, we’re dedicating the next TEDxNairobi to challenges, ideas and innovation for our planet.

Green means different things to different people. Some will agree it’s lifestyle changes, some will say it’s what you eat and others will say it’s the only way our generation will preserve the world for the next.

Whichever way you look at it, we’re promoting and talking about all things “Green” at the next TEDxNairobi on the 18th of September at The Leakey Auditorium, Musuem Hill, time just from 1400-1830hrs.

Here’s where you come in.

You may be:

• A Blogger
• A Tweeter
• A Facebooker
• A Googler (yes, you right there)
• An “Online Citizen” (who are these people?)
• All of the Above
• None of the Above

No matter which of these categories you fall into, we want to challenge you to Go Green with TEDxNairobi.

How you can get involved:

• Grab a Blog Badge & Tweet about it!
• Nominate TEDxNairobi e-mbassadors who are Green
• Pick a Green Challenge for the next 3 weeks
• Write a blog post
• Propose ways to be green with our #GreenCityInTheSun hashtag

We’ve put together a page where you can Get Involved and let us know what sustainable ways you can go green with us. We want your ideas, but more than that we want you to actually pick a Challenge or propose one and DO IT! Pick a partner to motivate you and share the journey. So whether it’s taking the stairs for the next month. Deciding to share transport, skip all elevators and take the stairs or use an instant shower (or a cold one brrrr) we welcome all ideas and want you to pick one and chronicle how it is changing your lifestyle. Start with proposing your Green Challenge so others can pick up inspiration and join you here.

Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook for updates, mentions and inspiration.

It’s not what TEDxNairobi can do for you, but what you can do for Nairobi!

A Case Study on Twitter and TEDx Nairobi

Twitterbility of the Developing World

The Centre of Life

Nyokabi Musila talking at TEDx Nairobi

“We as scientists, are trying to create solutions for human problems,” Musila Nyokabi, medical practitioner and technology evangelist said. She realized that as a child she loved science, more so biological science which seemed to explain the mysteries of life in such a fascinating way. One night, after she had completed medical school and working at her first job, she was at a dinner party where Nyokabi realised she could make meaningful contributions to an array of topics and debates, because they had a science and healthcare bias, but was less eloquent on art related issues. This question set her on a new path and gave her a new lease on life.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a question that consumed her in her childhood. Nyokabi started to realize that she did not have to be just one thing, a scientist, and began to explore her creative side using different art forms. Her application of scientific methods of analysis, observation to solve problems found a new niche in exploring art and culture. She also started a blog as a means of self expression and to share her life experiences. Nyokabi explored art using scientific methods, she approached art with the scientific questions of “why” and “where” thereby, expanding her world, just like Leonardo da Vinci who was a scientist, an engineer and an artist did. You see the lines between science and art are blurry, where science begins and art ends is difficult to tell. Even more than 550 years after Leonard da Vinci’s death, and even now in the 21^st Century.

Science tries to solve human problems, but is isolated and expressed in “techie” terms that the rest of the world may not understand. In this way for example it does not reach the rest of humanity and solve problems as was intended. So there is a dichotomy between science and art, yet science must solve problems, and art must share the solutions with the world, each person working with both their talents to help make this happen.

Her exploration and openness to art resulted in Nyokabi gaining a reputation for being an “alternative scientist” which she said, explains why she was at TEDx Nairobi rather than at a scientific conference.

“What is it that you are passionate about?” is the question Musila left the audience with. She shared that in her experience, happiness stems from doing what you enjoy the most, and in this way you benefit from doing what makes you happy, and spreading your own joy to other people, so that they benefit from your doing your thing too. It is a win -win situation.

Discover what you are passionate about that you are not doing. “Reawaken and discover what comes to you effortlessly,” she said, that is special about you. That is how you are changing the world. Do the things that you love, who knows where you will end up.

Engaging Conversation on Conservation in Africa.

Paula Kahumbu speaking at TEDx Nairobi

A self-confessed tree hugger, Paula Kahumbu opened by reminding us how extraordinarily privileged Kenya is as a country as far as diversity is concerned, and how most times, it’s taken for granted by Kenyans themselves. By demonstration when she asked to see those in the crowd who had been to a National Park in the last month, only a handful inferred to the affirmative. It brought life to her statement!

She shared on how Kenya has one of the world’s largest diversities of bees – over 1500 species. We assume the Maasai Migration is going to be around for generations (for those who’ve not seen it already.)

Her second confession was that she didn’t have a television. Her veranda is her television from her home on the edge of the Nairobi National Park and you can always follow her amazing tweets and extraordinary wildlife pictures.

Paula elaborated her reason why she’s a wildlife conservationist and set out to make a case. “We’ve often been told that wildlife is crucial to the economy and our economic development. However, we’ve been misled to believe that it is important for tourism alone.”

“The world’s current population is 6.9 Billion people. We’re far too many people for the planet…,” as Paula showed and while we’re now aware of our carbon footprint, we shouldn’t forget our ecological footprint. We’re using the earth, our forests, our seas and changing the landscape faster than it can regenerate itself.

“Over 1000 species are disappearing every year,” she stated. Adding that two-thirds of these species have named, they’re yet to be classified and already disappear off the face of the earth. 25% of our mammals are facing extinction. A sad reality to come to terms with.

Paula went on to share information from a recent study done in the United States where scientists conducted research and studied how valuable insects were to the economy. As insects performed basic services for human beings and the value in a year is $57 Billion and that’s a service that is free; remarkable.

The US is facing a major crisis with their bees, having lost around 80% of their bees. Bees contribute about $15 Billion a year to the US economy and that brought home a stark reality of the situation, given that Kenya has one of the largest biodiversities of bees.

She went on to elaborate on the current drought in Kenya (which has since turned into rains, and occasionally floods in some provinces). The reason why this drought is hurting, Paula said, was because we have degraded our landscapes to such an extent and silt is filling up our dams and the water is unable to penetrate the soil and replenish the reservoirs.

The global cost of saving our protected areas is $45 Billion a year for the whole world. The estimated value of these protected areas in terms of ecological services is actually $5 Trillion. She jokingly asked Aly Khan Satchu what the return on investment was.She brought the point back to order that we’re losing the race with our environment and examined the situation in Kenya with the Kenya Government and she frankly admitted that we’re losing the race to conserve our wildlife.

She also told the amazing story behind Owen and Mzee, her award-winning children’s book about a hippopotamus and a tortoise. Paula was working for Bamburi Cement in the coast running a small sanctuary, using a rehabilitated quarry where they kept hippopotamus after the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami that hit the coast just outside of Malindi.

The story, involves a hippopotamus calf that was orphaned during the tsunami and had to be taken care of. The 1 year-old hippo mistook a Seychellois tortoise for its mother, and not longer after the first pictures were taken, they quickly became viral and were abuzz all over the internet.

People were soon calling, texting and emailing asking how the tortoise and baby hippopotamus were. By this time, they had both been named, the hippo; Owen, after the man who caught him and the tortoise; Mzee – a respectful Swahili word for elderly person.

So they started a diary, written by a man who had been working at the sanctuary for 25 years, Steven Twaid. He would show what was happening with Owen and Mzee as they played, swam and grew closer together. Soon, they had over 500,000 people reading and keeping up with the life of Owen and Mzee every month. From this, they developed the children’s book – Owen and Mzee.

The book has since sold over 1 million copies and is in 24 languages across the world. From this, her meeting with Dr. Richard Leakey lead to her running Wildlife Direct which has grown from 7 blogs to over 115 different blogs, each with its own set of bloggers, volunteers and fundraisers. They’ve since raised over $1,000,000 since 2007 and now, enable people all over the world to donate and adopt projects and conservancies as they support them.

An example she raised was in the Maasai Mara where, after the post-election violence, the Maasai Mara needed funds to sustain its conservation efforts to cover the shortfall due to the nosedive in tourist revenues. They raised $280,000 towards this effort.

She spoke of the Lion Guardians project with Anthony Kasanga, a 23 year old Maasai man who is a poacher turned Lion protector. The Maasai people, as a rite of passage, have their young men kill a lion. Anthony, together with the Lion Guardians, has been able to raise $28,000 and develop a strong international following as he educates Maasai in the region on how and why to protect lions.

Paula shared on a trend that Wildlife Direct began noticing – lions were being poisoned with a cheap over-the-counter pesticide called Furadan. Kenya’s already lost 85% of lions as a result of poisoning. The impact on tourism, if this trend continues would be devastating. Luckily, Wildlife Direct rallied support and was even contacted by the US-based manufacturer of the pesticide, who agreed to take it off the market in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

The challenges for Wildlife Direct include raising support, especially in this period of the recession and developing the technology from their base in Kenya. Changing perceptions from a reliance on governments to bring environmental change is something Wildlife Direct is set on developing in Africa

A key strength of Wildlife Direct is its transparency, where all support is accounted for and results are documented by the bloggers and every action is shown and shared. The tangible impact shown to the world, shows the potential of the model behind Wildlife Direct which can be replicated and applied to different fields such as poverty alleviation and education.

A Case for Animation Production in Kenya

Kwame Nyong’o made a compelling case for Africans to invest more in the animation inductry in Africa.

Actually the figures speak for themselves:

• The worldwide animation industry is estimated to be worth at least $45 billion currently.

• Animation is one of the fasted growing industries in the world, earning Japan more than its steel industry last year.

• The animation gaming industry has been more valuable than film in the USA over the last 4 years.

• In the late 90’s India had hardly any animation to speak of. Today they have hundreds of companies that employ thousands of people and brings in billions of dollars into their economy.

• Animation has become one of the six pillar industries to South Korea’s economy.

So how will Africa make sure it’s not left behind in another opportunity to direct the cultural tone and tell a new story to a waiting world?

After all the world has always been curious about Africa and there are some good examples of popular cultural products on Africa being produced by foreigners on the marketplace.

such as the Lion King and Madagascar….

Once again Africa is in danger of being cast in the supporting role of its own feature story, as the African proverb says “Until the lion learns to write, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter.”

Perhaps the lion is learning to speak, in Kenya at least, where there is a  a growing movement in visual arts in Kenya, such as the works of Cartoon Joseph and Gado

And there is a growing realisation that special talent for animation exists on the African continent now…….there have been some successes such as the award winning Kirikou and the Sorceress produced in 1999 by Michel Ocelot; and Tinga Tinga Tales by Tiger Aspect and Homeboyz being produced currently.

There’s also institutional support for African Animators, from large donors such as UNESCO who run animation training and production workshops. The British Council have also been offering support to animators in Kenya and Kwame is one of the key speakers.

The presentation ended with Kwame with an excerpt from Excerpt from UNESCO 2.0 “Toto’s Journey” (duration: 2 min)  by Alfred Muchilwa and Godfrey Semwaiko

Boniface Mwangi on a Better Kenya

Boniface Mwangi speaking at the inaugural TEDx Nairobi at Upper Hill on the 8th of August, 2009.

How would you want to leave Kenya for the next generation? This is the inherent question that CNN’s African Photojournalist of the Year, Boniface Mwangi seeks to address in his work.

In 2007, Mwangi covered the campaign trail for the regional publication East African Standard following the Kenyan opposition of Raila Odinga as he worked to win voters over. And all across the country politicians were preaching tribal politics using divide and conquer tactics to win voters. After the ill fated elections, violence broke out all across the country.

The Standard would censor some of the more graphical images submitted by Mwangi although that didn’t take away from what he had witnessed in the field. This experience drastically changed his life and how he viewed the direction Kenyan leaders were taking the country.

As a sign of protest, Boniface disrupted the president’s speech during a live national broadcast on Madaraka Day, which ironically recognizes Kenya’s self-internal governance, on  1st June, 2009 and was subsequently arrested. This occurred after four months of planning with friends and lawyers who supported his work. In contrast, his family thought he had lost his mind and asked him to cease his activities.

In response, Boniface set up an organization aimed to help the poor and Kenyan youth country wide within the areas where violence broke out. Picha Mtaani is an organization aimed at providing a platform for national reflection and building local reconstruction consensus through photo exhibitions and debate. Since most of the affected areas have been left out of the national debate and neither do they have a voice in driving policy and change within the country, Picha Mtaani will engage these audiences and turn them into citizens who are concerned about their lives and how to improve the reconciliation and national unity.

Boniface Mwangi grew up in a broken home with six siblings and five fathers. His mum died when he was seventeen. In the slums of East Africa, it was tough finding direction as the choices were either to join a gang or engage in drug use. As a high school dropout, Boniface didn’t have many options and used to hawk books on the streets. He later joined a bible school and while there came across a book by famed photojournalist Mohamed Amin on the Ethiopian famine of 1985.

This was a turning point in his life as he decided to pursue photography. Without a college degree, it was tough getting into any school. He managed to join an obscure school without camera equipment where he lasted all of five months. He dropped out, bought a camera and started shooting pictures about life in the slums of Eastlands where he grew up.

These photos were remarkable in that they offered a diverse view of life in Kenya. Mwangi got a job with the East African Standard where he became a photojournalist until he quit in 2008. His work during the post election violence earned him the CNN African Photojournalist of the Year award.

According to Boniface, Kenyans aspire to have a better country but sometimes do not ask if they are the best citizens of this better Kenya. A lot of people prefer taking shortcuts in order to achieve their dreams. With leaders bent on building tribal fiefdoms instead of preaching nationalistic politics, it is very hard for Kenya to become a successful country.

In response, Boniface wants to help Kenyans become better citizens and stop compromising on their ideals. He feels this is the only way we can build a better country for our children. Though Picha Mtaani is just a small tool we can use to help build a better country, it is a step in the right direction.

Tonee’s Take on Fingertips and Society

Tonee doing his 'thing' at TEDxNaiorbi

TED is all about stories and interesting experiences. At TEDxNairobi we were privileged to have some of Nairobi’s most inspiring storytellers. One of these was a skinny, ‘long’, funny, puny and witty gentleman called Tonee Ndungu and believe it or not it was more the than the awkward spelling of the name ‘Tonee’ which was funny.

Tonee is the founder of a youth organisation known as The Kenya Wazimba Youth Foundation with the word ‘Wazimba’ meaning extraordinary. It certainly takes extraordinary folks to do extraordinary things and Wazimba seeks to promote self expression, self assertion and self reliance using information as a precursor to achieve these objectives amongst Kenyan youth.

Relevant information relayed with the right presentation and simplicity is inspirational as Tonee asserted. We live in an information rich world with experts all over the place. However most of the solutions to the problems that we face tend to be interdisciplinary, thus it is important for all these experts to make such information consumable and presentable to the masses. “What’s worse than lack of information is misinformation” Tonee reiterated, as responsible earth citizens we all have a moral obligation to present the true picture of what happens around us.

Maybe the world is like ‘mashed potatoes with peas’ , it is a mix and match of different components and properties with people around it producing value by making information relevant to others. There is more to relevant information than the aesthetics of presentation. Breaking down this information and focussing on the needs of the target audience as well as communicating in ways, channels and language that is conducive to the target group will go a long way in making information relevant.

Each and every one of us has the ability to bring about positive changes in our society. As per Tonee, what probably stops us from achieving these changes are two things; cowardice and love for comfort. We live in a materialistic world and humans naturally are selfish, however reorienting towards ones internal compass and leveraging on the little positive things and attributes within ourselves can bring about the drive and unimaginable scenarios that will add value to the world.

Mobile communication technologies are undergoing immense growth in Africa and other parts of the developing world. So we have a situation whereby ‘everything is at our fingertips’. Tonee envisions the fingertips being all about you, him and pretty much anyone on the face of this earth that is endowed with talent or resources. These fingertips are not effectively utilised for social benefit simply because our laziness.

The main problem with Kenya and many countries in the developing world is the asynchronous development of a few major cities and leaving the rest of the towns and villages to wander in oblivion. That is tantamount to ‘taking all your organs and squeezing them into your spleen’ said Tonee. Now realising that we live in a freebie society and that a significant chunk of mobile phones in use today have Bluetooth which enables the free proximity based transfer of information, Tonee and his associates came up with a solution. Why not use such technology to encourage people to interact and open up information channels amongst themselves?

“Everybody uses Bluetooth for something, for passing music, pictures , information and the like” says Tonee and so they embarked on a journey to teach people how to use their mobile phones using Bluetooth without them necessarily wanting to use them. In a nutshell they developed an autonomous viral application that utilises a technique called ‘bluetooth stumbling’ where they are able to push messages virally to mobile phones and using techniques open to the public. They are able to push messages to other phones without the standard authorisation approvals from the receiving device. The interesting bit is that the application has elements of ‘viral biomimicity’ whereby it installs itself onto the host mobile phone and starts the process of pushing messages to other phones. Hence information is ported for free from one point to another and it a brings a whole new meaning to the 6 degrees of separation concept. Legal isssues aside this technology brings about an exponential increase in information bandwidth and brings about novel and efficient ways to push information to the grass roots without necessarily relying on last mile internet solutions.

“The fingertips are not people, they are partnerships, networks and conversations” retorted Tonee. In order to add value to our societies and change the ills that are there, we need to leverage on what we have to give and get information within our networks and expand our horizons. It does not take special powers, fancy cars or financial muscle to build better societies, it is the miniscule extraordinary bits from anyone’s and everyones’ fingertips that move us forward and value to society.