conference

The conference went off seamlessly and I am so very proud of all the panels and panelists that ended up. Topics discussed (which ranged over 20 panels) : food aid vs. cash aid in complex emergencies, corporate social responsibility and climate change (headed by an evangelical reverend that unexpectedly stole the show), making people care (not whether they do but how to translate that into hard action), global health (enabling cheaper drugs to Africa and Merck was represented), microfinance practitioners (how to have an equity injection in an microfinance asset-building model) to name a few. Although I was literally running around all day (including a gasp-inducing moment when we thought our moderator was unavailable and d and I were frantically googling microfinance thinking we had to moderate the damn thing ourselves) and shuttling people to and fro, and packing a 1000 gift bags (the conference is entirely student run- and we fundraised approx 70,000 dollars in hard cash and inkind contributions- an amount that a standard nonprofit would have been proud of!) and we were sold out, and handling dan doctoroff (deputy mayor of New York who was our keynote), and falling in love with the social enterprise movement and making a difference in our world, all over again.