Greenpact: Sparked Innovation from 'waste' in the Community!: THE RE INVENTION GENERATION

Greetings to all!

Earlier this month we were graced by Global Minimum to being part of a remarkable panel entailing; Bonolo Matjila- Spiruteens(South Africa), David Sengeh from Global Minimum(Sierra Leone) , Leroy Mwasaru-Human Waste Bioreactor(Kenya), moderated by Kate Krontiris from Berkman Center for Internet and Society .

Having dinner at The Codmother

The experience was uniquely exciting, right from our tiring 16 hour flight from Dubai to San Francisco, all the way diligently served with unending hospitality. Sincere thanks to our chaperone, Mr. Dheeraj Sanka for receiving us from SFO, checking us in at The Ritz, Carlton Half Moon Bay, in addition to treating us with dinner at the Codmother Fish and Chips. Night life and transport systems in the city- San Francisco was quite fascinating- this gave me some ideas! After the treat we then retired to The Ritz Carlton, which is an hour drive from San Fransisco.

Sunday morning marked the beginning of the conference after checking in at the Techonomy desk and getting our tags. We had breakfast at The grill, adjacent to the main block. This was then followed by a briefing session by our chaperone for the day,

Ariam Mogos, unending regards for staying with us through the day! We set a list of great personalities to meet at the conference, with all that checked, we signed up for morning activities. Unfamiliar with golf I gave it a try, thanks to Antony- our instructor, I’m your buddy when it comes to chipping and teeing ;-) .After two hours of polishing our skills, the cold had no mercy on my shaky hands we headed to the ball room where we met David Sengeh and Kate Krontiris, the panel was complete! We chatted our evening away to our first session right after dinner, having one of my long awaited speakers in line, Genevieve Belle from Intel Labs, Jack Dorsey for Square & Twitter moderated by James Surowiecki from Staff Write about- Tech bringing Equality and Peace. Having my take; slow uptaking of tech widens the gulf between the rich and the poor as the rich exploit tech to fetch more as the poor lurk in adject poverty. Hands up to tech bringing equality and peace!

that finalized our day.

D Day

The panel

Monday morning was our D day, with our panel scheduled at 9:30 am. It was really privileged addressing an assembly of great personalities as my inspirations also tapped from within the panel, David Sengeh who challenged me further into my work, academics and life of multi tasking , right from prosthetics at MIT to TEDx events and now a panel member. Responses from the audience right after the audience were encouraging, one key lesson- You are of great importance to your work and contribution to the community. Perhaps this is where Africa’s youthful generation gets its inspiration to write a chapter in the history of development. And after the panel was straight to the green room where we got free of the mics!..

Joining a tech lab facilitated by Kate Krontiris, was a very interesting one entailing- How Civic engagement can be collectively upped by the power of tech and having protocol of convincing the public into collective action.ie Biometric voting. Backed with great speakers ; Nigel Jacob, Urban Technologist in Residence, Living Cities Jerry Paffendorf, CEO, LOVELAND Technologies Kathryn Peters, Co-founder and COO, Democracy Works Matt Stempeck, Director of Civic Technology, Microsoft New York . Lucky enough we got to exchange ideas with Matt Stempeck and Jerry Paffendorf, it was a great experience hearing their dimensions of thinking.

Here's my view Sir!

After an exhilarating lunch hosted by Ford, we joined our last Tech Lab moderated by Dan Elron from Strategy and Corporate Development. With a remarkable set of speakers; Ali Diab, Co-founder and CEO, Collective Health Dane Howard, Director, Global Brand Experience, eBay Scott Sanborn, Chief Operations Officer, LendingClub Jake Seid, President, Auction.com .- Will every industry have its own Tesla?-of Companies embracing change driven by every day tech . Business leaders have a task to be the disruptors than disrupted. Taking this into consideration; German cars are a unique set with great engines and peak performance sadly one has to take it back to its manufacturer for a patch/ update, perhaps there is a great possibility of cars updating automatically over Wi-Fi! With Jake Seid taking auction.com not only

as a lending site but further providing services similar to banking, creating consumer trust in new models. Ali Diab ‘s Collective Health founder+ CEO great sense of leadership is exhibited when he counteract problems into problem motivations- on how Health Insurance companies should handle their insured eg answering phone calls, tone to use and how to reply to them!

We were lucky enough to enjoy a scenic trail along the cliff all the way to the beach with Kathryn Peters- founder of Democracy Works and Kate Krontiris - Berkman Center for Internet and Society !

A beach troll with Kathyrn Peters

The conference wrapped itself to an end with an eager live performance from The Fray . David and I vividly remember our personal touch with them : -) . Thanks to Kate Krontiris for double casting as a shaperone for both of us and David Sengeh for unending encouragement and inspiration through the conference. Credits to the Techonomy team for their hospitality. – Tim Charters and company :-)

Utmost thanks to Global Minimum for the opportunity and opening our eyes beyond our community in our bid to solve problems!