Sometimes I wish I was a celebrity. Not for the fame. Not for the fans. Not even for the money. But rather, if I was a celebrity and wanted to help people in any country, all I'd have to do is pick-up a phone and a charity would be at my beck and call.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="The Front Door for Many Charities"][/caption]
The sad reality is that, even when I'm on location, it can be an uphill battle to team up with large reputable charities. This is regardless of how many times I get my foot in the door, regardless ...
Within Reach of Davos
In January of 2007, I withdrew from grad school at the University of Notre Dame and began an unemployed, unplanned, and "uncultured" journey to help the poor.
Almost exactly three years later, that journey has brought me to within grasp of being able to talk to world leaders about global poverty at one of the planet's most important conferences. I can get there - but only with your help.
Out of 75 applications from around the world (and many more that didn't make the deadline), I was selected as one of five potential candidates to go to Davos. The winner, is determined ...
The Quest for Sustainability
[caption id="attachment_1801" align="aligncenter" width="481" caption="I Give a Talk to YouTube & Google Staff in San Bruno, California"][/caption]
"Years from now, I'm going to be looking back at this point in my life and laugh," I told my friend whom I'm staying with in San Francisco. "I'm doing something successful enough that people are inviting me to meet them and give talks... yet unsuccessful enough that I can't afford to buy myself some new clothes," I said with a wry laugh.
Right now I'm in San Francisco - home of Silicon Valley. It's home to where all this technology that has made this ...
The Final Week?
This is maybe my final week in Bangladesh.
Since I landed, I've been trying to complete projects related to Challenge Poverty. As you know, I've been working on building that Pond Sand Filter and repairing that school. It's been nearly 6 months and I want to wrap everything up in the next 72 hours. Yeah.... that maybe a bit ambitious. Fingers crossed.
The good news is that the water quality of that Pond Sand Filter is now clear, clean, and deemed safe to drink by official tests conducted by the Department of Public Health here in Bangladesh. Here's a photo. One is ...
My work with this project has always been unpaid, unemployed, and (for the most part) unplanned. It’s probably now that I should talk about the fact that I’d like to one day earn a living doing this.
What do I mean by “earning a living”? Well, in the near term, I would like to be able to stop borrowing from friends and family to pay for things like meals, clothes, and even basics like getting a haircut. In the long term, I’d like to one day live that “American Dream” somewhere in suburbia.
At the same time, I want to be able to follow my passion. Helping others – especially in ways that connect people using technology – is a dream come true. Even though I believe we can end extreme poverty, I want to be able to continue to help others for the rest of my life.
The desire to earn a living from your passion maybe a no-brainer for many people reading this. But it deserves discussion because not everyone agrees that you should be able to earn a living if your passion is fighting poverty.
Based upon popular request, here are the revised (and simpler) voting instructions on how to get me to Davos to talk to world leaders about global poverty:
Last year, I had expressed my disappointment with the Davos Debates. Not because I lost – but because of the manner in which the winner was selected. It seemed arbitrary, done behind closed doors, and completely undemocratic.
With this year’s winner being selected by popular vote, does this make this year’s Davos Debates nothing more than a mere popularity contest? Not at all – and I mean that even if I lose by a landslide.
The Davos Debates would have been a popularity contest if voting was the only method of selecting a candidate. In that case, it would make a lot of sense for any of those big YouTube mega-stars to submit a video (it could even be unrelated to Davos) and win by a landslide. Free trip to Davos!
But, what I like about this year is that it combines an evaluation of ideas and a way to prove a candidates campaign & rallying ability. The first round was all about ideas. The judges didn’t care if you have 1, 100, or 1 million YouTube subscribers.
Just to give you an idea of how impartial these panel of judges were: the head of a US-based charity that partners with the Professor Yunus’s Grameen Bank also submitted a video the Davos Debates. He was not selected as a finalist.
The second round, is all about a candidate’s ability to rally support for their cause. I like because it combines the best of last year’s contest (the search and selection of good ideas) with the idea of transparency and opening up the selection process to the people.
The way it is setup now, whoever gets to speak at Davos can say “I have an important message and I have a lot of people who want you to hear it”. It gives much needed weight that have been missing in previous iterations of the Davos Debates.
I was checking Dailybooth just now and found one of my friends Vondell had drawn this:
Shawn of the Uncultured Project is in the running for a slot at the 2010 World Economic Forum Meeting. If selected, he will have a chance speak to world leaders about the terrifically strong and largely untapped power the YouTube community has as a force of good.
Watch Shawn’s video and vote here: http://www.youtube.com/Davos
Votes can be submitted every day until the 15th of January.
Tonight it doesn’t matter if I never ever get to Davos because this drawing is awesome
In January of 2007, I withdrew from grad school at the University of Notre Dame and began an unemployed, unplanned, and “uncultured” journey to help the poor.
Almost exactly three years later, that journey has brought me to within grasp of being able to talk to world leaders about global poverty at one of the planet’s most important conferences. I can get there – but only with your help.
Out of 75 applications from around the world (and many more that didn’t make the deadline), I was selected as one of five potential candidates to go to Davos. The winner, is determined by you – because it’s your vote that determines the winner.
I won’t lie. I’m up against some brilliant people. I wish we could all go – because I’d love to meet them all and brainstorm. At the same time, I know that it’s not like global poverty can be solved with a one week trip to Switzerland.
But this could be big. It’s the biggest thing to ever happen in my life and it could be the biggest thing for the future of this project. So, if you’d like to help, here’s how you can do so:
Things you will need [REVISED as of Jan 11th, 2010]:
A YouTube or Google account. Signing up for either is free.UPDATE: You don’t need to signup for anything to vote.
An internet connection good enough to use YouTube.
The ability to get online every 24 hours until January 15th.
If Possible: Friends & family who might be interested in voting as well.
2. On the top half of the page, you will see something about the Davos Debates. It will have three tabs. Click on “vote”.
3. You will see five videos from the five candidates. Select my video called “A Message to Davos” – the thumbnail is my picture.
Videos Are Randomly Sorted and May Not Appeared In This Order
4. Once the video starts playing, click the green thumbs-up button. Wait a few seconds. Your vote has been placed.
When The Red Thumbs Down Turns Grey, Your Vote Has Been Cast.
5. You can vote again everyday.
It may seem that, with so many followers on Twitter and so many subscribers, this is all but guaranteed. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Without getting too academic, it boils down to public vs. private networks. My support network is very public. And, like every network, not everyone following me or subscribed will be reading my tweets, watching the videos, or reading this blog.
It’s very possible (and very likely) that many of these candidates have a group of friends, family, and colleagues who will be diligently voting. This could be close.
Hey Shawn, I saw your Davos video (of course) and the one blaring thing I noticed is that you did not mention what is UNIQUE about YOU. Lots of people work on ending poverty. You even listed websites who are doing it too.. but you didn’t say.. what is special about YOU.
You’ve gotta start using that as your leverage. Thats why I gave YOU money instead of them. That’s why we follow you. You’ve got a unique audience because of the unique way you work – which is also important.
Mention it in your next davos, and in any of the other videos you make that describe what you do. The thing about not using guilt, about showing your viewers where the money goes.. use that. use the unique viewers you have.. we are not middle aged charity people.
We’re nerdfighters and youtubers and we are powerful – use it!
Children in Barguna, Bangaldesh watch YouTube video responses of people who told me to provide this village with clean & safe drinking water. Clean water project implemented with Save the Children.
This is not a charity, organization, or anything formal. It’s my journey to try and make the world a better place - one meaningful difference at a time. It’s about inspiring others to believe that we can be the generation that ends extreme poverty. Hopefully, this project can also show the big multinational organizations that there is a better way to engage people on the issue of global poverty.
I'm Shawn - a 28 year old Canadian from Toronto. Before starting this project, I was a graduate student on scholarship at Notre Dame University. My life took a turn after I met Dr. Jeffrey Sachs (author of the book "The End of Poverty") when he came to give a speech at Notre Dame. That speech inspired me to withdraw from grad school, liquidate my savings, and begin this journey to try and make the world a better place - one meaningful difference at a time.