Dream the Impossible Dream

Dream the Impossible Dream, presented by Dimity Dornan

Next Actions

Next Actions:
In order to progress the Children of Tomorrow projects a number of immediate next steps have been identified and they include:

• Email wider group for supporters;
• Web site development;
• Set up group of supporters under:
• CoT Project Leaders
• Youth Mentors
• Youth Leaders
• Meeting for Children of Tomorrow project leaders in Hong Kong June 2009;
• Formation of team of youth leaders;
• Set up International Patrons;
• Set up National Patrons/Champions;
• Establish international meeting for all interested parties late 2009.

Potential Sponsors

Potential Sponsors:

Children of Tomorrow projects could be supported by various youth organisations such as:

• World Scholar/ Athlete Games
• International Baccalaureate Schools
• Next Generation of Global Leaders
• United Nations
• National Society of High School Scholars NSHSS (Nobel)
• Global Youth Leaders (Clinton)

The calibre of the Children of Tomorrow projects could also attract potential sponsorship from organisations such as:

• Edmund Rice International (ERI Organisation International)
• IT providers (eg. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft)
• UN Agencies (eg. Save the Children Fund)
• Other international media, communication and news organisations (eg. News Limited – Rupert Murdoch)
• Various worldwide governments
• Education organisations (eg. Universities and schools)
• Various religious groups (eg. Christians, Buddhists, Islam, Hindu)
• Other philanthropic group

StimNet

Supporting Project 3. StimNet

Project Overview

• Internet based mentoring program linking computer learners in developing countries with computer learners in developing countries with computer experts globally
• Provide, exchange, and generate new ideas
• Empower visionary thinkers and social entrepreneurs
• Foster communities that transcend geographic boundaries
• Promote peace and learning by harnessing the good will of people around the globe

Philosophy: Through helping others we help ourselves. Humanity's knowledge is the most powerful tool and each individual possesses the ability create ideas of great value to others. Our goal is to re-establish a meritocracy of ideas through giving voice and opportunity to inspire to each individual who chooses to make StimNet part of their lifestyle.

In the same spirit as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner and democratically elected leader of Burma, who said "Please use your liberty to promote ours." we believe that sharing knowledge not only enriches each of us, but is also critical to addressing the growing needs of our global communities.

Main concepts:

• Increasing amount & access to information is making more it more difficult for people to find, identify, sort through information.
• Rise in social networking/users
• Moving toward one global economy-increasingly interdependent economies.
  Yet we aren't connecting in meaningful ways to one another and are failing to bridge cultural, economic and social differences. Without bridges to/for "understanding" these online communities aren't achieving any measurable results in isolation geographic, cultural, generational gaps.
• Rise in online capabilities have done little to address isolationism, xenophobia, and extremist behaviour (e.g. it's not being utilized "for good". (study?) (Wired magazine, reference to US govt utilizing web to show connection/understanding of jihadists).

Back to the basics

Made popular by the sites like mySpace, Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, (etc.....) the concept of social networking has gained social, economic, and political currency (and legitimacy) in recent years. Yet, the concept of social networks was introduced in the early 1950s by sociologist J. A. Barnes who coined the term "social networks" to describe the personal connections that span traditional professional, family, ethnic, or socioeconomic groupings. Moeover, while social networks have achieved a new social, political, and economic status in recent years, the concept is the same: seeking advice and sharing thoughts/ideas with "friends".

The exponential growth of social networking sites demonstrates the overwhelming desire for people to make connections. With the number of users increasing by ____/day (Wikipedia), statistics attest to the "phenomenon" of people connecting to, drawing strength from, each other. (Josh Bernoff, co-author, The Groundswell effect,)

However, as the popularity of social networking quickly wanes and the number of active users (vs total users) reflects, people are not completely satisfied by their experience. Furthermore, as more companies try to leverage the power of the websites, they still find that Word of mouth is cited as the number-one influence on business purchase decisions. More importantly, the vast majority of these word-of-mouth interactions are happening offline. (Istudy2 of U.S. and U.K. executives conducted by the Keller Fay Group)

According to one industry analyst, perhaps a more critical line of questioning is how to become a meaningful part of the existing relationships of trust and advice-seeking through which target individuals examine ideas, evaluate existing offerings, and make decisions.

Moving in a direction of one economy
We live in a world that is increasingly interdependent.

Broad-based appeal
Ideally, we would like to think that the virtue of doing good by helping people (which in turn makes people feel good) would be enough to draw people back to the site. However, given a growing number of options and a finite number of hours in each day, hedonism alone is not enough.

What will draw people back to StimNet will be a combination of factors, depending largely on the interest of our various groups of users. (**need to outline the profile of our users*).

• the depth and range of valuable information available
• the opportunity to be part of a community that is having an impact the chance to be mentored
• evolving statistics/data: what are issues needing answers? Where are they coming from? Where are the answers coming from?
  
  the draw to a site where you can be measured by the quality of your ideas
  

Point of Contact: Tim Hillman - tim@timhillman.com

FairestTradeofall.com

Supporting Project 2. FairestTradeofall.com

Project Overview

The fairesttradeofall.com is an innovative web-based micro-enterprise initiative aimed at supporting community development in developing countries.

The technology to enable this simple idea has just matured through initiatives such as SolarnetOne, the Rural Internet Connectivity System and One Laptop Per Child, and this is the time to make a difference. Low-cost technology is the middleman, enabling communities to reap the full commercial benefit of getting their product FROM their communities, TO a global marketplace. Buy now, direct from the local artisans, pay for their work, support their communities.

A financial institution with a strong CSR commitment will partner to manage payments, and a global transport company will partner to get the art and craft products to your front door.
The fairesttradeofall.com will enable communities to pay back initial investment costs for infrastructure set-up, ensuring true community ownership.

Scope and Goals of Project

To support community development through an integrated set of activities covering:

• income generation
• targeted education
• social cohesion and mobilization
• communication

The fairesttradeofall.com would enable the Children of Tomorrow group of projects to become sustainable for all children of tomorrow.

Point of contact: Peter Vanderwaal - peter.vanderwal@jtai.com.au

“Share” Website Project

Supporting Project 1. “Share” Website Project - Youth creating the way for a positive future

Project Overview

Our knowledge of interactive websites worldwide available and popular with young people seem to be totally focused on the social dimension only.

We would like to prepare a website that picks up this interactive social dimension whilst focusing on important issues of international concern. We hope that this would create a generation of concerned young people who would be able to communicate constantly with each other and explore solutions for the benefit of all human kind.

We believe we can create/design an international website that “competes” with some of the current popular websites (eg. Facebook, Myspace and Bebo). We believe the focus of such websites is very much centred on each individual with a narcissistic flavour rather than the sharing of information for the greater good.

We would like this new website to be created by young people for young people as a way to ensure generational change through the internet.

Through this we would like to create an environment where children and young adults can truly “communicate and learn about powerful ideas to find solutions and to work with others globally to make a better global world for their own generation” (Program Overview – Children of Tomorrow).

Scope and Goals of Project

1. To create a contemporary social and information sharing medium through which users can communicate with each other and develop appropriate relationships with others of like mind and to help ensure justice and equity on our planet.
2. To develop a website of international standing supported in part by the ERI Organisation Worldwide to support the various arms of this organisation and any other like minded alliance groups (eg. the Children of Tomorrow projects?).
3. To ensure that the website is interactive, user friendly and attractive to young people.
4. To encourage young people to develop a social conscience through this medium and thus become aware of emerging and ongoing problems with a view to seeking long term solutions.
5. To enable the sharing of issues of world wide concern between a wide variety of people hopefully ensuring a rapid response by as many people/organisations as possible. Ideally this would be led by passionate young people motivated by their interaction with this website.
6. To provide an avenue through which people/organisations will be able to respond quickly to worldwide crises and contribute either personnel or funds to help this occur.
7. To provide an instantaneous and spontaneous avenue through which young people can provide information to a central data and news collection hub.
8. To be a place of consensus data collection for those persons/organisations who have the ability to create a better environment for those in need.
   
   Potential Sponsors

• Edmund Rice International (ERI Organisation International)
• IT providers (eg. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft)
• UN Agencies (eg. Save the Children Fund)
• Other international media, communication and news organisations (eg. News Limited – Rupert Murdoch)
• Various worldwide governments
• Education organisations (eg. Universities and schools)
• Various religious groups (eg. Christians, Buddhists, Islam, Hindu)
• Other philanthropic groups

Point of Contact: Chris Vincent - chris.vincent@optusnet.com.au

Hear and Say WorldWide

Hear and Say WorldWide is a global program to teach young children with hearing loss to listen and speak. Hearing loss is the most common disability in newborns, and affects listening, spoken language, literacy, education, social and emotional development and career opportunities. Often the outcomes are isolation and poverty, if diagnosis is too late for effective treatment.

Hear and Say WorldWide will support children with hearing loss by training hearing healthcare teams globally in best practices for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss. The potential for these children is for listening and spoken language and education opportunities the same as those of their hearing peers. The project will focus on modern hearing and communication technology and techniques to give children the potential for listening and spoken language, education, socialisation, and economic success.

Point of Contact: Dimity Dornan – dimity@hearandsaycentre.com.au
Reference: http://www.hearandsayworldwide.com

SolarNetOne

This is a personal project of Dr. Vint Cerf, co-founder of the internet, undertaken with the Network Resources Start-up Center (NSRC) at the University of Oregon and Gnuveau Networks in Florida. Basically this is a solar-powered “Internet Café” that can be shipped in three large DHL boxes and set up to operate as a business in developing countries where power is often uncertain and Internet connectivity may require satellite access.

The system provides local wireless Internet access, a number of user stations with terminals, satellite ground station if needed, open source software to avoid licensing issues, many Internet applications including Voice-over-IP, email, web browsing, instant messaging, and so on. One unit has been delivered to Nigeria and another is slated for shipment to Kenya.
Point of Contact: Vint Cerf

Google.Org

This is the philanthropic arm of Google and it is concentrating on Poverty elimination and Environmental threats (most especially but not limited to Global Warming). There is a strong theme throughout the effort to leverage high opportunity investments and programs into global initiatives.

The organization is run by Dr. Larry Brilliant, MD. It is formulated so as to be able to make business investments to accelerate the ability of groups of people to climb from poverty to plenty. Dr. Brilliant is especially focused on steps that can have major leveraging effects on poverty and environmental challenges.

Point of Contact: Larry Brilliant (Larry.Brilliant@google.com) oona@google.com

About Google.org

In 2004, when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote to prospective shareholders about their vision for the company, they outlined a commitment to contribute significant resources, including 1% of Google's equity and profits in some form, as well as employee time, to address some of the world's most urgent problems. That commitment became Google.org.

Google.org is a hybrid philanthropy that uses a range of approaches to help advance solutions within our five initiatives. We operate in a traditional manner by supporting our partners’ work with targeted grants. But we can also invest in for-profit endeavors, such as efforts by companies to develop breakthrough renewable energy technologies. Our structure also allows us to lobby for policies that support our philanthropic goals. Additionally, we can tap Google’s innovative technology and, most importantly, its inspired workforce. We’ve already begun to donate and invest Google.org’s funds, and we expect to continue to do so in the future.

Google also established the Google Foundation in 2005, which is a separate 501(c)(3) private foundation. The Google Foundation is managed by Google.org and supports our mission and core initiatives as one of our sources of funds for grant making. As of May 2008, Google.org has committed over $85 million in grants and investments to further our five initiatives.

The Growing Connection

This is a project that originated with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Robert Patterson runs the program from the Washington, DC office of the FAO. There are two aspects of the program: growing fresh food (leafy vegetables, corn, tomatoes, green beans, hot peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, many herbs and spices, scores of other edible plants) and linking users to the Internet.

The term “growing connection” has a deliberate double entendre. The plants are grown in Earth Boxes (highly resilient and rugged plastic) using local filler (peat moss, ground coconut shells, sand, etc.). They are designed to minimize water evaporation and generally use only 20% of the water that would normally be required to produce the same quantity of food. Where it is desired, these boxes can be mechanically harvested.

The other side of this equation is connection to the Internet so that the children who learn to use Earth Boxes to grow food can also harvest the information content of the Internet and share experiences online with other children around the world who are doing the same thing. Google has 300 Earth Boxes deployed on its Mountain View, California campus. As will be seen from the web references below, the operation is already world-wide in scope.

Point of Contact: Robert Patterson
http://www.earthbox.com/ OR http://www.thegrowingconnection.org/

One Laptop Per Child

This program was started by Nick Negroponte (of MIT) and is now in production of a device costing approximately $200/U.S. The idea is to provide every child in the world with a laptop, owned and operated by the child who uses the devices. It is well underway. Devices are en route to Uruguay and other countries. Reference: http://laptop.org.

mission

Most of the nearly two–billion children in the developing world are inadequately educated, or receive no education at all. One in three does not complete the fifth grade.
The individual and societal consequences of this chronic global crisis are profound. Children are consigned to poverty and isolation—just like their parents—never knowing what the light of learning could mean in their lives. At the same time, their governments struggle to compete in a rapidly evolving, global information economy, hobbled by a vast and increasingly urban underclass that cannot support itself, much less contribute to the commonweal, because it lacks the tools to do so.

It is time to rethink this equation.

Given the resources that developing countries can reasonably allocate to education—sometimes less than $20 per year per pupil, compared to the approximately $7500 per pupil spent annually in the U.S.—even a doubled or redoubled national commitment to traditional education, augmented by external and private funding, would not get the job done. Moreover, experience strongly suggests that an incremental increase of “more of the same”—building schools, hiring teachers, buying books and equipment—is a laudable but insufficient response to the problem of bringing true learning possibilities to the vast numbers of children in the developing world.

Standing still is a reliable recipe for going backward.

Any nation's most precious natural resource is its children. We believe the emerging world must leverage this resource by tapping into the children's innate capacities to learn, share, and create on their own. Our answer to that challenge is the XO laptop, a children's machine designed for “learning learning.”

XO embodies the theories of constructionism first developed by MIT Media Lab Professor Seymour Papert in the 1960s, and later elaborated upon by Alan Kay, complemented by the principles articulated by Nicholas Negroponte in his book, Being Digital.

Extensively field-tested and validated among some of the poorest and most remote populations on earth, constructionism emphasizes what Papert calls “learning learning” as the fundamental educational experience. A computer uniquely fosters learning learning by allowing children to “think about thinking”, in ways that are otherwise impossible. Using the XO as both their window on the world, as well as a highly programmable tool for exploring it, children in emerging nations will be opened to both illimitable knowledge and to their own creative and problem-solving potential.

OLPC is not, at heart, a technology program, nor is the XO a product in any conventional sense of the word. OLPC is a non-profit organization providing a means to an end—an end that sees children in even the most remote regions of the globe being given the opportunity to tap into their own potential, to be exposed to a whole world of ideas, and to contribute to a more productive and saner world community.
Until then, stay tuned.

Supporting Projects

Supporting the Children of Tomorrow Core Projects are a number of equally important initiatives that are also aimed at addressing global social injustice. These Supporting Projects include:

• Share – Building a social networking website like “Facebook” that focuses on important issues of international concern.
• Fairest Trade of All – Web-based micro-enterprise initiative aimed at supporting community development in developing countries.
• StimNet – Internet based mentoring program linking computer learners in developing countries with computer experts globally.

Core Projects Overview

The Children of Tomorrow initiative, like all great concepts, has grown from an embryonic idea, in this case a group of Core Projects that originally saw the global need to align efforts to help alleviate the social, emotional and financial poverty that affects so many people around the world. These Core projects include:

• One Laptop Per Child – Aiming to provide every child in the world with a laptop.
• The Growing Connection - Growing fresh food with reduced water in almost any conditions and sharing this experience with the world.
• Google.Org – Program of activities eliminating poverty and environmental threats.
• SolarNetOne – A local wireless Internet access system for the world.
• Hear and Say WorldWide – Teaching health professionals to teach young children with hearing loss to listen and speak.

Children of Tomorrow Background

Many global leaders are acknowledging that we need to change the current momentum for self destruction of our world.

Against a backdrop of unease and personal desire to take action, many young people of today have an awakening social conscience which distinguishes their generation. However for most young people this drive needs development and direction.

The Children of Tomorrow group of projects provide a structured framework for purposeful social action with a foundation of universal peace based on Earth ethics. Active involvement of youth in the Children of Tomorrow projects will have a direct impact on changing the current inevitable future of the world to benefit generations of tomorrow.