No matter how smart we are, how righteous we are, how close to the truth, or the mark we all are, we will always do better when we work together, when we share prosperity, when we share responsibilities, when we share membership in the community. This is the spirit in which myself and my organization has been working under, taking volunteer action since 2008, to solve some of the most complex global issues that we all collectively face. It is an honor for me to be here today, my name is Clayton Louis Ferrara and I am a biologist. I have dedicated my life to conservation and protecting the natural world because it is what resonates and what is most important to me in my life. But, I chose to leave academia because of the problems at hand that are pressing and are going to destroy the world that we live in. The most important thing that I can do is to dedicate my life to creating other leaders and helping them to achieve their dreams. I am here today because I believe that the best way for my organization to achieve our vision by helping all of you. The solution that I am going to share with you today is a framework for achieving yours.
I have a very brief film.
<<Narrator: As a tax deductible 501(c)(3) nonprofit, accredited by the United Nations, the support of our people around the world is what keeps our movement running. Since 2008 Ideas for Us has addressed sustainability issues on campuses and communities around the world, head on. Our goal is to solve the energy, water, food, waste and ecology crisis of our time through sustainability, action, leadership, and innovation. From habitat restoration, to local food production, environmental cleanups and solar electrification. We have developed over 80 solutions that are being implemented by dozen of idea chapters in over 20 different countries in the world. So, the natural evolution was a monthly event and we call it the hive and it is supposed to be a think / do tank where people within these universities, schools professionals in the community, different civic leaders come together on a monthly basis to address a certain challenge and conceptualize an action project so we can actually take action engage, the community and create positive change.
Jeff Trapani (Hive Orlando – Organizer): The hive is about coming together, converging around an idea and the idea is the focus and it is something that is going to make a difference in the community.
Ashley Isabell (Hive Orlando – Former Organizer): The hive really has a very unique ability to just kind of morph and mold into whatever way you want it to work for your community.
Clayton Ferrara (Ideas for Us – Executive Director): The best part of the hive is that the people who come to it determine what we are going to do, what projects we are going to take action in. So, in any community across the world, wherever a hive starts, it directs its own destiny
Chris Castro (Ideas for Us – Founder) I think that every single one of us has a chance to make a difference in this world and the real change is going to come from collective action. It is going to come from each and every one of us taking a small part of our lives and doing the small part that we can in order to make a difference in the world. Collectively, that will make change happen. >>
Wonderful. There are commonalities that stop the development of programs, that stop ideas from turning into being successful solutions. We believe we have identified what they are. There are wonderful ideas in this room, I have heard some from all of you today, but there are many people, even more out there, that we need for the sustainable transition that are not being heard. Why? Well, they need people help them organise, they need a framework in which to develop these ideas, they need funding. In order to have an outcome you have to have an income and in many developing countries even the smallest amount of funding can make a tremendous difference. But, also, they need to know how to measure their impact, they need to have indicators, keep performance indicators, to generate significant statistically significant data for sustainable development solutions.
This is our aim that we have been piloting for the last year and a half. One of the slides up there said that the Hive has been going on for 47 months straight and that is exactly the case. It was the natural evolution of our organisation, and what we do, into a monthly think and do tank, to create these situations around the world and these solutions. Well, the best part is that anybody can take action. So, what is most exciting is that we are a grassroots network, our hand is open to all of you and we have been working on a platform to catalyse action in each of these places that our network exists. I hope some of you are noticing that your country might not be on there and its my purpose in coming here today to reach out to you for help. Well, after all we are all in this together we have a platform to share these solutions that’s intention was to launch on 2 November, but I am very happy to say that we are going to be halting that. We are going to be waiting an additional month based on the incredible relationships we have made here today I have a lot of networking to do with all of you, to hear your ideas and how we can implement them into our metrics and into our indicators, to scale these solutions and collect significantly statistical data. Thank you very much.