Your Mark On The World

April 23, 2014 - Read the Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://goo.gl/EDmNE0. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher. Nancy Hughes, a widow who might have been expected to enjoy a quiet retirement with an occasional cruise on a calendar, has instead joined the effort to address one of the world’s single biggest problems: poor people in the developing world are killing themselves and their children cooking over open fires while deforesting the planet in the bargain. Working with her Rotary club, Nancy has established a nonprofit organization called Stove Team International that built seven factories in five countries to manufacture clean burning wood stoves that require less than half as much wood and produce no visible smoke, 68% less particulate matter and 85% less carbon emission. Because the stoves are locally produced, they create quality jobs in communities that desperately need them. A

January 2, 2014 - Read the Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1ixrlo2. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes. Jake Harriman told me he believes he can end extreme poverty around the world within the next 30 years. That got my attention. You may recall that I profiled Harriman and his company Nuru International in a piece I wrote in November 2013 after attending the Social Innovation Summit at Stanford where we met. As I wrote then, “Harriman’s Nuru has taken an integrated approach to ending poverty by lifting entire communities out of poverty. Nuru starts by identifying a local business led by quality people who have the potential to scale. With financial support and mentoring, the plan is to grow the business and plow the profits back into the community. The local business owners pledge a significant portion of profits into nonprofit entities that are also led by locals to address issues of poverty in the community.” On Friday, Januar

September 25, 2013 - Read the Forbes article and watch the video here: http://onforb.es/1fnqh5o. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes. Archie Panjabi, who plays the tough, intelligent and seductive investigator on The Good Wife, is a celebrity spokesperson for Rotary and has been personally active in the effort to end polio around the world. Today, there are only three countries in the world where polio is endemic; Panjabi’s former home country, India, is not one of them. The country has been polio-free for three years now. On Wednesday, September 25, 2013 at 3:00 Eastern, Panjabi will join me live to discuss her role in the fight to end polio. After watching the interview, you can visit endpolio.org. Rotary will be livestreaming an event on World Polio Day, October 24, 2013. Put the event on your calendars and plan to watch. According to Rotary, the event “will be a global update on the status of polio eradication; our panelists will include Dr. Bruce Aylward,

April 17, 2014 - Read the Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/QdFhs7. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes. Robert S. Kaplan, co-chair of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, the largest venture philanthropy firm in the U.S. will join me for a live discussion of the strategies and impact of their approach: treating nonprofits like tech startups. Draper Richards Kaplan (DRK) is the product of venture capitalists William H. Draper and Robin Richards Donohoe, along with Kaplan, a Harvard Business School professor and former Vice Chair of Goldman Sachs. DRK begins by selecting a dozen high-impact startup nonprofits each year, typically giving them $300,000 to develop a model and prove their potential. Upon “graduation” the nonprofits typically begin to scale rapidly, jumping up to an annual budget of $2.5 million thereafter. In addition to startup funding, DRK provides training to help each nonprofit learn best practices in governance, st

March 29, 2014 - Read the article on Forbes and watch the interview there: http://onforb.es/1rQDh7x Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes. If you ask someone crippled by polio about the legacy of polio, you would likely hear about the life-altering implications of the horrid disease. When you ask the partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative–Rotary International, the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation–you will get another answer altogether. Polio’s real legacy, they say, is in the infrastructure established to eradicate the disease, which can be used to battle all infectious diseases. Add to that, the clear implication that mankind can radically shape the environment in which we live for the better within time scales that individuals–not just humanity–can appreciate and you begin to see a different picture. On March 31, 2014 at noon Eastern, John Hewko, the Gener

March 20, 2014 - You can read the Forbes articles and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1j9Atwg. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes. In recognition of World Water Day, Saturday, March 22, 2014, I’ll be visiting here live with John Taft, the CEO of RBC Wealth Management-US, about RBC’s Blue Water Project. Through the project, RBC has allocated almost $46 million of a $50 million commitment to improve access to clean drinking water and to fund related research at universities. The Blue Water Project has committed $38 million to 650 charitable organization working to preserve watersheds and improve access to clean drinking water. Another $7.8 million has been committed to universities. Water is increasingly having impact on business as demands for water increase along with global populations. RBC has indicated a desire to play a role in developing sustainable water policies. On Friday, March 21, 2014, at 1:00 Eastern, Taft joined me for a live discussi