Echoing Green News

At about 5:30 am this morning, my colleagues and I (and my dog, Josie!) packed up our things and left the Echoing Green offices after a marathon all-nighter during which we had the difficult task of winnowing down the ninety-nine top-ranked applications to the twenty-three finalist organizations we’ll invite to the 2009 Echoing Green Fellowship selection weekend at the beginning of May. (This is no small feat and began with an initial pool of close to 1,000 applicants from all over the world.)

Be sure to check out ThinkChange India, a blog focused on social innovation and social entrepreneurship in India. One of their features is a regular column entitled TC-I Changemakers, which highlights “organizations and people doing some remarkable work to change the world and change India.” Their latest interviewee?  Echoing Green President Cheryl Dorsey.

When I talk to young people about to embark on a career in social change, I often tell them I have never had a dull day. Literally, I can state with utmost confidence that I have NEVER been bored in all my work years; there’s never a lack of interesting things to do EVER. Well, yesterday is a perfect example of this.

Lara Galinsky of Echoing Green answers listener questions about creating meaningful careers. Britt Bravo hosts the show. In this week's episode, they discuss the following two questions:

Question 1:

Echoing Green is set to take over Capitol Hill tomorrow, as President Cheryl Dorsey and 1994 Fellow Van Jones are slated to testify before the House Education and Labor Committee.

Today’s New York Times featured a front page article on the release of Binyam Mohamed, a long-time Guantanamo detainee.  Mohamed is a British resident who has spent the past seven years in American custody.  He was released today in London after all charges against him were dismissed.  His attorney is 2005 Echoing Green Fellow, Clive Stafford Smith. 

According to the article:

This is just a quick reminder to RSVP for Cheryl Dorsey's talk next month at New York University.  She's speaking March 3, 2009 at 12pm as a part of the Reynold's speaker series on "Social Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century."

The event will take place in Shorin, Room 802 at the NYU Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square South.  All are welcome (including those outside the NYU community), but space is limited and an RSVP is required: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228CAUV8XLS

Curious about what's happening with the new Presidential Administration and Social Innovation?  Check your inbox. Echoing Green's quarterly newsletter was just released this morning featuring an interview with Michele Jolin of Obama's Technology, Innovation and Government Reform Policy Working Group.

Lara Galinsky of Echoing Green answers listener questions about creating meaningful careers. Britt Bravo hosts the show. In this week's episode, they discuss the following two questions:

Question 1:

A recent edition of The Christian Science Monitor featured the incredible work of 2007 Echoing Green Fellow Melanie Edwards and her organization, MobileMetrix.  In “How To Count The ‘Invisibles,’” Gregory M. Lamb discusses the origins of MobileMetrix and the influence that it has had on local youth across Brazil, who are employed to take surveys with hand-held devices.  “One applicant held up his hand during his job interview and showed that he’d lost two fingers, blown off by a hand grenade during a drug war.