It’s a time of change and more and more, the leaders of new companies, businesses and change leaders are under 25. In an effort to understand the new youth activism, our good friend, Alex Steed is embarking on a pretty amazing mission through a project called Millennials Changing America. According to the site:

Millennial activists are, according to social entrepreneur and writer Allison Fine, “young people … who practice a nascent model of civic participation that combines immersion in social causes, idealism [and] digital fluency.” The goal of the Millenials Changing America project is to paint a comprehensive and diverse picture of what millennial activists think, look like, and how they function.

To do this, Alex is doing it the old fashioned way, by touring across America through October, November, and December of 2008 with some recording equipment, a used car and an ocasional co-pilot with the intention of talking to as many millennial activists as possible.

We have to admit, we love the road trip execution and community effort (a ton of organizations and bloggers have rallied to make this possible and room and board are generously provided via CouchSurfing.org.)

You can follow Alex’s tour and progress via the Millenials Changing America blog. And if you’ve got some friends for him to hook up with, give him a shout. ADB will be here with open arms when Alex swings back through New York, but an extra friend to meet or interview, organization to chat with, or dive bar to visit are always welcome to an inspired and friendly traveler. Here’s the tour schedule.

TED’s pretty much wrapped up, but there are a ton of projects to come out of the talks, including those started by the winners of the TED Prize. Created as a way of taking the inspiration, ideas and resources that are generated at TED and using them to make a difference, the winners are given a wish, $100,000 and the talent of other TED attendees and the online community to make it happen.

Last year, former president Bill Clinton, photographer James Nachtwey and biologist EO Wilson received the TED Prize resulting in help developing “high quality rural health system for the whole country” of Rwanda, help in reporting and spreading “a story that the world needs to know about” related to public health, and the development of the first version of the Encyclopedia of Life.

This year’s TED Prize winners are writer David Eggers, physicist Neil Turok, and religious scholar Karen Armstrong.

Eggers is the founder of San Francisco 826Valencia, a very successful writing and tutoring lab for young people from the neighborhood, which has since been cloned in five other American cities.

David’s wish– to take the educational project further.

“empowering a child with writing is the essence of democracy”. He asks the conference’s attendees — and anyone else who’s in a position to help — to “find a way to directly engage with a public school in your area” and then share the story of their involvement on the OnceUponASchool website, hoping in their inspirational effect to start a virtuous cycle, “so that within a year we have 1000 examples of transformative partnerships”.

The newly live site offers ideas for ways to get involved, like helping a school develop a web presence (a site, podcasts, etc.), building a tutoring center yourself, or hiring a classroom for work experience. It also offers guidelines for partnering with schools, easy ways to finding a school near you, provides a space for receiving people’s pledges and stories of involvement.

Neil Turok is a South-African born physicist at Cambridge, a close collaborator of Stephen Hawking (with whom he speculated and infinite universe in which the Big Bang wasn’t the first nor last), and the founder of the African institute for mathematical sciences (AIMS).

Neil’s wish — Help me, he says, make sure that the next Einstein will be African, by “unlocking and nurturing scientific talent” across the continent, because The only people who can fix Africa are talented young Africans”.

According to TED, he plans “to build 15 centers of excellence across Africa, possibly modeled on AIMS but specialized in different areas of science, recruiting outstanding students and teachers, developing fellowship and entrepreneurship programs, attracting both private and public support, etc. Turok plans to start with Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda and Madagascar; he has already obtained political support, and local scientists will be leading the way. “The institutes have to be relevant, innovative, cost-effective, and high quality, because we want Africa to be rich.”

Karen Armstrong is a religious thinker and former nun who has written more than 20 books on faith and the major religions.

In each of the major world’s faiths, compassion is not only the test of any true religiosity, also the way to get into the presence of the divinity. In compassion we remove ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there. Every major tradition has put at its core a “golden rule”: do not do to others what you do not want be done to you.

The traditions also insisted that you could not and must not confine your compassion to your own group. You must have concern for everybody. Love your enemies. Honor the stranger. We formed you into tribes and nations so that you may know one another, says the Koran. There is also a great deal of religious illiteracy. People seem to equate faith with “believing things”, and very often secondary goals get pushed into first place instead of the golden rule, compassion, because the golden rule is difficult. A lot of religious people prefer to be right, rather than compassionate.
It seems to me that our current situation is so serious that any ideology that doesn’t promote a sense of global understanding and global appreciation of each other is failing the test of the time. The golden rule should be applied globally, we should not treat other nations in ways that we would not like to be treated ourselves. It’s time that we move beyond the idea of toleration, and towards appreciation of the other.

Karen’s wish–help me, she asked, “with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion”, to be crafted by a group of twelve inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and “based on the fundamental principles of universal justice and respect”.

According to TED, “Bridging the divide among the three prevalent monotheistic faiths…will require a call for the creation of a totally new narrative, stepping beyond hatred and defensiveness and, in Armstrong’s own words, ‘making the authentic voice of religion a power in the world that is conducive to peace’. It will necessitate operational support (which will come from the UN Alliance of Civilizations, but also from individuals). Mostly, it will depend on the participation of many and on finding the right answer to the key question: Who are the spiritual leaders of these three religions who should be solicited to participate in the group of twelve?”

Wanna Help?

Each project is ambitious in its own way (we’d expect nothing less from TED) but world changing ideas can always use some help going from ideas to reality. There are a planned list of needs and discussion boards for each project asking for everything from server hosting, marketing partners/plans and websites, to nominations of spiritual leaders. So check out the TED Prize site for more info on the projects/winners and to offer your skills.

The videos of today’s three TED Prize speeches will be released on TED.com.

Thanks to everyone for coming out to Cause for Drinks last night in support of Idea Generation!

We drew an eclectic mix of artists, entrepreneurs and innovators from across the country for the common cause of drinking to change the world. Need we say more? (Yes we should probably flesh out that last sentence)

In all seriousness, last night was an example of the overwhelming passion, energy and skills we young people possess and want to use to change the world for the better and it is alldaybuffet’s mission to provide a forum and framework where young, creative geniuses spanning the range of industries, ages and talents can gather to connect and, most importantly, make things happen.

We’ll soon be locking ourselves in a room filled with your brilliance in post-it note form and selecting the choicest ones to submit to your vote. But we haven’t yet rounded up all the Doritos, and DingDongs we’ll need for this all-nighter, so there’s still time to submit your ideas! Email any and all brainstorms to ideas[at]alldaybuffet[dot]org and let’s keep this party going!

We can’t wait to see what you guys have to say. And keep an eye out for a new section of the site (coming soon) where you’ll be able to find all the best ideas and vote on which will get funding from the money raised at last night’s CFD.

Thanks again for being a part of this and working to make a difference one step at a time!

Cheers,

- The alldaybuffet team

alldaybuffet is ultimately about action, but more than action, it is about empowering YOU (yes all of you reading this right now) to do what YOU want to make the world a better place.

We want YOU!
And no this is not Uncle Sam speaking. Rather than a call to arms, this is a call to ideas- specifically YOUR ideas. We want to collect the best ideas for social change from YOU (the alldaybuffet brain trust) and support YOU all in taking action and transforming these ideas into reality!

Here’s how it works:

1) Share your ideas for social change at the upcoming Cause for Drinks! If you snooze you still don’t lose (not in this case at least), check the Idea Generation section in the near future to be able to submit your ideas online.

2) Once we have collected your ideas, we will pick the juiciest most promising ones to be posted in the Idea Generation section at which point it is up to YOU all to decide which projects you want to pursue. The monies raised at this month’s Cause for Drinks will go towards supporting YOU in pursuing the projects that YOU all decide are the worthiest. Yes it is true, go run and tell your friends and family- drinking can actually help save the world!

The Bottom Line

We all know the great potential we posses to change the world, YET as long as this remains just potential, the elephant in the room will remain with it’s pleading, teary-eyed puppy dog look begging us to act (you know that look that elephants get right?).

In all seriousness, we at alldaybuffet are here for nothing less than to empower YOU, the up-and-coming leaders of tomorrow, to get started today, put your idea where your mouth is and act to change the world.

Are YOU ready?

(for Cause for Drinks times and locations click here.)

Whats up ADBers–We are working on a project and we need your help. On Thursday 15 MAY 08, ADB will be hosting ‘School of Rock,’ an event with Education Through Music (ETM) (www.etmonline.org) and we need help with artist solicitation and publicity. During the event ETM students from all 5 boroughs will be performing a musical selection with a ‘featured artist.’ Currently we are in conversation with Moby, Common, Alicia Keys…and a number of other ‘big name’ musical artists but we could use your help securing more. We are also looking for publicity help. The event won’t be a hard sell. It’s taking place at a great space (The Canal Room), there will be many big names there, it’s a fresh idea, and most importantly it’s all for a great cause.

Please contact victor.jeffreys@gmail.com if you interested in helping out or for more information.

Want some motivation to get creative? Check out thing-a-day.

Join artists and creators of all types and backgrounds in a collective creative sprint. Thing-a-day invites you to join a daily creative endeavor where everyone who signs up commits to making one thing (project, sketch, exercise) per day and shares it online on this collective blog. Take advantage of the opportunity to share ideas and receive constructive advice while developing new work.

For each day of the month, starting February 1st, you spend a little time each day to make one thing (an average of 20 minutes a day and no more than an hour); Document it – write, take pictures, videos, post things online; then post what you made, or a link to what you’ve made, on the thing-a-day blog.

You can see what everyone else has made, comment, give and get advice, find an audience for your work or just enjoy creating something every day.Like anything else, it takes a little bit of time management to see your creative ideas through and it never hurts to have some incentive (the thought of the flickr calendar alone is enough for me) or deadlines (though the site says thing-a-day.com will not send you reminders, threats or harassment if you don’t do your post. Once you sign up, you’re on your own). Inspired by Ze Frank, the group of ITPers who created the platform figure that if Ze can do it, so can you.

Today’s the last day to register here, so commit to knit, cook, draw, paint, tape, solder, write, install, destroy, invent, document. “This is your chance to get your creative energy going and challenge yourself to make something out of all these ideas in your head.”

Ed Cotton from Influx has started a “Planning for Good” group.

“Planning for Good is an organization made up of marketing communication strategists and their friends who’ve come together to lend their skills to support nonprofits…Here you’ll find some of the smartest thinkers in the business, people who intimately understand how to uncover insight, build brands and create powerful stories around them.” – from PSFK

The first brief is on the great city of New Orleans through Idea Village. Other blogs have written on the topic so rather than re-writing everything, I’ll copy and paste below…

Jason Oke from Leo Burnett Toronto blog writes that while most of the coverage of New Orleans has focused on the problems and negatives, another story has quietly emerged: the city has become a magnet of sorts for adventurous young people with energy, a sense of purpose, and a realization that this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience to help re-invent a city. As Forbes Magazine has said:

The brief is to help the Idea Village build their brand, so they in turn can help build New Orleans. How should the Idea Village define and articulate who they are and what they do? How can they attract and motivate these smart young people moving to New Orleans?

I’m encouraging everyone to use their skills for good. New Orleans needs powerful ideas to create massive change. We need an influx of more young people posed to be our city’s next leaders. We need more positive news coming out of the city. You don’t need to move down to New Orleans to help rebuild it and with the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina right around the corner, it’s already being hit with the negativity and pessimistic POV from the press. Personally, I’m tired of hearing about it as everybody else so this is a chance to do something about it. One person can only do so much but a collective group working together can create powerful change.

You can start by joining the facebook group here and stay tuned on the Influx, Brand New, Leo Burnett and Fallon blogs for updates…

In the meantime, here are some nuggets to help you get started…

“Now, instead of the brain drain, the city is nurturing a brain gain. New Orleans has become the testing ground for a new career and lifestyle ideal among today’s 20-somethings — called “millennials” by some — one that places less importance on the value of money, title and a swift climb up the corporate ladder.

Faced with an increasingly global economy, less job security and more awareness of global problems, many graduates are seeking a more fluid and socially responsible career. New Orleans, with its myriad systems in crisis and authentic laissez faire charm, has emerged as a new mecca for adventurous young people hoping to start their careers, have a good time and make the world a better place.”
Read the rest of the article here.

Daryn Dodson, a 28-year-old Stanford MBA grad from Washington, D.C. working with Idea Village, relocated to New Orleans after volunteering in the lower Ninth Ward. “This is one of the great stories of American history,” he says, “but the rest isn’t written yet.”
Read the rest of the article here.

Tim Williamson, founder of the Idea Village, says it is the people — not necessarily business or political leaders — who will set the course for the region’s economy. “We believe New Orleans could be a center for innovation,” he said. “For right now, let’s recruit the people to solve the problems and let them create the new industries. They will find the next big industries for our community.”
Read the rest of the article here

The Idea Village is developing linked community “Innovation Centers” to revitalize key commercial corridors in New Orleans, with the pilot center under development in the Upper 9th Ward where NOAHH has its highest concentration of affordable housing. The Idea Village @ N. Galvez will be an outpost that provides access to retail space, technology, technical assistance, financial services, and other essential resources necessary to economic recovery and development. This center is designed to be a catalyst for a robust commercial corridor that will fuel private investment throughout the neighborhood, giving residents a sense of confidence, ownership, and participation in their community.
Read the rest of the article here.

If anyone has any questions, please post them below!