Daniel Lubetzky

OneVoice Glasgow is a purely-volunteer-driven chapter that has risen above the rest of the international support efforts to such degree that it is worthy of attention.  They receive zero funding from OneVoice, yet deliver so much in their community and beyond. If we can decode what has made them so extraordinary, international support for Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution will really take off.  Witness what a few committed volunteers have done:

From a wall in the John F. Kennedy Museum:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy, June 6 1966 (South Africa address)

….as part of a tour I organized for Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum to Jerusalem, here Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia founder) wears a cardboard kippa in front of Western Wall.

Paul McCartney, the newest member to join OneVoice’s Honorary Board of Advisors, has recently written to President Barack Obama making him aware of OneVoice. While performing in Tel Aviv last year, Paul’s message was to bring people together via the power of music – a sentiment that is shared by two singers, Noa, an Israeli Jew and Mira Awad, an Israeli Arab, who are members of OneVoice Israel.  They performed a song together for the Eurovision song contest titled There Must Be Another Way.

 “This seems to me like a great idea, the symbolism of two people from both sides coming together to spread their message of peace via music is exciting and inspiring for me. I hope President Obama looks into this organisation and feels that OneVoice could be part of a peaceful solution.”

Link to the story

Great news for getting OneVoice’s recent polls – which highlight the grassroots mandate for a two-state solution – into the conversations happening at the top levels of DC policy-making: yesterday in his opening remarks for the US Senate Hearing on the Middle East with Tony Blair, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana (R) – who is the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Republican leader – cited the recent OneVoice poll as evidence of grassroots acceptance for a negotiated two state solution:

This statement demonstrates that America’s leaders are hungry for public support for the two-state solution, and hopefully our poll will provide them with momentum to aggressively pursue peace negotiations.

There are some people in the world that you are just grateful for them being around.  Jeff Skoll is one of them.  He is the most unassuming, down-to-earth, self-effacing guy, and at the same time among the most accomplished, brilliant, strategic, successful and deeply committed to make this a better world.

I have been following him for a few years and wish we could clone him, or at least learn what in his upbringing made him into a person that is so truly committed to human betterment.  Is it Canadian education and society? Jewish family values? Parental role models? Genes? Childhood influences – positive or negative? Socio-cultural exposure?

In his TED talk, he mentions how his Father’s health challenges were a wake up call to him.  But there has to be more.

Anyway, Jeff has now created his next venture: the Urgent Threats Fund, designed to tackle the 5 greatest challenges facing humanity: Global Pandemics, Nuclear Proliferation, Mideast Conflict, Water Scarcity, and Climate Change.

The New York Times reports about it here.

Sally Osberg, President of the Skoll Foundation, shared a note with Skoll Social Entrepreneurs explaining:

I also write to let you know that we will announce today the launch of the Skoll Urgent Threats Fund, which will be led by our dear friend and an extraordinary human being, Larry Brilliant. Larry’s new role will be Senior Adviser to Jeff Skoll and President of the new organization, which Jeff will chair and on whose board both Larry and I will sit. This newest venture joins the portfolio of creations—including the Foundation, Capricorn, and Participant Media—that Jeff has founded to advance his vision of a more peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. Together with the Foundation’s board and staff, I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities ahead for us all!

You can learn more at the Skoll Foundation site.

Roger Martin, Dean at the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto, gave an interesting presentation at the Opening Plenary at the Skoll World Forum today:

Whether or not Barack Obama is your President or, as is the case for me, another country’s leader, most of you, I suspect, watched the President’s inauguration speech and did so with rapt attention. It was certainly a lovely, inspiring and motivating speech. I cried a few times, even though guys aren’t supposed to do that. I suspect each listener took away something special and unique to you from the speech. For me, one sentence grabbed my attention; that riveted me:

“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

I study and write about leadership, which of course makes it a privilege for me to be among all the great leaders in this room. And in my study of highly successful leaders across a wide variety of organizations, I found the most common theme – the most universal characteristic – to be a form of thinking exemplified by President Obama’s quote.

That common theme was when highly successful leaders are faced with an apparent choice between two opposing and unsatisfying options, they show the inclination to refuse to choose and the capacity to instead engineer a course of action that is superior to each of the apparent options.

…

...In my work, I found that great leaders harness the inherent power in the tension between opposing ideas, options or models to forge a new better model. That is the Power of Paradox.

It’s rare, but once in a while you feel vindicated for the bad habit of keeping old newspapers around to catch up. This very good piece by Lee Siegel was worth it. It weaves economic, political and social theories to provide a 30,000 foot view of the sense and senselessness of unifying and decoding humankind’s journey.

[Read more →]

Naif Al Mutawa is a dear friend who defines social entrepreneurship.  He is creating positive role models for young Muslims a la Hollywood. Like Marvel and Action Comics before him, Naif created a set of iconic super-heroes – but they each are Muslims who embody one powerful benevolent trait drawn from Islam’s 99 characteristics attributed to G’d.  One has extraordinary kindness.  The other exhibits exceptional creativity.  Beyond cartoons, they now just opened The 99 Entertainment Village!