On November 13, the African Leadership Academy (ALA), in collaboration with the Pacific Council on International Policy and UCLA Anderson School of Management, will host a day-long symposium entitled: ‘Looking ahead: Fresh Perspectives on leadership and governance in Africa’. (Information for the event is at the bottom of this post).

The event will feature experts on leadership and governance in Africa, and will include a talk by Nuhu Ribadu as well as an African Leadership Academy student.

The ALA is a nonprofit institute located in Johannesburg, South Africa. With its innovative two-year program on leadership, the ALA prepares Africa’s most promising 15-18-year-olds to become influential leaders of tomorrow, instrumental in transforming and improving Africa. Students are selected on merit, and the curriculum focuses on leadership, entrepreneurship, and African studies. Equipped with these skills, “ALA graduates will attend the world’s finest universities and will lead Africa toward a peaceful and prosperous future.” Read the rest of this entry >>

Portrait of Jane Goodall, auction item.

The green carpet–made of sustainable and fully recyclable modular carpet tiles– said it all: Friday night’s event was about respecting the environment and all its creatures.

The occasion? The third annual Jane Goodall Institute Global Leadership Awards Celebration. Each year, the celebration honors individuals and corporations who exemplify the Goodall creed by taking informed action on behalf of all living things.

No surprise then, that Ed Begley, Jr., who wrote for Hopenhagen this week and is known to appear at Hollywood events by bicycle, received the award for Responsible Activism in Media and Entertainment. Read the rest of this entry >>

Day Two of TED MED is over (see Day One’s coverage here), and people sound antsy to put words into action.  Peter Menzel’s speech on the environmental and health catastrophe caused by plastic bags did its job; says one tweeter: “Plastic bags are a f*&%ing scourge. clogging storm drains in Yemen during monsoon season, causing widespread flooding. awful. #TEDMED.”  Another says, “Peter Menzel: pollution from plastic bags is choking the world and killing animals in dev countries. #tedmed.”

Menzel is a photojournalist whose work focuses on science and environment. (You might also recognize him from his famous series of photos on what the world eats, which we covered earlier this year here on TakePart). You can see a twitpic from Menzel’s speech here.

Up next? Robots. Reuters reports that iRobot CEO Colin Angle will discuss the role of robots in the future of health care. Sound scary? It’s not as extreme as it sounds. They are exploring “the potential of robotics as an assistive technology to promote wellness and enhance quality of life for seniors.” That means robots would perform tasks like chores and medicine administration.  So we don’t have to worry about computer chips in our brains…yet.

Stay tuned for more updates from TakePart as we track the ins and outs of TED MED.

It’s about time. After ten years of committed resolve from Judy and Dennis Shepard and numerous supporters, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is locked into place, signed today by President Barack Obama. Named after two victims of horrific and brutal crimes, this piece of legislation extends hate crime protection to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people.

During a ceremony to commemorate the event, President Obama said, “No one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the hand of the person they love.”

TED MED is off and running. At $4000 a pop, tickets weren’t exactly feasible for everyone, but that hasn’t stopped the buzz on Twitter, in the media, and–our personal favorite–in the blogosphere. Outsiders are eager for updates, and insiders are excited to share. One Twitter user wrote “Blown away by #TEDMED. Growing body parts, synthetic bacteria that digests waste and robotic arms are just the beginning. Sekou opened it up.”

One attendee representing Med Gadget recounted the events of Day 1 here, giving the rundown from Sekou Andrews’ poem on health care to lectures on synthetic biology and regenerative medicine. Read the rest of this entry >>

Is your DNA your destiny? Will your next surgeon be a robot? Should insurance companies be allowed to screen your genes? Can we end aging? Can the ocean cure disease?

Beginning today, these–among others–are the pressing questions that the TEDMED conference will explore. For the fifth year running, brilliant minds will collaborate and converse for the next three days on “the intersection and connections between all things medical and healthcare related.”

Guests speakers include Martha Stewart, Goldie Hawn, Sanjay Gupta, Laura Ziskin, Deepak Chopra, and others.

Stay tuned as TakePart trails TEDMED and reports back on the day’s developments!

Police, Adjective–a film poignant in its simplistic depiction of human emotion–is the story of a man’s internal struggle with conscience.  Assigned to trail a teenager suspected of dealing drugs, young police officer Cristi (Dragos Bucur) is plagued by an unsettling instinct that he will regret ruining the teen’s life in the name of honoring a law that he believes will change in the near future.

The film is slow-paced, subtle, and uniquely dry in its humor. Void of any musical soundtrack–save a moment when Cristi and his wife debate the merit of a love song she’s listening to–the film leaves itself open to the viewer’s interpretation of Cristi’s dilemma. That said, his emotional turmoil–from the drug case, in particular, but also from his relationship (or lack thereof) with his wife and his own existential tug of war–is visceral and the acting effective.

Warning! Spoiler after the jump!

Read the rest of this entry >>

Like most big wins, the fight for gay rights is comprised of a number of minor battles.  As much as it’s a rally in the capitol, it also a yard sign in a small town. Kalamazoo, Michigan is one of those small towns.

Kalamazoo, with fewer than 80,000 inhabitants, has been divided for months over a nondiscrimination ordinance that would extend housing and employment discrimination protection to include gay and transgendered people. The original ordinance was proposed and passed by the City Commission last year, but in March the Commission decided to rescind the amendment to seek additional public comment. Now, an organization called One Kalamazoo is working to bring it back by educating voters about the need to vote yes to defend the ordinance this November.

In August, Jon Hoadley stepped down from his position as Executive Director of the Stonewall Democrats to join One Kalamazoo and, true to his track record, he has done it with gusto. When One Kalamazoo’s new video (see below) raised $5,000 for the campaign, Hoadley independently raised $2,300 more.

Recently, he answered questions for TakePart.

Q. When did your political activism begin?

I started political activism while in high school. I had always been interested in elections and how government works, but it really became clear for me watching the election returns in 2000. I remember seeing George Bush win and thinking to myself, “this isn’t going to be good for LGBT people.” I was right. Read the rest of this entry >>

Jacques Servin (known to most of us as Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes Men) must have said the words “public pressure” at least ten times this morning during his interview with Christopher Sprinkle, Campaign Producer at Brave New Films. And for a pretty good reason. “Public pressure is really where it’s at and what we need to be building right now,” he said. “This enormous movement got Obama elected and now what?”

A man who (with the help of many others) printed his own New York Times, decreased Dow’s chemical stock market $2 billion dollars by posing as a spokesperson, and “corrected” the WTO website by creating one of his own, Servin is actually very serious when it comes to social change. “People basically want to do good,” he said. But he added that individual good deeds will not solve the issues of today, because the problem is the model we’re working with.  He cited the Dow stunt as an example.  When the company actually did a good deed (or appeared to have, anyway, thanks to the Yes Men’s stunt), support withdrew and the company lost gobs of money.  The pressure for change has to come from the public, if not with demonstrations like the Yes Men’s, then in other ways. “I think pressure is mounting,” Servin said.

Now we just need to take to the streets. To propose your own idea for bringing about social change, challenge the Yes Men. Place your challenge, organize your posse, and report back on your results.

On Friday, the #BeatCancer campaign waged war on cancer with a social media effort set to beat the Guinness World Record for the most social mentions in 24 hours–and succeeded in doing so.

According to Mashable.com, the campaign garnered “209,771 mentions in a single day,” achieving “an estimated 100 million overall impressions of the #BeatCancer message.”

On top of successfully spreading the word, the campaign also raised $70,000 from financial sponsors, who committed to donating one cent for every blog post, facebook status update, or tweet containing the #beatcancer hashtag.  The money raised will go to Spirit Jump, Bright Pink, SU2C, and Alex’s Lemonade.

The campaign is over, but you can still get involved.  Check out TakePart’s coverage on Breast Cancer Awareness Month this month, and donate to the Beat Cancer cause here.