Pioneers of the Possible: Sundance Panelists Prove It Can Be Done

Earlier this afternoon, Park City was host to three astounding changemakers as part of a panel "Can't Be Done."  So says conventional wisdom when it comes to solving poverty, public education and global warming. But these three speakers are proving us wrong: Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus (Grameen Bank, featured in To Catch A Dollar), education reformer Geoffrey Canada (Harlem Children’s Zone, featured in WAITING FOR SUPERMAN) and environmental visionary Lester Brown (Earth Policy Institute, featured in Climate Refugees). 

One of the Sundance curators opened the event by saying this was a panel he "always dreamed of" and it takes little to imagine why. Sally Osberg (President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation) moderated the discussion and opened with "Only Bono competes with you for rock star status in this field" as she introduced Professor Yunus. And in pure Yunusian style he answered, "I wants is to put poverty in a poverty museum." It is a lofty goal and Yunus believes the solution is in each one of us. "Everything a poor person needs to realize their potential is packaged in that person." They just need to be given a chance.

Canada's goals to change the public school system are equally ambitious. His Harlem Children's Zone has been described by Paul Tough in the NY Times Magazine as "one of the biggest social experiments of our time." Canada explains that his vision was met with some resistant. "How are we going to do everything?" one of his board members' asked. But for Canada, the real question is "How many folks can you do eveyrthing for?" And he answers that everyday in a 97 block radius in central Harlem.

"You are all extraordinary people but at one point, you were just ordinary. What inspired you to take that step into the selfless part of what you do?" asked an audience member. Brown said it was when he realized that happiness comes when your "goals far exceed personal interest and you realize what we can do for others."

Professor Yunus continued, "movies can trigger that thread of possibility in your heart." We cannot necessarily meet all of the people that need our help (like he did when he made his first micro-loan of $27 dollars) but stories, images and creativity will open up your heart and inspire you to make a difference.

Canada ended the discussion with an impassioned call to action: "Examine what happens in your local communities...we need a mass movement in this nation. Equal access to knowledge is what made America great, why should a zip code decide that you have no chance."