I love school. And I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to get an education. Imagine being denied an education because you are a girl, because your family has a low income or simply because you do not have access to basic sanitation. Hearing stories from all over the world expressing the same inequity over and over again and the way that girls are disproportionately affected conflicted with my sense of justice. Everyone can feel empathy but it’s not always popular to take action and ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. 

Today I have bold dreams, taking action even creating a movement, but it started much smaller with just a little “foolish courage”. I raised some money to provide a toilet and education in proper sanitation for one girl, one family, one community and voila I had made a difference. Having reached over 100 toilets alone, I have now established a Service Club at my school which is now building school toilet blocks and I am mentoring other changemakers in broader areas of access to sanitation and hygiene. 

These are multipliers and I want to encourage more people to be courageous and make that one small change. Here is one way to see how one small change can lead to a real impact:

              (1.00)365  = 1 

              (1.01)365  = 37.8

Caity is a perfect example, to the fact that age is just a number, and anyone can bring about change. Listen to how this 6th grader spreads her contagious passion about creating equity in the world and making it a better place.

Daniela Kon Lieberberg is the Founder and Executive Director of SIMA Studios, a global media agency supporting and distributing social impact projects worldwide. Serving an international network of filmmakers, educators and changemakers in 140 countries, SIMA’s multiple branches include: the annual Social Impact Media Awards, grassroots screening series, SIMA X, and global education platform, SIMA Academy. Bridging the spheres of media, global development and human rights for over 15 years, Daniela's work across South East Asia, the Middle East and West Africa ranges from award-winning documentary "Talibe" and the United Nations "Ending Hunger Campaign” to collaborations in the fields of Education, Women’s Empowerment, LGBT Rights, Food Security, Children’s Rights, and Modern-day Slavery. In addition to her role at SIMA, Daniela is a consultant for international advocacy campaigns, a Board Member of the Film and Women’s Rights Committee of Human Rights Watch, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School of Journalism in Los Angeles, where she now lives and works.

Andreas Renner is a serial social entrepreneur driven by the vision to unleash the power of entrepreneurial spirit to positively change the world. He co-founded the internet search engine Gexsi, which was renamed to the Good Search engine on Dec 7 (https://good-search.org/en/). Good-Search is like Google, but embedded in a charitable environment. Its mission: To take the search revenues generated through an ever-growing community of users to empower inspiring changemakers around the globe. 

Moreover, Andreas:

• Founded the German chapter of Certified B Corps, the world's largest network of companies using business to drive societal change.

• Built-up the Hamburg-based cooperative The Generation Forests which regenerates tropical rainforests with a self-sustaining business model.

• Forms part of the development team of the impact startup Good Carbon, seeking to drastically increase carbon sequestration through ocean restoration.

• Advised numerous development agencies, governments or wealthy families on how to invest with a social mission (Gexsi = Global Exchange for Social Investment).

Andreas graduated from the University of Tübingen, has a PhD in political philosophy and lives with his family in Freiburg in the black forest area.

Matovu Nkoba Ismael and Nantume Masturah are rural Ugandan students at School of Humanity high school.

Nantume Masturah is a quote writer and student ambassador at girl rising in Kenya. In 2021, on International Women's Day (IWD), Nantume addressed her fellow students at Xian Liangjiatan International School (XLIS) and was invited by a local school in her community to talk about gender equality in 2022. Her IBMYP personal project worked on preventing early marriage and teen pregnancy in her community, and the XLIS community supported her with everything regarding the project. A few young girls in her community learned some skills in making reusable sanitary pads. In 2022 she was featured in the wellbeing of International Schools Magazine with her IBMYP personal project story.

With full support from the XLIS community, Nkoba's IBMYP personal project was successful. It was building a well for his village of 600 local households to access clean and safe water, the project featured in the IB stories.

Both Nkoba and Nantume have presented at various online conferences. For example, The Future of Education Now & Next at WAB (Western Academy of Beijing), Earthecho Youth summit, and many others. They participated in a podcast for Inspire Citizens, where they both talked about their projects. They also presented at events in the fall and summer of 2020: Earth Echo International and Documentar Africa. Last but not least, they again presented at a workshop for teachers called Student Agency Through Project-Based Learning hosted by Daun Yorke in November 2021.

Nkoba and Nantume's goal is uplifting their local community, nearby communities, and the world.

As a Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Walker has focused his career upon innovative ways to spread mental health and wellness programming outside traditional health care models. In response to Hurricane Katrina in September of 2005, Dr. Walker designed Project Fleur-de-lis, New Orleans’s largest school-based mental health program devoted to students struggling emotionally and academically in the years following the storm. Now with over 65 participating schools, the program focuses on suicide prevention and the treatment of psychological trauma caused by community violence. In cooperation with Guyana’s Ministry of Health, Dr. Walker launched the first nationwide implementation of a trauma-focused, evidence-based treatment program for young adults exposed to violence. He has also created innovative psychoeducational programs and products, including How’s Your 5?® And The Coping Cube®. 

Between seeing clients, Dr. Walker can be found tinkering at his “workbench”, building opportunities for individuals and communities to improve and maintain their mental health and wellness. 

Find out more about Dr. Walker’s professional workbench here

https://inspirecitizens.org

Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann (KTN) has been in the auto industry for more than 30 years. He is now an investor, board member and advisor to large corporates and start-ups. He moved to Los Angeles, California in 2018 to help build Canoo an electric vehicle startup with a new subscription based business model. In 2020 Canoo went public with a multi billion dollar valuation.

As an investor and advisor he supported the VectoIQ SPAC, which merged with the electric fuel cell truck maker Nikola. He has been CEO of the tradition-rich automaker Opel from 2013 to 2017. He was also General Motors Executivhe Vice President & President Europe as well as a member of the GM Executive Committee.

Previously he also had company-wide responsibility for electric propulsion and was Head of Research and Director of Electronics Strategy. He studied electrical engineering at the Universities of Dortmund and Duisburg, where he was also awarded his doctorate. He began his professional career at the Fraunhofer Institute as a research engineer before moving to Motorola Semiconductor, where he worked as an engineer and strategy director responsible for the automobile industry. The father of three children is a passionate runner, cyclist and ocean sailor.

https://doughnuteconomics.org 

Thomas Graham (Tom)

Originally from the UK, Tom has spent the last 9 years of his life dedicated to creating meaningful education experiences in the Philippines. After authoring the book The Genius of the Poor (11,000 copies sold in English, French and Japanese) and featuring in a

popular TEDx Talk by the same name, Tom established MAD (Make A Difference) Travel in 2014, and eventually MAD (Make A Difference) Courses in 2020. MAD Courses was an answer to schools’ need for continued engagement with local communities and grassroots solutions at the height of worldwide lockdowns, during the emergence of COVID-19. For the last 2 years, Tom has driven MAD Courses forward by incorporating emerging technology and collaborating with relevant partners.

Sophie Peccaud

Joining Tom is our Head of Partnerships, Sophie Peccaud, a driving force behind many of MAD Courses’ long-standing school, university, and corporate partnerships. Originally from France, Sophie has wide international work experience in the Caribbean, Brazil, and the Philippines, where she established expertise in Sustainable Travel. She puts this to good use now in sustainability

education—finding the right kind of partners, collaborating with positive impact in mind, and once in a while, being an educator herself in our fun and interactive workshops.

Suji DeHart (Zoom Ed)

Having grown up in India, Indonesia, the USA, & Pakistan, and working in China, the USA and Malaysia, Suji is immersed in the world of international education. After leaving the Smithsonian Institution, she followed her childhood dream of becoming a children’s librarian, which she did for almost 20 years. A stint as the Elementary Service and Sustainability Coordinator at the International School of Kuala Lumpur sparked a fierce desire in her to create pathways for students to become more informed and skillful changemakers…which led her to co-found Make A Difference Courses, a social enterprise which brings impact to communities through exciting interactive experiences for students around the globe.

https://www.madcourses.com

Craig Vezina, Founder, CEO (Virtual) 

Craig is the co-founder and CEO of the Spaceship Academy, winner of the Top Tier Impact Awards at the World Economic Forum’s annual convening in Davos. After over two decades of experience at leading international schools, Craig founded the Z-17 Collective (formerly ZSchool: The International School of Social Entrepreneurship) in 2016  & has become a leading voice around the power of innovation for a more sustainable future for people + planet. Both with Z17 (a US registered 501c3) and the Spaceship Academy, Craig has collaborated with a wide array of forward-thinking schools, NGOs &  businesses, and been a frequent presenter at a wide array of global education, sustainability & impact events (including the UN's Festival of Action, SXSWedu, ChangeNow Summit & many more). Craig is also a member of the global advisory board of Education for Sharing (E4S) and serves on OECD’s Education & Skills 2030 Global Forum & UNESCO’s Futures of Education initiative.

Greg Van Kirk, Social Entrepreneur in Residence 

Greg is a pioneering impact entrepreneur, consultant and educator. For over two decades, he has worked with a diverse variety of organizations, leaders and communities across five continents. A two-time Ashoka Globalizer Fellow and World Economic Forum "Social Entrepreneur of the Year for 2012 (Latin America)", Greg has served as a consultant for organizations such as Levi Strauss Foundation, Deloitte, USAID, Chemonics, VisionSpring, Soros Foundation, Inter American Development Bank & many more. With Ashoka, Greg was instrumental in launching their Changemaker Schools initiative and their Start Empathy Toolkit. Greg has also taught impact entrepreneurship at leading international schools such as the American School of Paris and a number of renowned universities, including Columbia University, Notre Dame, Duke, NYU and the University of Wisconsin.

Compass Education is a US non-profit organization & global network that delivers on-site and virtual professional development experiences that engage educators, students and school communities in teaching and learning that leads to empowered global citizens and a more sustainable world. The Compass Toolkit, including our namesake tool The Sustainability Compass, is made up of systems thinking tools designed to integrate easily into existing curriculum; deepening current learning, facilitating communication among students, broadening perspectives and enhancing collaboration. The changemakers at FIS have used the compass to set this confernece up and will be faciltating training during the conference on how to think and act systemically. You will notice all compass points are well respresented at this conference. Nature, Economy, Society, and Wellbeing. 

HelpUp is an app that connects NGOs that need vounteers with youngsters that want to help and have an active role in society, and it does it by just one click!

Daniel, Ingrid, Neharika, Alex and Marta (all 16-years-old), founders of HelpUp, realized how difficult it is to find volunteer works in Spain when you are under the age of 18. So many NGOs that need volunteers, and so many young people willing to help... but no simple way to make it happen! They wanted to change this and created HelpUp.

With HelpUp, youth can create their own “volunteer profile” and find volunteer opportunities that best match with their interest, schedule and geographical zone. Students can rate their volunteer experience and reccomend it to others after each one. On top, youth get points every time they do a volunteer job, which can then be exchanged for formations, museum tickets or discounts.

In 2022, HelpUp was awarded as Europe’s Most Creative Startup and Spain Company of the Year by Junior Achievement. HelpUp is already available on App Store and Google Play.

To learn more about HelpUp, you can visit their website or follow them on Instagram!

Alex Budak is a faculty member at UC Berkeley, co-founder of StartSomeGood, and the author of Becoming a Changemaker. He teaches, speaks and writes to make leadership more attainable, change more positive, and impact more inclusive.

At UC Berkeley, Budak created and teaches his transformational changemaker curriculum to undergraduates, graduates and executives, and directs the Berkeley Haas Global Access Program. A social entrepreneur at heart, he co-founded StartSomeGood, which has helped more than 1,200 changemakers in 50 countries raise millions of dollars to launch and scale new change initiatives. His book, Becoming a Changemaker, has been endorsed by Nobel Prize winners, Olympic athletes, and most meaningfully of all – by his former students who are using these ideas to change the world. .

A graduate of UCLA and Georgetown University, he’s given lectures and keynotes around the world from Cambodia to Ukraine to the Arctic Circle and at leading companies. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his two favorite changemakers: his wife, Rebecca, and their toddler son.

Website: http://alexbudak.com 

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/alexbudak 

Hugh is the founder of Die Kleine Kochschule, Food That's Left and H and I Cakes. He brings with him over 30  years of international cooking experience in the top end of the hospitality industry. During the last 15 years he has also taught children and adults alike, about the importance of cooking and understanding food. Since 2019 he devoted his cooking skills to fight food waste and to promote vegan cooking. Since food waste has a huge impact on climate change, Hugh's work lends itsself well to cooking for climate camps, vigals and marches as well as social community events to raise awareness for this burning topic.

He cooks mostly with food that was discarded and given up for not being worthy of consumption. 

He does this with the strong conviction that every piece of food has an intrinsice vaule and it is everybodies responsibility to use it wisely. He lives climate activism and social justice through the project Food That's Left. Moreover Hugh encourages the community to be a part of these cooking events with the aim not only to rescue food, but also to educate people about what they can do themselves to make a difference regarding food waste and the effects on climate change.

E-Mail info@foodthatsleft.de

Instagram @food_thats_left

Facebook /foodthatsleft

Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots program is about making positive change happen – for our communities, for animals and for the environment. With tens of thousands of young people in over 60 countries, the Roots & Shoots network branches out across the globe, connecting youth of all ages who share a common desire to help make our world a better place. This powerful, youth-driven network fosters a fun, flexible and supportive environment where young people come together to share ideas and inspiration, implement successful community service projects and participate in special events and international campaigns.

https://janegoodall.de 

Jolanda is passionate about people and working on diverse topics with high relevance, e.g., Brand Building, Digitalization, Innovation, Sustainability, People development and Change management. As a Transformational Leader and Intrapreneur she is contributing to the future with a growth mindset. She is having more than 20 years of experience in making a difference by creating and leading high performing teams in several roles and markets along the value chain. She is having a people-oriented leadership style by leading on people’s strengths through coaching, affiliation, and participation and she is motivating employees to create innovative solutions for business problems and delivering overall business efficiency through engaged work.

She is fostering consumer centric thinking and advocating data driven decision making. She is characterized by optimism, creativity, result-focus, courage and social astuteness combined with a brought business understanding and a self-reflecting agile learning attitude.

Innovations are being tested and implemented through fast lanes for end-to-end processes by challenging and improving existing ways of working. Step changes in digitalization are being achieved by implementing new technologies as well as new ways of working and critical sustainability improvements have been achieved along the value chain. Most important; never alone, always with diverse and inclusive Teams.