More than 1,000 students from more than 300 universities and 75 countries, along with Washington University students, gathered in the athletic complex on the Washington University Danforth Campus for the opening plenary session for the 2013 meeting of Clinton Global Initiative University on Friday.
Throughout the year, CGI U invites college students to submit Commitments to Action, which are specific plans to address problems on their campuses, within their communities, or around the world. Modeled after the Clinton Global Initiative, which brings together global leaders, CGI U works to address challenges in five focus areas: Education, Environment and Climate Change, Peace and Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, and Public Health.
This year’s annual conference, hosted by Washington University, includes several plenary sessions, workshops, and panel discussions on issues ranging from public sanitation to women’s rights to economic inequality.
Former first daughter and CGI board member Chelsea Clinton took the stage for opening remarks, welcoming students to the conference and highlighting the goals of the conference.
“How do we double-down on our successes?” Ms. Clinton asked the audience. “How do we become more comfortable being honest about our failures and walking away from those?”
The Stanford graduate praised Wash. U.—saying “I feel like we’re on good enough terms that I can call it Wash. U.”—for its global efforts through the Gephardt Institute for Public Service, the medical school, and the university’s commitment to reduce emissions and develop alternative energy sources. College students, she said, are in a powerful position to approach global problems like poverty, lack of clean water, and preventable diseases.
“We know that not only is it unacceptable in the 21st century that people still die of diarrhea—and I love talking about diarrhea, so if anyone wants to talk about it, come and find me—because I’m a big believer that those of us who can do things should do things, and that’s something that makes some people squeamish but not me.”
University Chancellor Mark Wrighton then took the stage to welcome CGI U guests, discussing the overlap between the aspirations of the university and those of CGI U. He cited the presidential debate held at Washington University in 1992 between President Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ross Perot before introducing the former president.
President Clinton also shared his memories of the 1992 debate, held in the same venue as yesterday’s plenary session, calling it a pivotal moment in American politics, because it was the first debate to incorporate unscripted questions from voters.
Since then, Clinton said, “The definition of citizenship has continued to evolve. We’re here because we trust you to shape the future of the world.”
A panel discussion, titled “Getting off the Ground: Stories of Starting Up,” followed, moderated by President Clinton. Participants included William Kamkwamba, a current Dartmouth student and inventor from Malawi who built a windmill as a teenager to power electrical devices in his home village; Kenneth Cole, fashion designer, AIDS activist, and founder of Awearness: The Kenneth Cole Foundation; Zainab Salbi, Iraqi immigrant and founder of Women for Women International; and Jack Dorsey, co-founder and executive chairman of Twitter.
The panelists talked about their experiences getting started in humanitarian work, as well as blending the corporate and philanthropic worlds to do good.
Questions were first posed by President Clinton, and later taken from audience members via Twitter, which the former president called “a way of talking to each other that is sometimes embarrassing for all who participate, but undeniably empowering.”
“I was Tweeting questions with the hashtag CGI U,” said Wash. U. senior Ellie Kirshenbaum after the session. “They definitely made an effort to engage the audience. I Tweeted to Chelsea: ‘Let’s talk about diarrhea after the panel.’”
Cole, who first became involved with AIDS activism in the early 1980s, talked about using his clout in the fashion industry to highlight a stigmatized issue and effect social change.
“Nobody wanted to talk about what was really critical, this dark cloud that was everywhere, and it was AIDS,” he said. “Because if you spoke about AIDS in that time, the stigma was so devastating you would be perceived to be at risk, which meant you were either an intravenous drug user, you were Haitian, or you were gay. Now, I was a single male designer, so I knew that everybody would just assume that I was Haitian. But maybe because I wasn’t in these groups, I don’t know what compelled me, but you so rarely get a chance to use your resources, stand up, say something that’s really important at a time when few are.”
Similarly, St. Louis native Dorsey talked about bridging the gap between corporate success and global philanthropy.
“I just fell in love with the technology,” he said of developing Twitter. “It works on every single device around the world. We could create a system where even with a five-dollar cell phone in the middle of Kenya, someone could participate in the same conversation that Justin Bieber was having in the United States of America.”
By connecting people on a global level through simple messages and updates, Dorsey claimed, Twitter has the potential to do powerful good in the world.
“It really spoke to the power of the receiver—how we take these messages, how we take what we see in the world, and we translate it into action, and we interpret it, and then we spread it to other folks,” he said. “The future has already arrived. It’s already in this room and your work is to distribute it. Your work is to spread it around the world, and Twitter is a means to do that.”
Kicking off a weekend of networking, exchanging of ideas, and discussion of global issues, the opening plenary session left audience members with a spirit of optimism.
“It’s a really exciting time to be alive,” said President Clinton. “So, welcome to the show.”
For more information about CGI U and live webcasts of the conference’s plenary sessions, visit www.cgiu.org.
