#plugintodevin - Your Mark on the World with Devin Thorpe

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Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aN2Fvd.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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Anne Kjaer Riechert, a young, Danish entrepreneur living in Germany saw the flood of refugees arriving in 2015 and did something about it. [Full disclosure: I have written about polio eradication for Rotarian Magazine.]

Riechert, a past Rotary Peace Fellow, moved to Berlin in 2012 to set up the Berlin Peace Innovation Lab in collaboration with Stanford University. When she observed what ultimately became 1.1 million asylum seekers, mostly from Syria, she saw an opportunity. ”Currently, there are 43,000 open jobs in IT in Germany,” she says.

John Hewko, general secretary of Rotary International, who spent much of his career in Europe, commenting on the refugee situation there, says, “If we don’t act now to build the conditions for sustainable peace, then the likelihood of events that undermine it, such as profound social instability, a lack of integration of migrant populations into their new host countries, and failures of national governance will only increase.”

So, she created a coding school called ReDI School of Digital Integration to train refugees to fill some of those jobs. Partnering with German companies, including Daimler AG, she is providing training in coding languages “like Ruby on Rails, CSS, HTML, Python” along with “skills like entrepreneurship and business intelligence,” she says.

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Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aN2Fvd.

Need a corporate social responsibility speaker? Learn more about Devin Thorpe at http://devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aFOsjD.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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Howard Leonhardt is the co-inventor of the TALENT stent acquired by Medtronic MDT +0.58% and used to treat over 200,000 patients. With boundless optimism, 20 patents issued and more pending, he has launched Leonhardt Ventures to form and incubate dozens of companies intended to collectively extend human life expectancy by 30 years. [While I have no business relationship with Leonhardt at present, he has invited me to join his advisory board.]

Most of the technologies in the portfolio are at the intersection of electrical stimulation and stem cells. Jeremy Koff, an entrepreneur with a deep background in medical devices himself has signed on as an advisor to Leonhardt’s California Stock Exchange, an early stage effort at creating a stock market for socially conscious companies.

Koff calls Leonhardt’s work “pioneering.” The two became acquainted over the music scene Koff helped to create, but bonded over medical devices when Koff learned that Leonhardt was inspired for the former’s uncle Alfred Mann, a giant in the medical device industry.

Koff notes that Leonhardt is “combining two approaches that haven’t been combined before.” He adds, “Using electrical stimulation with stem cells is quite a novel approach.”

When I asked what Leonhard would ultimately need to do to be successful, Koff harked back to his uncle, explaining that Mann needed twenty years and $100 million to develop Second Sight, which won approval for the first artificial retina in 2013. In other words, Leonhardt needs time and money to bring his advanced technologies to market.

Leonhardt’s business model is to build small companies until they are commercially viable and then to sell them to strategic buyers. He’s hoping to reprise his success with the TALENT Stent over and over again, each time retaining a small piece of future revenues.

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Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aFOsjD.

Need a corporate social responsibility speaker? Learn more about Devin Thorpe at http://devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aCLAk2.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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Emmy Award winner Shane DeRolf has launched an effort he calls the Big Word Club to help disadvantaged children catch up with their more affluent peers.

Shane says, “A child’s vocabulary at age 5 is the single best predictor of his or her success in school and in life yet by the time they enter kindergarten, children from lower to middle socioeconomic families will know 400-700 fewer words than their wealthier classmates. This is called the ‘word gap’ and without effective intervention (i.e. improving their vocabularies at a young age), the word gap only gets wider as the child gets older.”

The real problem, he says, comes later. “Left unchecked, the word gap evolves into the ‘achievement gap,’ impacting the child’s academic and earning potential for the rest of his or her life.”

Until now, there hasn’t been an efficient way to address the problem, he says. “Though much research has been done about the causes of the Word Gap, until Big Word Club, no low-cost and scalable intervention existed. If we are going to improve the vocabularies of millions of children in America–and we need to–we need to provide busy parents and teachers with better tools to teach vocabulary to media-savvy kids in fast, fun and effective ways.”

“Big Word Club uses books, songs, animation and dance to help preschool and elementary school kids learn one new ‘big‘ word every day of the school year–in less than one minute a day! Big Word Club makes it easy for parents and teachers to improve their kids’ vocabularies and because Big Word Club is fun and entertaining, kids love learning,” Shane says.

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Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aCLAk2.

Need a corporate social responsibility speaker? Learn more about Devin Thorpe at http://devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aFrqHX.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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Maria De La Croix may one day prove to be the biggest mistake Starbucks SBUX +0.83% ever made. You see, the blue-haired young woman applied for a job as a barista with the global leader in high-end coffee shops and was turned down, she says, because her hair was “too blue.”

Lest anyone at Starbucks feel bad about the decision, no one could have guessed what would happen next. Suffice it to say, there is a mic drop coming.

With the help of some friends, De La Croix built a solar powered coffee shop on a bicycle and completely reinvented the coffee shop business. She calls her company Wheelys Cafe.

Her stores on wheels cost just $5,900, on which she makes a profit margin of 50 percent, she says. The shop is the key. By mass producing the bike-based shops, the company has reduced the production costs to about $3,000.

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Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aFrqHX.

Need a corporate social responsibility speaker? Learn more about Devin Thorpe at http://devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aCT3j8.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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This changemaker raised in the former Czechoslovakia, Iva Dior, became an activist as a small child. Today, in the United States, the singer and activist continues to advocate for change, working primarily to educate children and families on good nutrition.

She explains how she got her start. “I got to know families who were desperate to change their lifestyle, but didn’t know where to start. I took them shopping, shared a few recipes and realized there’s away to do this on a budget. It’s the moms and dads who needed to feel empowered to change their families’ eating habits.”

Along the way, Iva has faced significant challenges. “Having been raised in communist Czechoslovakia, one of the greatest challenges has been always going against the current. I never quite fit in, because I saw challenges and I wanted to solve them. Being a dreamer and a changemaker wasn’t encouraged, yet I felt my purpose was to live a purpose-driven life.”

She credits her grandfather for her success, even though she never met him. “My grandfather Otto, whom I never got to meet, but who’s presence I feel daily in my life is my hero. He was a community leader and an activist during the Soviet occupation during Prague Spring of 1968. I seem to have inherited his altruistic, activist and working-to-make-the-world-a-better-place gene.”

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aCT3j8.

Need a corporate social responsibility speaker? Learn more about Devin Thorpe at http://devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aw0nNl.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aw0nNl.

Need a speaker for an event, learn more about Devin Thorpe at http://devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aDE7o9.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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Colleen Copple, a social entrepreneur from what was once a gang-threatened neighborhood in Salt Lake City, is threading the needle between people that fear the police and the cops who protect them. She has created a business mending communities to reduce violence of all kinds.

Copple is the C0-Founder of Strategic Applications International or SAI as well as of Servant Forge, a nonprofit that provides similar services in Africa. The firm typically contracts with governmental agencies to facilitate community engagement and communications. In 2015, in SAI facilitated the production of the Obama administration’s response to community violence in Ferguson and elsewhere.

Twenty-five years earlier, in about 1990, Copple was living in the Glendale neighborhood of Salt Lake City when a sudden rash of gang violence erupted, related to closure of one of the city’s four high schools. Drive-by shootings increased from 1 to 200 from one year to the next.

Copple, still in her twenties, was serving on the local school board and felt responsible to do something about the crime in her neighborhood. She organized the community, worked with the police and helped to restore peace to her neighborhood.

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Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2aDE7o9.

Need a speaker for an event, learn more about Devin Thorpe at http://devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/29WUDPy.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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The world’s coral reefs are threatened by rising sea temperatures, destructive fishing, coastal development, invasive species, damage from marine recreation, storm damage and higher acidity. Melody Saunders Brenna is an entrepreneur with a plan to restore damaged reefs using nanotechnology.

Melody notes that the reefs are critical for humans as 1 in 10 people rely on reefs for food. Furthermore, she estimates that $350+ billion annual income is at risk. Something needs to be done.

She has launched Reef Life Restoration and Reef Life Foundation to help create new, living, thriving reefs. The literal foundation of the plan is “cast marine cell structures” that look and feel like lightweight concrete blocks, some formed with embedded nano-particles that foster rapid coral growth.

“Our diverse nano science coral cell matrices provide faster growth for food, fish, minerals, medicines and pH balance.”

The concrete pieces can be designed into almost any shape and configuration. She can optimize the blocks for deployment from a vessel so as to be able to maximize the amount of reef that can be restored in a single trip by the fewest people. Using the same technology, she can create beautiful underwater structures, imagine a reconstructed Atlantis at a resort, that would appear to be a beautiful concrete structure on the day it is installed but that will become a vibrant, living coral reef within two years.

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/29WUDPy.

Need a speaker for an event, learn more about Devin Thorpe at devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full GoodCrowdinfo article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/29FNza7

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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Bernard Loyd, an MIT-educated activist born on Chicago’s West Side and raised in Liberia, has returned to Chicago to lead the rebuilding of a historically black community.

“Despite being the historic center of Black Chicago, a former cultural and commercial hub of Black America, and located only minutes from downtown Chicago and Lake Michigan, Bronzeville is one of the most economically-challenged communities in the United States and a food and jobs ‘desert,'” Bernard says.

With that as motivation, Bernard and his company, Urban Juncture, is out doing something about the problems he sees.

He says, “We are developing a culinary district celebrating unique Black cuisine from around the world in order to provide delicious food for residents, a one-of-a-kind dining destination for visitors, a significant number of locally accessible jobs, and wealth creation opportunities for restaurateurs and investors. We’ve also started development of a companion cultural district highlighting Bronzeville performance arts and hospitality.”

Rebuilding won’t be easy. Money is the biggest constraint on success, he says. “Accessing the capital needed to build culinary enterprises is our most difficult challenge.”

Bernard is raising $100,000 using crowdfunding site Wefunder today. Readers can learn more about the offering here.

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Read the full GoodCrowdinfo article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/29FNza7.

Need a speaker for an event, learn more about Devin Thorpe at devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/29EbS4t.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher.

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Gordon Gund was blinded by retinitis pigmentosa in 1970 at the age of 31. He has spent the 45 years since working to defeat that disease, to prevent related blindness and even to restore sight to the blind. Over $700 million later, he now hopes that “within a generation we will be able to eradicate blindness caused by retinal disease!”

In 2013, I first connected with Gordon for a Forbes piece that included a live interview we conducted then.

It is hard to imagine how one copes with the complete loss of one’s vision. Gordon partnered with his wife. He says, “After coming to terms with how our lives would be altered by the disease, my wife and I committed ourselves to a comprehensive research effort that would make something positive for others out of our own difficult experiences.”

“When I was diagnosed with RP almost 50 years ago very little was known about the retina. There was very little research and no evidence-based treatments for retinal disease,” he adds.

Gordon continues, “We recognized that first building a critical mass of sound scientific knowledge about the retina and retinal diseases was essential to finding treatments and cures. That year we teamed with a number of other families affected by retinal disease to create the Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation, now called the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Our collective dream was to drive the research that would find treatments and cures for all retinal degenerative diseases.”

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/29EbS4t.

Need a speaker for an event, learn more about Devin Thorpe at devinthorpe.com.