The Power of the Individual

Have you heard of Sybil?

In 1777, in the dark of night, a sixteen-year old Sybil Ludington mounted her horse, Star, and raced furiously across forty miles of rocky terrain to warn her community of an imminent threat.

It was the time of the Revolutionary War when British citizens were fighting tooth and nail for the place I now call home—the United States of America. Sybil, the age of a high schooler, travelled a distance significantly farther than that of Paul Revere to alert militia forces of the British army’s approach.

Passion and the power of the individual. Liz Maw, CEO of Net Impact, opened up November’s 2016 Net Impact Conference with Sybil’s story and this theme. Throughout the three-day conference, students in every corner of the Pennsylvania Convention Center were aspiring to transform their passions into world-changing actions.

Many looked to the power and scalability of business to drive constructive, sustainable change—seeking and piloting new business models and drawing from and building upon what we already know works. This year’s Net Impact Conference, centering on the idea, Make History, demonstrated that this sometimes happens in game-changing ways, such as Walmart’s effort to transition into a zero waste company that operates off of 100 percent renewable resources. Other times, it is a series of incremental measures that moves mountains, slowly, but effectively, such as the use of cutting-edge virtual reality technologies to enhance designers’ understanding of refugee camp life to inspire new ways to keep children safe. 

Continue reading on The Global Engagement Forum: Online.