Improving the world, and one’s brain, at the same time

My wife and I just came back from an inspir­ing Gold­man Prize Award cer­e­mo­ny, where sev­en grass­roots envi­ron­men­tal change­mak­ers were rec­og­nized for their work and resilien­cy, and shared their pas­sion and pur­pose with every­one attend­ing the event. We did hear too from Al Gore, Tra­cy Chap­man, Robert Red­ford, and the founder of the awards 20…

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Education @ New York Times

If you are inter­est­ed in edu­ca­tion reform, social entre­pre­neur­ship and ven­ture phil­antropy, grab a nice cap of tea or cof­fee and enjoy today’s spec­tac­u­lar edi­tion of the New York Times Mag­a­zine. Must read: insight­ful expert dis­cus­sion on How Many Bil­lion­aires Does It Take to Fix a School Sys­tem? Also: excel­lent pieces titled Self-Made Phil­an­thropists, on…

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Everyone a Changemaker”, Ashoka and Google

What an event yes­ter­day night. My wife and I were for­tu­nate to vis­it the Google Cam­pus and attend the Sixth Annu­al North Amer­i­can Fel­low­ship Induc­tion Pro­gram of Ashoka: Inno­va­tors for the Pub­lic, a social ven­ture fund where we have been involved for a num­ber of years, and thanks to which (thanks Michele!) my wife and…

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Microfinance, and a very sharp brain

We would like to join oth­er blog­gers in con­grat­u­lat­ing Muham­mad Yunus for hav­ing been award­ed the Nobel Peace Price. The gen­e­sis of micro­fi­nance, in Pro­fes­sor Yunus’ own words. Not often can we find per­son­i­fied exam­ples of what we write about. For 3 out of the last 4 entries in this blog, I can not think…

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Brain and Mind Fitness Programs: resiliency, on top of attention, memory…

Today: 6.30pm: I leave the office, down­town San Fran­cis­co, and take the train. 6.44pm: just before arriv­ing in my sta­tion, I remem­ber I have an appoint­ment with my hair­dress­er, which means I have to walk in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion than usu­al. 6.48pm: I find myself walk­ing towards my house, oppo­site direc­tion from my hair­dress­er. You may have…

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