Posts Tagged ‘talk’

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Mar 19

Change Agent Review

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Tal Dehtiar, founder of Oliberté, the first premium footwear maker that manufactures in sub-Saharan Africa. Tal was the co-founder of MBAs Without Borders and is a nominee for Canada’s Top 40 under 40. The talk took place at the Accelerator Centre as part of the Change Agent Series, presented by Capacity Waterloo Region.

What I found most interesting was that Tal has a business first model for his social enterprise. And this applies to both sides of the coin. What I mean by that is, Oliberté does not market itself as a social enterprise, but rather as a premium footwear maker. The emphasis is on fashionable, high quality shoes as well as on a for profit business model. That being said, Oliberté prides itself on the fact that manufacturing is done completely in Africa and that employees are paid fairly for the work that they do.

The company which was founded just over a year ago now employs over 375 workers in Africa (primarily Ethiopia if I remember right) and the shoes are being sold in the US, Europe and soon Japan & Australia. All that business talk aside, what really impressed me about the presentation was the humility. When asked tough questions by the audience, Tal responded candidly. “We want people to call us out, and if you see something that doesn’t seem right, tell us” he said in response to questions related to the complex issues of child labour.

It was an inspiring presentation (and wonderfully done without a single PowerPoint slide!) that got my imagination running wild with ideas. Why can’t a business be both profitable and socially responsible? Why have these two concepts for so long been mutually exclusive?

I’m looking forward to the coninuation of the Change Agent Series as well as the upcomming Venture4Change event on March 29th. More information about each of these can be found at: http://capacitywaterlooregion.ca/

Information about Oliberté footwear can be found HERE and yes, they do ship in Canada. I must say, they are stylish looking shoes and I was more than a little disappointed to discover they only go to size 12 :(

Thanks to Tal & Capacity Waterloo Region for this terrific event!

- Ramy Nassar
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Thanks to Ramy for contributing to RQ today! I couldn’t make it last night. Booo.
H.

Posted in Events | 2 Comments »

Mar 08

KW Web Design & Technology Meetup

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Tuesday is a busy night –

For all you Web/Design types out there…
Tuesday March 9th
7:30pm
BarleyWorks (Huether Hotel, Upstairs)
RSVP here so they know how many are coming, and can hook up enough snacks.
H.

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Mar 05

And now…Ignite photos!

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Same deal – great photos capturing the tone of the night….

Full photo set HERE.
Look how busy it was!

Philip working the video capture up front. Little bit intimidating, not going to lie.


After party at Bobby O’briens. There was about 40 people there. Awesome!

Jesse informed me that these socks are referred to as Nipigon Nylons up North. I’m starting to start a trend of hiking them up over skinny jeans. Please feel free to adopt, as per Karl’s demonstration below:
Thanks for sending Ramy – these photos are awesome.
H.

Posted in Events | 1 Comment »

05

TEDxWaterloo Photos!

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It’s Ramy Nassar photo day on RQ! Yeah!

Here’s some great friend shots from TEDxWaterloo – with ALL the photos HERE if you’d like to get a whole view of the day.






Fun. Ignite Photos up next.

H.

Posted in Events | 3 Comments »

Mar 04

IGNITE WATERLOO 2 – recap!

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Photo by Sean M Puckett, 2010

After all my anticipation for last night, it did not disappoint.
So many thoughtful and interesting talks, and so many new people to meet. So great.
Philip Bast took video of each presenter, so I am anxious to see those in 2 weeks or so!
In the meantime, you may want to search #ignitewaterloo in twitter – there was an awesome amount of tweeting going on.
Here’s my recap/extremely long post about the evening:
Night started off with some chatting, lego building and awesome apps by the Museum Cafe. The quesadillas were Deeee-licious.
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Alex and Ramy were the hosts for the night, hilarious as usual.
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

First speaker – Angela Pause – Such a great way to start the night. She spoke about uhmmm… genitals? Seriously. The correlation between a species genital size and their level of promiscuity.
Amazing.
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Vince Jelenic – His main focus was on small business using online means to connect to their community… both geographically and topically. Would have loved to chat with this guy after, i wonder if he knows about IdeasTransform?
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Renjie Butalid talked about misconceptions about the UAE. So interesting to see the comparison photos of Dubai in the 90s compared to now.
Lisa Farlow gave us 5 mins on why bloggers are wicked – i can’t disagree with that ;)
Jeff Henry – I’ve met Jeff a couple times and he always impresses me with his clear and witty conversational skills. His talk about influencing government was no exception. Note to selves: Politics are Generalists, they look for experts to guide them. Get involved!
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Alex Matan – Learn to play the accordion in under 45 seconds. Uhmmm…. amazing. I cannot WAIT for the video of this one to be available! Totally hijacks Alec on me, didn’t see that coming AT ALL! So funny!
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Kyle Mackie talked about Conferences Sucking… this was my favourite slide of the night!
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010
Erica Waugh – Roundabouts. thank you.
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Tom Skazinski talked about a project he’s working on with the Zeitgeist movement. Definitely want to know more about this.
Me – hahahaha. Hungry like the wolf. Love it. About 75% of the crowd howled – so awesome. The only person who “dropped an F-bomb” on stage last night. hahahaha. my mom is SO proud, lemme tell ya.
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Sunshine – Such an amazing storyteller. I love his comparison of the Mona Lisa to the images of tradespeople who work in endangered trades.
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Ramy – Engineering Pranks – and pulls out Alec Baldwin and pranks me! Amazing! Crafty Bastards!
Peter Huang – Talking about geek music, super interesting. We chatted at the after party and he’s friends with my brother! weird! God, i love this town so hard.
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Schien Dong – Gave us the low down on the advertiser’s dilemma… anyone that uses steak and sizzle in their presentation takes the cake.
Brendan Lowther - this guy 100% stole the show by having all his slides messed up. He was talking about geocaching, but really it was practice for using your imagination – the best thing about Ignite? the extremely supportive audience.
Photo by Kevin Hansen, 2010

Kareem Shehata talked about lessons learned from flying. You gotta watch out for problems that come in 3’s… they can create something that is worse than 1 huge problem.
Here’s a couple links to read more about the event last night:
More Photos and links to come this afternoon.
NEXT IGNITE WATERLOO: JULY 7th, 2010.
BE THERE!
Wanna talk about something at the next event: apply HERE. (Do.It.)
H.
PS. Love Love Love Love this photo from Sean – totally captures the moment of my parents getting SNAPped by Erich!
Photo by Sean M Puckett, 2010

Posted in Events | 1 Comment »

Mar 03

Dear Readers…

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I love you all, you're so so so so great!

Thank you so much for your passionate howls and laughter in all the right places.

If we have nothing else in common, we know that we have 2 things… The wolf, and that's right… Alec Baldwin.

Well, I owe you guys one, now it's time to calm down and try to fall asleep!

xo
H.

PS. Hoping to get a detailed post out tomorrow before midday with links to other posts and photos!
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Posted in Events | 2 Comments »

Feb 26

CIGI talks in March

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March is a busy month at CIGI…. Here’s their lecture listings:

Thursday March 4 at 7pm.
“Child Soldiers in Uganda?”
Screening of “The Rescue” of Joseph Kony’s child soldiers, 30 min documentary
And lecture by Dr. Joanna Quinn, UWO.
FREE. REGISTER HERE.

Thursday March 11 at 6:30pm
“Encirclement – Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy”
Documentary screening at the Original Princess at 6:30, $10 at the door.
9:10pm will have a discussion with Director Richard Brouillette.

Tuesday March 23 at 11:45am
“The Critical Role of Scientific Evidence in Promoting Health Governance in the Fight against the Global Tobacco Epidemic”
Geoffrey T. Fong, Sr. Investigator at Ontario Institute for Cancer Research will be speaking.
FREE. REGISTER HERE.

Thursday March 25 at 7pm
“Arctic Governance – In the Face of Rapidly Changing Conditions”
Dr. Tatiana Saksina of WWF will talk about their work to promote the closure of the Arctic governance gaps.
FREE. REGISTER HERE.

Monday March 29 at 7pm
“The Perilous Imbalance: How Canada Should Respond to Globalization’s Inequalities”
Lecture by Stephen Clarkson of CIGI and UofT and Stepan Wood of CIGI and CIC.
FREE. REGISTER HERE.

H.

Posted in Events | 1 Comment »

Feb 25

About to start!

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It's about to start!
We're second row centre and I'm sitting behind Ray LaFlamme! Amazing!!!

Hanging out with Natalie from www.shetakesontheworld.com
And the cute geckos!

Sidenote:
The woman behind me just said 'everyone in this town has a bachelors degree… Well, anyone worth knowing'.

Please leave now. Hahaahahaha.

H.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Posted in Events | 5 Comments »

25

TEDxWaterloo

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Blogging on the go from TED at The Gig Theatre all day!

At the moment I've got my fingers crossed while I wait to get a sweet interview with one of the speakers.

Check back soon :)
H.

PS. You can follow my twitter if you're interested in quicker updates over the day… @angrycelery
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

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Feb 16

Culture Camp 3: Expanding the Definition

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Saturday was the third Culture Camp event at the rotunda in Kitchener City Hall.

There was about 45 people in attendance, lots of familiar faces, but a lot of new attendees as well.

The coolest part: It had a completely different vibe from the last event.

The December event was close to the Holidays, the rotunda felt a little bit cramped (due to some big pieces of school art of Olympic sports) which were hilarious and made the space feel a bit more intimate, and also – there was a lot of bitching going on last time. And with bitching – comes raised voices, conflicting opinions and a lot of jokes. All of this contributed to a pretty boisterous atmosphere.

This time, I got much more of a productive vibe.

Many of the sessions were focused on how to get some specific things in action around town, and so it seemed like everyone was making a lot more progress than last time, but maybe having a little bit less FUN. Which is ok, I think.

Here’s the sessions I attended:

1. About the “CCID”

aka – Centre(s) for Community Innovation and Design.

This session was done by Eric and Beth and discussed their recent feasibility study which can be found here.

This was quite a big session… and there was some annoying questions asking, but overall a great face-to-face presentation of what Beth and Eric are working on.

I’m pretty interested in this topic, so stay tuned for a separate post over the week.

2. Culture and the upcoming municipal elections.

I hosted this session to gauge the interest in the upcoming election, and see how we could make culture an important piece of the candidates discussions.

This was an awesome chat – and I have a few action items to do this week.

3. Sustainable Heritage

This session was offered by Jack Jackowetz – whose art and volunteer work in Brantford focuses on Heritage architecture. Really interesting talk about the current issue of the Rockway Seniors Centre on King St. The building has a long and colourful history, but is not designated as a Heritage building. There are some building issues with it – and the city is pushing to have it torn down, and a hi-rise to be put up in it’s place. Urgh. Gross.

I’m doing some more research on this issue and will have some options on how you can get involved if you’re interested in protecting our region’s architectural past.

Overall, awesome day.
Thanks for putting it together Brock, Ingrid and the City of Kitchener.

H.

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Feb 03

CIGI Lecture Series on Afghanistan

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Starts Tonight.


Part 1 – “From the Frontline : Canadian Forces in Afghanistan”
Wed Feb 3, 7pm-9pm.
Speakers: Colonel J.C.R. Lacroix, CD, and Tara Denham

“The Colonel will speak on combat operations, the challenges of command during a demanding and complex mission, as well as the advances being made by Canadian soldiers and civilians in spite of the difficult conditions in the heart of Kandahar Province. You will not want to miss this informative discussion about the Afghanistan mission.”

More details and RSVP HERE.

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Part 2 – “Ending the Agony : Seven Moves to Stabilize Afghanistan”
Tues Feb 9, 7pm-9pm.
Speaker: Chris Alexander

“Former Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Afghanistan (2006-2009) and Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan (2003-2005) Chris Alexander will discuss the issue of stabilization in Afghanistan and his recommendations for achieving it.”

More details and RSVP HERE.

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Feb 01

Ignite! Waterloo 2

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The next Ignite event is March 3rd at the Children’s Museum…

Hurry up and Register… HERE.
They’ve already got 65+ people signed up, you need to hurry!!!!!!!!
Sunshine is presenting!
“Fort Mac and the ‘Loo – a tale of two cities”
So exciting!
H.

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