President Clinton Announces Program for CGI Annual Meeting

President Bill Clinton has announced the program for the eighth Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to be held September 23-25 in New York City. This year’s gathering will bring together more than 1,000 CGI members and participants, including current and former heads of state, Fortune 500 CEOs, leaders from the nonprofit sector, and celebrities, to devise and implement high-impact solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

This year marks the first time that CGI will organize its largest meeting around a single theme. The 2012 Annual Meeting’s program, “Designing for Impact,” will explore how leaders can extend design thinking, often tied to startups and market-based solutions, from the private realm to accelerate positive outcomes for individuals’ lives, their environments, and their systems of government, commerce, and consumption.

“This year, our Annual Meeting will help CGI members design solutions to critical challenges such as empowering girls and women to be full participants in the global economy, encouraging the private sector to create markets for the under-served, and increasing the sustainability of our food supply as global demand doubles within the next 50 years,” said President Clinton. “We redesigned the meeting this year to optimize the creative spirit and remarkable dedication of our members, who, since 2005, have made more than 2,100 commitments that are impacting nearly 400 million lives in more than 180 countries. I look forward to the solutions and commitments that will emerge from the CGI community at this year’s meeting.”

The program features an impressive list of participants that can be accessed in full by clicking here.

Each of the three days of the 2012 Meeting will explore how CGI members can create solutions that make the maximum positive impact on people and their communities. The full agenda for the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative can be found at clintonglobalinitiative.org/2012.

President Clinton will also present the sixth annual Clinton Global Citizen Awards in a special ceremony that includes celebrity guests and a live musical performance on Monday, September 24. The event recognizes remarkable individuals for their leadership in philanthropy, government, civil society, and the corporate sector.

For more information, please visit clintonglobalinitiative.org/2012. Follow us on Twitter @ClintonGlobal and Facebook at facebook.com/clintonglobalinitiative for meeting news and highlights. The event hashtag is #CGI2012.

President Clinton Introduces CGI America

President Bill Clinton announced that he will host a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting focused on creating jobs and driving economic growth in the United States. The meeting, CGI America, will be the first CGI event solely dedicated to economic issues impacting the U.S. and will take place in Chicago on June 29-30, 2011.

“CGI America will bring together leaders from business, nonprofits, and government to develop new ideas for generating jobs now in the U.S.,” President Clinton said. “CGI members have already improved the lives of more than 300 million people around the world by making nearly 2,000 commitments. More than 250 of those commitments, worth $11.6 billion, are addressing challenges in the U.S. At CGI America, we will focus that innovation and urgency to get people working again.”

Based on the same model as CGI’s Annual Meeting, the event will convene diverse stakeholders – including CEOs of American companies and international companies with U.S. operations, national and local government officials, and leaders from the nonprofit sector – to identify effective ways to strengthen U.S. industries, unlock capital for innovation and entrepreneurship, advance energy efficiency, build clean energy infrastructure, and train Americans for the 21st-century workforce.

To learn more, follow CGI on Twitter @ClintonGlobal or visit www.cgiamerica.org.

President Clinton Announces CGI U 2011 Program

Approximately 1,000 Students To Attend CGI U Meeting, Which Will Take Place at the University of California, San Diego, April 1-3

President Bill Clinton announced the program of the fourth annual Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) meeting, which will be held at the University of California, San Diego from April 1-3, 2011.

“Since 2008, CGI U has brought together more than 2,500 students from 575 schools in 99 countries, all of them dedicated to addressing the great global challenges of our time,” President Clinton said. “Their work has improved the lives of thousands of people around the world. I am looking forward to convening the next generation of global leaders once again, so they can learn from each other and gain practical skills that will help them turn their ideas into real change.”

Building on the successful model of the Clinton Global Initiative, CGI U brings together approximately 1,000 students from all over the world, along with non-profit leaders, entrepreneurs, and celebrities engaged in efforts to create positive change. Each student makes a Commitment to Action – a detailed plan for improving lives within one of CGI U’s focus areas: education, environment & climate change, peace & human rights, poverty alleviation, and public health.

Since 2008, through their Commitments to Action, CGI U members have:

• Made more than $1.3 million in infrastructure improvements to schools and libraries in countries including the U.S., Rwanda, Nigeria, and Laos;
• Reached more than 74,000 students, faculty, and staff with educational efforts and outreach about clean energy and sustainability;
• Placed more than 3,800 new recycling containers on college campuses and in surrounding communities;
• Engaged 2,700 people in workshops on conflict resolution, diplomacy, and peace;
• Established and maintained more than 90,000 square feet of community gardens;
• Introduced more than 3,000 bicycles on college campuses in the U.S., Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon, and China and much more.

The 2011 CGI U meeting will include large plenary sessions where CGI U participants can learn about innovative approaches to solving global issues, along with smaller working sessions focused on skills such as fundraising and marketing, and a large-scale service project at the San Diego Food Bank. Sessions will include:

• Financial Aid: Innovation for Affordability, developed with MTV and mtvU, will focus on addressing the prohibitive cost of higher education;
• LGBT Rights in the U.S. and Beyond, which will examine efforts to fight bullying and other infringements on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people;
• On the Edge: Poverty Along the U.S.-Mexico Border, which will address challenges such as violence and high unemployment; and
• The Urban Planet: Solutions for a Crowded World, which will examine the ongoing challenges and opportunities created by rapid urbanization.

Program participants will include: Mark Arnoldy, founder, NepalNUTrition; Michele Barry, senior associate dean of global health, Stanford University; Nnimmo Bassey, chair, Friends of the Earth International; Raquel “Rocsi” Diaz, TV personality, RocStar Rebuilds; Jose Reyes Ferriz, former mayor of Ciudad Juarez; Lorena Garcia, executive chef, restaurateur, and judge on NBC’s “America’s Next Great Restaurant”; Marye Anne Fox, chancellor, University of California, San Diego; Shirley Ann Jackson, president, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Van Jones, distinguished visiting fellow, Princeton University; Peggy Liu, chairperson, Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy; Jessica O. Matthews, co-founder, sOccket Inc.; Mandy Moore, ambassador, Population Services International; Gavin Newsom, lieutenant governor of California; Deogratias Niyizonkiza, founder, Village Health Works; Eduardo Padrón, president, Miami Dade College; Sean Penn, humanitarian and actor; Nan Shi, secretary general, Urban Planning Society of China; Richard Socarides, president, Equality Matters; Anu Sridharan, co-founder, NextDrop; Kate Stohr, managing director, Architecture for Humanity; and Kevin Surace, chief executive officer, Serious Materials.

On Sunday, April 3, the program will culminate in a service project, in which CGI U attendees and volunteers will work alongside 100 local veterans at the San Diego Food Bank. The San Diego Food Bank provides food to over 340,000 individuals monthly, while also advocating for the hungry and educating the public about hunger-related issues. Participants will sort, inspect, package, and distribute food for low-income military and non-military families, and help with beautification projects. In total, they will contribute more than 2,500 hours of service for the Food Bank.

UC San Diego, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, has been recognized widely for its local impact, national influence, and global reach. In 2009, Washington Monthly named UC San Diego number one in its rankings, which measure “what colleges are doing for the country.” The school has also been named one of the top ten public universities by U.S. News & World Report.

The full agenda can be found at http://www.cgiu.org/meetings/2011/agenda.asp. The meeting will be webcast live at http://www.cgiu.org. On Twitter, follow CGI U (@cgiu) or the Clinton Global Initiative (@ClintonGlobal). CGI U is also on Facebook at Facebook.com/CGIUniversity.

CGI U 2011 Headed to San Diego

The fourth annual CGI U meeting will bring together students and national youth organizations to create and implement Commitments to Action across five Focus Areas: Education, Environment & Climate Change, Peace & Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, and Public Health. The meeting will be held from April 1-3, 2011 at the University of California, San Diego.

CGI U 2011 will be arranged around plenary sessions, working sessions, and skill sessions, all of which allow members to interact with one another and formulate commitments and productive partnerships.

Whether discussing the education of marginalized populations or the worldwide struggle against infectious diseases, each session will be informed by student activists, celebrities, heads of leading NGOs, topic experts, and others who have created positive change in the global community. Participants will also be invited to participate in CGI U Exchange, an exhibition allowing meeting attendees to learn more about the commitments and organizations present at the CGI U 2011. On Sunday, CGI U members will take part in an innovative service project which will allow students to give back to the greater San Diego community.

For more information about CGI U, please click here.

President Clinton Secures Record Commitments

FiveCurrents wrapped production of the sixth annual Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting last week in New York City. The meeting brought together more than 1,300 attendees including current and former heads of state, CEO’s, NGOs and non-profit organizations. The closing plenary included remarks by President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and featured a discussion between President Clinton and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

President Clinton announced a record number of commitments, 291, worth more than $6 billion, at the close of the CGI Annual Meeting. Total commitment made since 2005 are up to nearly 2,000, valued at almost $70 billion.

“The reason I think people like (CGI) is that there’s a minimum amount of posturing and a maximum amount of seeking. There’s a minimum amount of talking in relationship to the commitment, to doing,” said Clinton.

For more information about CGI, please click here.