If you’re going to change the world, wouldn’t you like it to be epic?

Stacey Monk, Co-founder and CEO of Epic Change, does, which is why she and Sanjay Patel decided to launch their unique approach to sparking social change by converting people’s “epic” stories into financial resources they can use to improve their communities, their lives – and the world.

Rooted in the best practices of successful businesses and charities, their somewhat novel approach to funding uses donations to provide interest-free loans to finance community improvement efforts, which they repay by generating revenue-driving projects based on each epic story, and then recycle by duplicating those ideas in other communities, effectively spreading hopefulness and change to everyone their program touches.

I had the opportunity to talk with Stacey to dig a little deeper into their change model, and this impassioned former management consultant with a degree in Public Policy from the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University boasts an impressive resume, but her most compelling attribute by far is a genuine desire to promote positive change and a dewey-eyed hopefulness that makes me believe she can.

Read more of this story »

THE TEN PROJECT

www.thetenproject.org

THE PROJECT’S AIM

To distribute a game in 2010 to every single ten-year-old living in the ten most influential mega-cities of the future, to inspire them to create a ten-year plan for redesigning their world into one that will be sustainable and worth inheriting in 2020.

THE GAME’S AIM

As the game Monopoly prepared previous generations for capitalism, this game aims to make lucrative sustainability second nature to the children of a new world in which biology and economics are inextricably linked. The game aims to do this by exciting its players into creating a ten year plan for sustainability problem solving, empowering them as a connected global network, and alerting them to their major role in this next crucial ten years of human civilization.

(Statistics quoted are courtesy of the UN, N.A.T.O., and WHO)

WHY SUSTAINABILITY IS VITAL

IPCC reports reveal that the world has reached a state of emergency, and that during the next ten years we must bring to fruition the monumental advances in Green Technology, social innovation and human compassion that have already begun, if we are to survive. The TEN Project focuses on the positive outcome of this critical age of change, particularly in the vibrant mega-cities of the future.

WHY THE MEGA-CITIES ARE VITAL

51% of all humans now live in cities. In seven years, Lagos Nigeria will be the third largest city in the world, after only Mumbai and Tokyo. We are building the equivalent of a city the size of Seattle (0.6 million) every four to seven days.

Well over a billion people live in resourceful slums and vibrant squatter communities, full of social and economic prosperity, innovation, and hope. In 2010 a global taskforce will distribute the game to every single ten year old in the following ten mega-cities: Lagos, Mumbai, Karachi, Dhaka, Mexico City, São Paulo, Jakarta, Tokyo, Shanghai, New York.

The effectiveness of such a global taskforce was proven by the eradication of Smallpox, which killed more people than all the wars, violence, natural disasters, AIDS and all the other infectious diseases of civilization added together. It was finally defeated in 1979 against all odds, by 150,000 volunteers who were mobilised (without cheap telephony and the internet) and inoculated over a billion households until they succeeded.

THE TARGET AGE GROUP

Over the age of about eight and before puberty, the child’s innovative capacities are boundless. They are not yet educated out of their creativity, their ideals are still flexible and they have a natural understanding of the transforming world (such as computers). More than one third of the world is under the age of fifteen, and they are becoming ever more connected, and they are every nation’s most valuable natural resource.

50% of the entire world population already owns a cell phone. OLPC are distributing millions of ‘$100’ wi-fi laptops to the world’s poorest children, with staggering results. The Project’s game will empower its players as they connect to form a global network.

THE FUTURE

We are hurtling toward a future no one can predict. Yet one thing is certain: our capacity to mend is as powerful as our capacity to break. Mass-extinction, bio-weapons, uncontrollable disease and the horror of climate crisis, are on one side of the coin. On the other is a powerfully connected society of problem solvers on the streets and in the labs of the world’s cities.
KEY POINTS OF THE GAME DESIGN BRIEF:

1) Must be cheap and self-maintaining, require minimal interface. A short form/ SMS game type would be practical and take advantage of rapid cell phone connectivity in squatter cities. The web, cell phone SMS, word of mouth and creating visual clues in the urban environment, might all be equally effective ways for the players to interconnect within the game. In this way the game environment could become the real environment of the player’s city. Instead of using elaborate graphics in a virtual world, the very fabric of urban life could become the game landscape. (This is also more practicable for areas without computer access).

2) For children in squatter cities who might have no community access to internet or other electronic media, periodic unofficial ‘social connector’ stations might be set up on a word of mouth basis for that particular community, each with periodic contact to practical nearby internet access in another part of the city. Gamers on a rotation suggested by the game itself could be responsible for these.

3) Must enable the children to keep track of and share each other’s ideas, scores and creations, across the global community. Regardless of the simplicity of the game’s interface, it must create a global video gaming community that crosses cultural boundaries as effectively as if it were a ‘Massively Multiplayer Online Game’ (MMOG). It must have networking, collaborative and web-based elements.

4) Must be able to develop and grow in complexity with the child, and maintain its appeal and functionality throughout a ten-year period.

5) Must inspire children to workshop a personal and a social ten year plan for surviving the current ecological emergency (short-term radical solutions to get us through the critical moment); as well as a long-term sustainable world that will never again forget how to maintain its own lifeline, its planet/world/environment.

6) Must not have anything to do with their schooling or come across as an educational tool, but be action-based, and fun enough to compete (or even integrate) with their current popular activities. It must be fashionable and at least as much fun as stealing cars, sniffing glue, skateboarding, playing play-station etc.

7) Despite operating above and without requiring literacy, the game will need still to demonstrate, however subtly, the following three key points… a) That technology is a biological system with its own evolution. b) That the onus is on us to ensure that system works properly (makes all species including our own happy, healthy and prosperous as opposed to miserable, diseased and extinct). c) That technology is sustainable for itself and in context to all biological systems, and how important it is to re-evaluate the things we think we need to make us happy in light of what is actually sustainable.
THE TWO-YEAR DESIGN PROCESS:
It is an ambitious design brief, but as an open source design project, a heavily networked global team of ten thousand voluntary designers (amateur and professional) will have two years to ponder the game (from January 2008 to December 2009).

Child psychologists, teachers, counselors, game designers, large corporations such as Sony Inc., and successful recruitment organizations (e.g. The Military) will be offered corporate sponsorship or other incentives in exchange for knowledge about how to captivate children’s imaginations, and possibly even promotion for recruiting volunteers.

The best ideas will be consolidated on the TEN Project website, where they will be instantly accessible for revision by everyone involved. Minimal game summaries will be encouraged at this point rather than over-complicated descriptions. The website will then divide into separate design branches for multiple cultures and tastes modifications, and the most successful ideas to emerge will be rigorously tested for appeal on children in multiple cultural, consumer and stylistic contexts.

2010 POINT-TO-POINT DISTRIBUTION PROGRAM:
The distribution targets of the game are every bit as ambitious as its design, but the globally conscious and philanthropic community that grows daily cannot be underestimated. Abundant and popular web 2.0 sites, which allow for an intermesh of discussion and social networking can be used to amass a vast team. This will operate in a decentralized fashion with a common directive. A million volunteers will be needed to personally deliver the game to ten million children of around ten years old across the globe.

The game will not insist on any proof of age, and its target figures allow for the fact that the game will very likely be played initially by eight to eleven year olds. By targeting every child of this age bracket in each of the target cities, the TEN Project hopes to make a significant impact on those cities, and in the way this growing generation, en masse, thinks about economics, sustainable city living and the future.

The cities were chosen based on having the highest ten-year-old populations in the world, with the exception of Shanghai and New York, which are included to complete the picture of global influence represented by this top-ten list of tomorrow’s mega-cities.

The numbers of children in the target age group for each city are:

Lagos (1,500,000), Mumbai (1,400,000), Karachi (1,300,000), Dhaka (1,200,000), Mexico City (1,000,000), São Paulo (900,000), Jakarta (800,000), Tokyo (800,000), Shanghai (600,000), New York (600,000)

The TEN Project is a way of maximizing the promises and staying ten steps ahead of the threats of this accelerating world in our race toward the sustainability of a future no one can predict.

—-

Sign up for participation in whatever capacity you like, however small, by emailing us at thetenproject@gmail.com

Any comments or suggestions whatsoever about the project concept, alternative name suggestions or the wording of the brochure would also be greatly appreciated at the above email.

Thirteen women from around the globe meet and resolve to promote change. If there were ever active seniors, you'll meet them here.

The International Council of Indigenous Grandmothers

For the Next 7 Generations: The Grandmothers Speak