Session Descriptions
Session Overview
Breakout Session I: 10:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Where is the market for sustainable investors?
How are ESG strategies driving a sustainable future?
How can food businesses be an agent for social and environmental change?
How can we sustain political reforms, structural reorganizations, and individual passion within education?
Can wearable tech drive behavioral change for a sustainable lifestyle?
Lunch Session: 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
The Center4 Social Innovator Showcase
Breakout Session II: 1:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m
Innovative revenue models for social impact
Sustainable cities of the future
The rapid emergence of cost effective, high quality health innovations
Thirsty for change: how can we unite to solve the clean water crisis?
Sustaining the Emojicon: Do sustainable business strategies attract and retain employees?
Session Descriptions
Breakout Session I: 10:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Where is the market for sustainable investors?
– in the Imperial/Julliard room
Interest in innovative uses of finance to achieve social impact is at an all time high. But, a recent report by the National Advisory Board on Impact Investing sizes the impact investment market at 0.02% of global financial markets. What does the ideal sustainable finance marketplace look like? What strategies are needed to reach this ideal state? What financial tools (e.g. green bonds, clean energy ETFs, public equity, sustainable investment funds and PE) can help tackle sustainability challenges?
How are ESG strategies driving a sustainable future?
– in the Carnegie/Lyceum room
Many companies now recognize that long-term value creation requires strategies that address material ESG issues. What ESG issues do organizations see on the horizon and are millennial leaders prepared to face them? How are sustainability decision makers at organizations tackling these challenges? What are the motivating factors to address these issues and how can incentives be improved?
Eve Ellis
Financial Advisor and Portfolio Manager
Morgan Stanley
Sarah Gillman ’93
Chief Financial Officer, Administration and Finance
NRDC
Nathan Hurst
Global Director
Hewlett-Packard Company
Erika Karp ’91
Founder and CEO
Cornerstone Capital Inc.
Mark D. Sloss
Senior Portfolio Manager, Head of Premier Portfolio Services
UBS Investment Management
How can food businesses be an agent for social and environmental change? – in the Alvin room
Increasingly, food businesses may be held accountable for their severely negative social and environmental impacts. How can food businesses, investors and philanthropy lead the way towards improving the balance of the triple bottom line: profits, human health and environmental sensitivity? Our food system is rooted in agriculture. The environmental impact of agriculture in the U.S is substantial, contributing nearly 20% of the Nation’s (and 12% of the World’s) greenhouse gas emissions, depleting limited natural resources (such as fresh water) and over-using harmful chemicals and synthetic fertilizers. Human impacts on the food system are nearly as severe. Widespread distribution (and the rise in consumption) of inexpensive processed foods, for example, has led to food-related pandemics — especially and disproportionately amongst low-income populations — such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Our panel explores how investing in small, local, sustainable food and farm businesses may provide a new model for changing the economic “common wisdom” which has rewarded huge negative externalities and steep profits in the current industrial and global food system. We investigate the role of philanthropy to help develop new business models — sensitized to social and environmental impact — which may eventually attract interest of venture capital to scale and to replicate. And, we will hear from the founders of two on-going social enterprises, serving as our case studies for enacting the change they wanted to see by executing business plans intended to create a better future of food for all.
Derek Denckla
Investments and Partnerships Director
National Young Farmers Coalition
David Rosenberg ’02
CEO and Co-Founder
AeroFarms
How can we sustain political reforms, structural reorganizations, and individual passion within education?
– in the Booth/Edison room
In the 2012 election cycle, issues of sustainability did not have great prominence on political platforms. But, education policy plays an important role at all levels of government. Given an increasing grassroots interest in reform within education, how can the system be redesigned to provide long-term changes to policy, structures, and culture that sustain experimentation and passion? Which levers of change can have the biggest impact on sustainable education reform moving forward?
Young Rhee
Director of Strategy
Uncommon Schools
Can wearable tech drive behavioral change for a sustainable lifestyle?
– in the Belasco/Broadhurst room
Early adaptors and entrepreneurs are starting to explore the potential for wearable tech to track and provide feedback on individual actions. Can this potential be harnessed to encourage sustainable choices? Can data be collected and aggregated at a local, city, and global scale to help organizations in all sectors improve products, services and policies that support sustainable behaviors and actions? Can wearable tech be used to improve sustainable choices in low-income communities? What feedback mechanisms are most effective in driving behavioral change? How are cities using aggregated data from individuals to improve sustainable planning? This Spark workshop will bring together innovators in wearable technology, data, and local governments to highlight examples from New York City and beyond, and to identify and brainstorm opportunities for replication or scaling.
Elisa Miller-Out
CEO
Singlebrook
Norman Mohi
President & CTO
NorBelle
Billie Whitehouse
Co-founder
Wearable Experiments
Lunch Session: 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
The Center4 Social Innovator Showcase
– in the Westside Ballroom
The Center4 Social Innovator Showcase brings together a fresh group of visionary tech entrepreneurs who are innovating towards sustainable communities starting with more diverse and disruptive approaches to workforce. Featuring Rajesh Andandan, Founder of ULTRA TESTING, Kathryn Finney of digitalundivided, and Guy Halfteck of Knack, these entrepreneurs will share their stories of purpose, the startup journey and what they learned about tech for good along the way. Presented by Center4 and moderated by Center4’s Managing Director Jane Del Ser, EMBA ’10.
Breakout Session II: 1:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
Innovative revenue models for social impact
– in the Belasco/Broadhurst room
Great ideas may be the first step for social impact, but it is critically important to consider how that idea can be sustainably funded. In this intensive workshop, you will work in teams to use the Business Model Canvas to help a social entrepreneur workshop his/her real-time critical revenue challenges. Your solutions will help drive ensure the sustainability of these organizations.
Sustainable cities of the future
– in the Imperial/Julliard room
City residents are responsible for more than 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Even slight changes in the way we live our everyday life can lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Are we doing enough to fight climate change, now? How are social entrepreneurs, policy makers and business leaders tackling transport, housing, energy, health and other environmental challenges? What innovative ideas in sustainable urban development are mayors and city governments around the world pursuing?
The rapid emergence of cost effective, high quality health innovations
– in the Alvin room
Your zip code may be more important to your health than your genetic code, according to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As healthcare costs increase, improving outcomes remains a challenge, especially in low-income populations. Creative thinkers, fierce leaders and innovative organizations have emerged to find solutions to the problems of poor infrastructure, governance, resources and access. What can be learned from successful models and failures? What are the broader landscape challenges associated with developing a more sustainable healthcare sector?
Kanika Bahl
Principal & Managing Director
Results for Development Institute (R4D)
Dr. Jacob Kumaresan
Executive Director
WHO
Dr. Aditi Shastri
Hematology & Medical Oncology
Montefiore Medical Center & Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Donald Shriber
Deputy Director for Policy and Communication
CDC Center for Global Health
Thirsty for change: how can we unite to solve the clean water crisis?
– in the Booth/Edison room
While we applaud the significant progress that has been made towards the Millennium Development Goals targets, we must think critically about how we can unite to help the 748 million people who still lack access to clean drinking water. Since 1990, over 2 billion people have gained access to clean drinking water, and nearly as many have gained access to improved sanitation. However, currently every 21 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease, and 2.5 billion people still lack adequate sanitation. This is the clean water crisis.
John F. Kennedy once mused, “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word crisis. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.”
Join us for an energizing and interactive session to define the clean water crisis, discover innovative models and solutions that are driving change, and share your call to action for the millennial generation. In addition to hearing from experts on how they are taking advantage of opportunities across the entire space, we will challenge you with thought-provoking questions to get you out of your seat and into the action.
Jenifer Willig
Founder
WHOLE WORLD Water
Sustaining the Emojicon: Do sustainable business strategies attract and retain employees?
– in the Carnegie/Lyceum room
Soon, a vast majority of the workforce will be represented by the millennial generation making it a high priority for organizations to understand how this generation is different from previous years. What makes a millennial want to work for you? How do leading organizations incorporate sustainability commitments into purpose, mission and values? What changes in business or organizational cultures, structures, and work/life strategies are leading companies implementing, leading them to be named as part of the top places to work?
Sabine Chalmers
Chief Legal & Corporate Affairs Officer
Anheuser-Busch InBev
Michael Fenlon
Principal
Global & US Talent
PwC
Michelle Nasir ’98
Partner
Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Consulting Practice