Last night at a powerful and inspiring event held at the MaRS Centre, 11 new Ashoka Canada Fellows were inducted. On the list was the Centre of Social Innovation’s executive director Tonya Surman. Congratulations Tonya and all Fellows for what is a truly amazing achievement!
David Bornstein gave a keynote speech that touched upon something extremely relevant and timely – the observation that news/media perpetuates one (negative) view of human nature and social entrepreneurs provide a new, positive and empowering view of the world. A world where human nature is one of compassion, empathy and inspired action to help each other as well as the environment. Bornstein noted that the Milgram experiment highlighted something particularly interesting, and not commonly known – that 90% of participants in the experiment would change their behavior if they saw the person before them change their behavior first. People will follow/replicate what they see.
Or as Gandhi eloquently put it:
We must be the change we wish to see in the world.
Everyone is a Change Maker, including you.
