Making the Future
Meeting for the week of January 27 - February 02, 2020
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Making the Future
Speaker: Sean Ness
Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page.Each Monday our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time.Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you. Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!To properly attend this meeting, please:
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Everyone is also encouraged to leave a comment in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.
Table of Contents
Welcome to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!
Here’s a message from President Tzviatko:
Tzviatko
President, Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley
Guests, we are happy to have you join us this week!
As we see it, our flexibility as an online, asynchronous club allows a special type of service to Rotarians around the world: we make it easier for anyone to strive for and maintain 100% attendance. That keeps you engaged with Rotary's events and ideas, and provides a moment of inspiration for devoting your creativity, talents, and resources to good causes.You are certainly not required to pay anything in order to attend our meetings. However, if you would like to make a small contribution to our service efforts, you are welcome to do so in our secure Happy Dollars section down the page. This could be what you normally pay at your own club's meetings for lunch, for example. Any amount is welcome, but first and foremost, we're happy you've joined us, and hope you will share with others who we are and what we do to help inspire Service Above Self.And don't forget to fill out our attendance form so you get an email you can pass on to your club's secretary!
The Four Way Test
The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships.Of the things we think, say or do
Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
Shags from Walnut Creek, CA, USA
🎂 🎈 🎉 🎁 🍾
Happy Birthday!!
Raquel D'Garay-Juncal (Jan 30)
From around the world,
Wishing you all the best, on your birthday and always!
🎂 🎈 🎉 🎁 🍾
Members and guests, consider donating in their honor in our Happy Dollars section below.
Weekly Funny with the Lady of Laughter (LOL)
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Yvonne Kwan, our “Lady of Laughter!”
Happy Lunar New Year! To ring in the Year of the Rat, here are some jokes that will get you squeaking!
What is a mouse's favorite game?Hide and squeak!
Why did the mouse stay inside?Because it was raining cats and dogs!
What is small, furry, and brilliant at sword fights?A mouseketeer!
Weekly Inspiration
Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change.
Seoul is known as the City of the Future for good reason. South Korea’s capital has transformed into a modern, high-tech megalopolis in the last couple of decades.But old Seoul still exists, and it’s worth finding. In the Seoul installment of our “City Roots” series, we’re visiting the historic neighborhood of Bukchon Hanok, we’re basking in the serenity of the iconic Bongeunsa Temple, and we’re enjoying a fun night out on Euljiro Alley.A tour of the Korean Stone Art Museum and Huwon Secret Garden are on the agenda, too.
Member Spotlight
This week's Member Spotlight is Mark Dohn! Here is what they have been up to lately:
Hello my fellow Rotarians! I am honored to share a little about myself and my world with you. I’m a firm believer in the motto, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. So here we go!I live in New York (Rockaway Park) and use the ferry to get back-and-forth to the city.I’ve been married to Hadar for 25 years.We have 3 kids - Yael, Yuval and Tal. I am super proud of them!We have 3 dogs…BIG dogs named Mildred, Jebediah and Agnes.Riding and racing bicycles has been and continues to be a passion of mine.I work as a consultant focusing on technology and how we use it for learning and especially equity in this world. It means I get to do supercool things like work with educators in the Philippines…with super cool people like Rushton Hurley (notice the snazzy Rotary shirt!) to make this world a little better.
World of
How we created five new clubs in under a year
Learn more at https://blog.rotary.org/2019/12/11/how-we-created-five-new-clubs-in-under-a-year/
Through a Rotarian's Lens
Sometimes a photo can capture an amazing moment. In this section Member Keith Marsh shares his incredible photography!If you'd like to submit a photo for this section please contact Keith.
Camera lenses produce photos that have what is called a "depth of field or focus". This varies with each lens based on a number of factors including focal length, quality and aperature (f-stop). It is nearly impossible to get everything in focus when you are photographing something very close (few inches), but have a background that is extremely far (miles).One solution is to use a technique called "focus stacking". For this photo, I took two photos (with tripod). For one photo I set the focus on the wild flower very close. The other is focused on the surf north of Point Reyes National Seashore. Combining both in Photoshop results in a fully focused photo.
Learn Something New
This section is curated by members Shags Shagrin and Rushton Hurley and aims to teach our members and guests something new, fun and useful! If you have any ideas on a fun trick or skill you'd like to share please contact Rushton or Shags.
My Favorite Kitchen Toys, Part 1
As most Club members know, I love playing around in the kitchen. Last year we acquired a few new toys, and here's one of them, a hot-air fryer. I love cooking sausages in it, as well as fish, chicken (breaded or not, and especially wings -- the skin gets super crispy), bacon (the fat drips into the tray below), vegetables, potatos (fries and tots), and more! Great for reheating pizza, too.
Coffee With a Rotarian
A natural part of Rotary is the networking and the fellowship you get out of meeting other Rotarians. Coffee With a Rotarian is a monthly program of our club where we match participating club members for one-on-one virtual (or in some cases in person) coffee meetings, so they can learn more about each other. This program is organized by member Tzviatko Chiderov.
This week we have Shags from Walnut Creek, CA, USA reporting on a chat with Nick from Vancouver, BC, CanadaI spent the most delightful hour chatting with Nick about all sorts of things. We talked of Rotary, family, vocations, avocations, and much more. The time went by so quickly! Blessed with three children, I'm looking forward to seeing their antics and accomplishments through our Rotary connection.Karen and I decided to stop at two kids, as she was one of two and I was one of three, and the worst thing ever was fighting over who had to sit in the middle of the back seat! Hope we're connected again soon, Nick -- or just reach out to chat or get some "old-dad" thoughts.We encourage all club members to participate in Coffee With a Rotarian. You can sign up here!
Fundraising
Hi eClub members and guests!
So excited for our first annual ReCSV Oscars pool. Join us in guessing the winners of each category. We donate $10 per form with the potential to win $50 for the most accurate guesses! All other proceeds go toward building our international service project fund. Sign up via
and please indicate
in the memo by February 8th so you're in time for the Oscars on the 9th!
Thanks so much for supporting Rotary's efforts to make more sustainable and impactful projects around the world!
Service Report
Tell us about service you’ve done recently in your community.Click here to fill out The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey
On the first meeting of every month, we feature service reports from club members for the previous month. Thanks for your service everyone!
Club Announcements
Haven't joined the conversation on Facebook yet? Consider joining the conversation by signing into our club members-only Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/rotarysiliconvalley/
Our Events & Projects
We hold our meetings online, but we do regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley! This section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of the events and service projects listed here.
Past Events:
January 2020 In-Person & Online Social
Upcoming Events:
All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)
District 5170 Events
District 5170 International Expo 2020Feb 1, 2020, 9am-12pmUniversity of Silicon Andhra, 1521 California Cir, Milpitas, CA 95035More info at https://events.rotarydistrict5170.org/rotary-district-5170-events/district-international-expo-2020
Area 8 Service Project - Rise Against HungerFeb 29, 2020, 10am-12pmMonta Vista High School Cafeteria, 21840 McClellan Rd., Cupertino, CA 95014More info at https://tinyurl.com/area8serviceproject
All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)More events coming soon! All events are open to guests, unless otherwise mentioned. Feel free to join us! If you ever have questions, please email inquiries@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Happy Dollars: Do Good by Sharing Something Good
Each week we ask our members to share stories with the club and toss in a few dollars to support our efforts. The primary goal of this section is to provide a fun way of getting to know each fellow members and guests, while giving back to a good cause.
Happy dollars is an opportunity to share something positive that has happened in your life whether it is personal or business. Think of it as your opportunity to brag a little, but also put a little bit into a karma jar. The money donated through happy dollars is put to charitable use, and the message that you leave for happy dollars will be posted in our online meeting the following week for the entire week for folks to see! (Pending that it’s appropriate!)
Here are the happy dollars contributions from last week!This section is usually updated on the early hours of Saturday, so contributions made over the weekend may not be listed here.
Rory Olsen made a $20 donation.Sun is shining. Jazzmine is on her window ledge extender, catching the rays ad some ZZZZs. All is well. Please apply my gift to Polio Plus.
Hardeep Singh made a $5 donation.Happy to be back from my leave of absence from the club. A LOT has happened in the while that I've been MIA, but I am happy to say that everything is looking up!Please apply my Happy Dollars toward PolioPlus. :)
Mark Busani made a $10 donation.For the Oscar 2020 pool!
Nathan Gildart made a $10 donation.Oscar Pool!
Kelly Ku made a $10 donation.$10 for the Oscar 2020 pool. :)
Selected Comments
Every week at the bottom of our meetings, there is a comments section for members and guests to tell us what they enjoyed about the meeting or to ask questions to the speaker. We select a few comments every week from last week’s meeting to be featured during this week’s meeting.
Here are the comments selected from last week’s meeting.
Yvonne Kwan said:
Whittney, thank you for sharing the amazing work that TechSoup is doing to support non-profits! So fun to hear a bit about the origin of the TechSoup name -- those soup recipes must be delicious! Happy birthday, Nan!
Rushton Hurley said:
So much good content this week! That video about the athlete who designed his own prosthetic leg - just wow. Yvonne, those jokes mooved me. Great story about how Toastmasters and Rotary complement each other, as well. The picture from Keith was stunning. Whittney, thanks again for the presentation. My nonprofit has benefited from Tech Soup’s work for years!
Andrew Taw said:
Whittney, thank you for all you do! The organization I work for receives support from TechSoup for some of its hardware and software. The scale of your impact and how you utilize capital is really impressive!
This question might be a bit in the weeds but does TechSoup have a special initiative to support nonprofits with older computers as Microsoft sunsets Windows 7 support? As you're no doubt aware, many nonprofits operate with older computers due to budget constraints and the hardware won't be able to support Windows 10.
Tzviatko Chiderov said:
Whittney, thanks so much for speaking to our club. It's amazing to see by how much you are able to reduce the cost of great technology to cash strapped nonprofits.I believe Google uses TechSoup to verify an organization outside the US is a nonprofit, before they would qualify for G-Suite for Nonprofits. Is that right? I'm interested in learning how you choose which countries to expand to and what that process is like.I was recently doing some pro-bono work with an educational nonprofit based in Tanzania, and I was sad to find out they could not take advantage of the G-Suite for Nonprofits program because there was no ability for them to be verified as a nonprofit. In browsing through your website though I see that they should be able to take advantage of a free Office 365 subscription, so I'll make sure I talk to them about it!
Be sure to leave a comment at the end of this week’s meeting after you watch the program below, and perhaps you’ll see your comment featured next week!
Program: Making the Future
Speaker: Sean Ness
Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education, and how those contribute to service to others. Special thanks to member Roger Plested for leading our club's Programs Committee in finding us amazing speakers each week.The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley seeks to explore perspectives on service from across the world. The views of the speakers in our programs are their own, and unless stated otherwise, are not necessarily reflective of the views of our eClub nor Rotary International.
If you have an idea for a cool speaker, please feel free to reach out to them directlyor submit THIS FORM so our Program Committee can contact them!
Our speaker this week, Sean Ness, sees the future not as something that just happens to us, but as something we create. This is a cycle which offers a way to develop foresight and apply it to urgent issues in one's work and life. Sean will explore this idea, "foresight," as good for a number of processes in strategy and innovation, including building the right teams and experimenting successfully.The idea is to create futures we want to live and work in, and then take practical steps today to make those futures more likely.Sean oversees business development at the Institute for the Future (IFTF), looking for creative ways to interact with outside organizations. In college, Sean switched from mechanical engineering to polymer science when he learned that polymer grads often go on to technical sales, an idea that piqued his interest and that he pursued until it landed him in Silicon Valley.A self-described nerd growing up, Sean read all he could about science as a kid and immersed himself in maps for hours at a time. He also set his chemistry set on fire a few times, took junior high computer classes on a TRS-80, and was on his high school ecology team.After earning a BS in polymer science with a minor in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University, Sean ping-ponged between research organizations including Forrester Research and scrappy software start-ups like ComputerWire before joining IFTF in 2004. In 2006, Sean co-founded the STIRR Network, a group that helped catalyze early-stage entrepreneurial activity in Silicon Valley and beyond, through 2009.Members and guests, please welcome Sean Ness.
Share your thoughts or ask our speaker a question in the comments at the bottom of this meeting page!
Upcoming Program Recording Schedule
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always https://zoom.us/j/5104080000. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone listed for all recordings is US Pacific Time (San Francisco, California, USA).If you can’t join the live recording, please send your questions for an upcoming speaker to programs@siliconvalleyrotary.com.
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