Leveraging Design to Solve Big Problems in Education and Beyond
Meeting for the week of April 27 - May 03, 2020
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Leveraging Design to Solve Big Problems in Education and Beyond
Speaker: Leslie McBeth & Rachel Franks
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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Table of Contents
Welcome to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!
Here’s a message from President Tzviatko:
https://youtu.be/8ZUMX10mg6U
President Tzviatko
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?
Members of the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley from around the world
🎂 🎈 🎉 🎁 🍾
Happy Birthday!!
Mark Busani (May 3)
May Yam (May 1)
Vandana Agrawal (May 2)
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!”
April 28 is National Superhero Day! We are all superheroes in our own way, so here are some jokes to celebrate the super job you're all doing!
What do you get when you cross a superhero with a potato?Spuderman!
What happened when Iron Man teamed up with Silver Surfer?They became alloys!
Which superhero hits the most home runs?Batman!
Weekly Inspiration
Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change.
Born in Tokyo to parents who were monks, Kodo Nishimura wasn’t interested in Buddhism when he was younger. But his thinking changed. Today, this out and proud gay man is both a monk and a professional makeup artist who has worked with the likes of singer Christina Milian and model Halima Aden.Nishimura uses his religion and his makeup skills to encourage LGBTQ people to feel good about themselves. “I want people to feel that they are equal, they are powerful, they can be who they are and be proud,” he says.
Member Spotlight
This week's Member Spotlight is Cecelia Babkirk! Here is what they have been up to lately:
No, I haven’t gone native, nor have I joined a religious order!For nine months, between June 15, 2019, when I retired from the mortgage business and March 21, 2020, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia. I taught English to 11th graders in the rural town of Soda, Ethiopia. Soda is located in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR). Along with all Peace Corps Volunteers worldwide (7,300+), I was evacuated and returned to California on March 22nd and I miss Soda, my school, teacher colleagues and especially, my students!I plan to return, with or without the Peace Corps, when it is safe to do so. In the meantime, despite the very limited connectivity there, I have instituted a “Distance Learning by Mobile Phone” effort, where I text (using WhatsApp or IMO) assignments to them and they complete them and text the answers back to me. Like the US and many other parts of the world, the schools are closed, the economy is virtually shut down and everyone is sheltering and social distancing.This has been one of the richest experiences of my life and I can hardly wait to go back!
World of
Please welcome Rotarian Richard Clarke from the Strathcona Sunrise Rotary Club who stopped by during a previous meeting!The Strathcona Sunrise Rotary Club was charted in Feburary of 1987. We were the third club in the Comox Valley - today we have five clubs. The Comox Valley is home to several communities mid-island on the eastern shore of Vancouver Island in D 5020.Our membership hovers around the low 60's. When the club was formed - there were two rules that we have followed to this day. As we are breakfast club - members were encouraged to come to the meeting in their work clothes be it business dress or overalls. The second was that we would not have fundraiser which required members to sell tickets.Our current fundraisers are - Have a Heart musical show - we market the show but sell the tickets through a couple of ticket vendors. The second is an annual Ribfest - which we ask for a donation at the gate.We do a mix of community and international projects. Our most recent projects was to ship $500,000 worth of medical equipment and supplies from our old decommissioned hospital to Branda Medical Clinic in Sierra Leone with the help of the Freetown Rotary Club, Vision Volunteers Canada and the The Rotary World Help Center in the Vancouver BC area.A couple of photos of our Rotary team loading the container is attached.Here is a short video clip of an ad for our Ribfest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG2telBvpqk
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.
Here is another photo from Ferheen: For my birthday in 2016, my father bought me a simple DSLR camera (Canon Rebel T5) and I was itching to try it out. After returning back to Japan, I decided to take a trip to Kyoto very early in the morning to avoid all the tourist traffic to shoot the gorgeous Fushimi Inari shrine.This picture is one of the most famous shots of this shrine. There are about a thousand "torii" gates that line the mountain path. They are bright orange in color but I decided to turn this picture black and white to relay the sense of calmness I felt. If you ever go to Japan, I highly recommend going to the Fushimi Inari shrine, but only early in the morning when no one is there.It is a 5 minute train ride away from Kyoto Station. (Editor notes: What I like about this composition are the leading lines that lead you down the tunnel and the lamps is in an ideal location based on the "Rule of Thirds".
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.
Al Jolson & Cab Calloway
Shags here! I grew up at my grandfather's movie theater watching Warner Bros. cartoons: Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes on Saturdays and Sundays. One of my favorites was the parody of the life story of Al Jolson, who was a good friend of my grandfather in the days of traveling Broadway shows through the countryside by train. In it, "Owl" Jolson sang the title song, "I Love to Singa".(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hRSfvpOz4A)
Little did I know as a child that it was based on the real song of the same name from the movie The Singing Kid (1936) featuring Al and Cab Calloway. Enjoy!
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 Sandy from Fremont, CA, USA reporting on a chat with Rory from Houston, TX, USAThis month I had CWR with Rory and his beautiful cat Jasmine. Rory is a retired Judge but still sits for a few arbitration cases.We chatted about so many different topics from Rotary to Hurricane Katrina. We both agreed that CWR is a great program.We encourage all club members to participate in Coffee With a Rotarian. You can sign up here!
New Member Introduction
Please welcome our new member, Manouchehr Shamsrizi!
Here is a little bit about him:
My name is Manouchehr Shamsrizi, which is Persian for "Face of Paradise." I am writing you these words from Hamburg, Germany, which is my hometown, and one of two cities I spend most of my time, Berlin being the second one. Ferheen, my mentor in regards of my new membership in our Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley, asked me to write a bit about myself and my motivation. Well, being in preventative self-quarantining right now, I have some time, so I shall make use of it.Throughout the past decade, I had the honour to be able to work at the interface between social entrepreneurship (both as founder and impact investor), political activism (I co-lodged a constitutional complaint asking Germany's Federal Constitutional Court to lower the voting age), academia (e.g. as co-founder of Humboldt-Universität's gamelab.berlin and of Leuphana Universität Lüneburg's Yunus Centre for Social Business and Values, formerly as a Global Justice Fellow of Yale University and an Ariane de Rothschild Fellow of Innovative Social Entrepreneurship of the University of Cambridge), and in consulting of agencies, political parties, foundations, and think tanks all over Europe. A lot of my social engagement has been influenced by my years as a Rotaractor - a decade I enjoyed very much, both as a member and as a President of my Club in Hamburg, Germany. This is why I believe my membership of Rotary, notably my membership in the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley, will allow me to enhance my social engagement with the experiences and perspectives of peers and fellow Rotarians, and thus to shape my personal and professional life in the next decade at least.There is another reason I am looking forward to my membership in the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley: I believe that technology and science can make the world a better place - if we succeed in organising access in a just way. In fact the data shows us that so far, every new generation of technology made our societies more inclusive, healthy, democratic, and our institutions had greater transparency and accountability. The digital transformation, though, has not achieved this kind of impact on governments yet, not for everyone. The Rotarian family, being a network of leading practitioners from different backgrounds and disciplines build around ethical principles like the "Four-Way Test" and the idea of "One Profits Most Who Serves Best", can change this. This is also true, because Rotary has re-invented itself while sticking true to its values; besides eClubs like our very own, the Rotarian Metalhead Fellowship could serve as an example, of which I am a co-founder, and I hope that I can join a Rotarian Gaming and eSports Fellowship one day.
Welcome to the club, Manouchehr !!
Relay for Life
Hello, eclub!So many of you have shared moving stories of those you remember and those you honor as they struggle against cancer. We'll share those over the coming weeks, and today, we'll highlight a story from Brett and Angela:Here's a photo taken when Angela and I went to visit my grandmother in Singapore and spent some time with her in January this year. She beat breast cancer 20 years ago and has been fit and healthy ever since, so when we called her on Christmas Day we were startled to find out she had been hospitalised.In early January, test results came back showing she had late stage lung cancer which was a big shock to everyone. She started a new treatment whilst we were there and the good news is that she seems to be responding well and when we spoke with her on the phone recently she sounded much stronger. We hope that this treatment continues to work and that she will be able to defeat the cancer once again.
Honoring others and raising money for research, education, and programs for patients and caregivers is something we want every member of the club to be part of.If you have yet to join in, it's not too late! You can send a message (to rushton@gmail.com) or donate
http://main.acsevents.org/goto/rushton
and when the in-person event rolls around in October (exact date to be determined), you can join in for the Relay for Life!
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!
Help the vulnerable in your community during COVID-19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6oOQnedEmg&feature=youtu.beHelping Hands is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the most at-risk people in our community stay safe at home, while getting the supplies they need. It works by connecting local volunteers who can run critical errands, such as grocery shopping, with the most vulnerable members of our community. If you or someone you know needs help, fill out a request. If you are healthy and able to volunteer, please sign up to help. Together, we can help flatten the curve of COVID-19 by protecting our community’s most vulnerable.Additional resources:
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:
April 25th Online Social
During the April 25th Online Social, we played 2 Truths and a Lie. In Disqus below, select which of the following stories you think is a lie and we will reveal the truth in next week's meeting!
FerheenWas on Japanese TVWas on the local radioOne of her Facebook posts went viral
ShagsLoves to wash dishesAte 30 hard boiled eggs after watching Cool Hand LukeInstalled a car A/C without a motor lift.
CarlKilled a 350 lb black bear with his jackknifeWas struck by lightening twice in the same dayIn his youth, transported stolen goods for the Mafia
RoryWent to military school and graduated from itReceived a one-mile-swimming award from the Boy ScoutsGrew up in a house full of cats
KeithOnce climbed Mt Whitney in 1 day, then hit a golf ball from the topMet Ansel Adams and shared photographs with himHad an instrumental part in the winner of a US Open Golf Tournament in SF
Carlos (2 lies, and 1 truth)As a child, family took plane trip sharing the cargo of chickens and pigsClimbed a volcano in Guatemala and it started to tremble with eruptionMade walking trip from Monterrey to Texas, 200 KM
Upcoming Events:
All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)
District 5170 Events
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.It rained most of the weekend. The weather is finally clearing.Poor Jazzmine does not like rain. She won't leave her bedroom until she is sure that the sun will be shining.Please apply my gift to Polio Plus.
Sarah Tuberty made a $10 donation.This donation is in celebration of my 30th birthday this week!! See ya later 20's and I am ready for this new decade!!
Mark Busani made a $Other Amount donation.Happy to be healthy and safe.This is for Relay for Life.In memory of Lyn Dale who was my work mum and a great friend.
Catherine A made a $25 donation.Happy to see Hung Wei, my neighbor, featured on this week's Web site. She is an awesome lady who does an incredible amount of community service, particularly with Uplift Family Services: https://upliftfs.org/Please make my donation to Polio Plus, in honor of Hung Wei.
Nate Gildart made a $25 donation.I had trouble with the Relay for Life website over a couple of weeks, so I've asked that this go towards that, if possible. I lost a very dear friend and mentor last year to cancer. His name is Peter Riley. A thoughtful person who along with his spouse Yumiko brought people in tour little neighbourhood together for drinks and dinners. We get together every so often, but there's a hole without Pete. He was a teacher, an environmentalist, and an advocate for social justice. A truly remarkable life he lived.
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.
Monique le Conge Ziesenhenne said:
Thanks for the mask-making video, Shags and Rushton! I have so many old bandanas that I'm going to try it out today. I have also always wanted to see the Maiden's Castle in person, so the video was a welcome distraction. Thanks, Geoff, for the program. Very interesting and lively meeting this week.
Mark B said:
Happy birthday Sarah, hope you have a wonderful day.Thanks Shags and Rushton for the face mask video. Great photo Ferheen. As always thanks for the jokes Yvonne. Geoff thanks for the presentation and the great work being done. I love how it is helping people, starting with short term outcomes and building up to longer more sustainable outcomes. Great stuff.
Brett Sham said:
So good to hear from other Rotary clubs again! Ferheen, love your photo - it has a great sense of drama to it amd I was really drawn into it!
Great tip in the learn something new section - I saw a great video from the US Surgeon General showing how to make your own mask with a few simple folds (I think he used a t-shirt). Can you believe that here in Australia they are still against people wearing masks (unless you are sick, caring for someone that is, or work in the healthcare)! I would have thought that in such a serious crisis, where you are shutting down cities and causing the economy to collapse, you would take any and every precaution!
Geoff, thanks for your presentation. Sounds like a brilliant model, I really enjoyed the story about the guy who then came back to hire from you. Good luck with the rebranding!
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: Leveraging Design to Solve Big Problems in Education and Beyond
Speaker: Leslie McBeth & Rachel Franks
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!
Join our speakers this week as they share impact stories from Future Design School, from helping middle school students to develop and implement real world solutions to homelessness, to helping schools and organizations build strategy founded on empathy, to working with educators to create deep connections between classroom and community. They'll also provide some tips for how you can leverage a design based approach to address challenges in your own communities and club.Les McBeth is an educator on a mission to empower students to solve the world's big problems. With 15 years of experience at the intersection of design and education, Les has worked in design and public policy in Switzerland and New York City and as a teacher in Toronto. As Director of Special Projects at Future Design School, Les designs programs that help teachers to break down classroom walls and develop future-ready skills in students.Rachel Franks is a proud Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) and dedicated educator. She has over a decade of experience teaching in classrooms both at home and abroad where she leveraged design thinking to engage students in developing empathy and creating solutions for real world problems. Rachel plays an integral role in student programs; including direct to student workshops, customized student retreats, Future Prize, micro credentialing and the global program Young Innovators.Members and guests, please welcome Les and Rachel!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42EJT9P1T-4
Learn more about Future Design School at: www.futuredesignschool.com
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 http://zoom.siliconvalleyrotary.com/. 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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