Leveraging Technology and Tourism for Holistic Development of Himalayan Communities
Meeting for the week of December 21 - December 27, 2020
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Leveraging Technology and Tourism for Holistic Development of Himalayan Communities
Speaker: Jaideep Bansal
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:
Read and watch the content below in its entirety.
Complete the attendance survey.
Everyone is also encouraged to leave a comment in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.
Welcome to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!
Here’s a message from Tatiana LaGarde - Member, Fundraising Committee
Tatiana LaGarde
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?
Weekly Funny with Shags.
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 Steven "Shags" Shagrin !
Anyone for Pizza?!?
Feeling it was time to shake-up his company the new CEO decided to get rid of all the slackers.
On a tour of the facilities, the CEO noticed a guy leaning on a wall. The room was full of workers and he wanted to let them know that he meant business.
He walked up to the guy leaning against the wall and asked, "How much money do you make a week?"
A little surprised, the young man looked at him and replied, "I make $400 a week. Why?"
The CEO then hands the guy $1,600 in cash and screams, "Here's four weeks' pay, now GET OUT and don't come back!"
Feeling pretty good about himself, the CEO looked around the room and asked, "Does anyone want to tell me what that slacker did here?"
From across the room came a voice: "That was the pizza delivery guy from Domino's."
Weekly Inspiration
Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change.
For those of us far enough north of the equator, December calls to mind a variety of winter scenes, and this effort by a group in Utah might sing to those who are wishing they could visit such places!
World of Rotary
Every week we will focus on a particular story that tells of our organization and the work of Rotarians in the world.
Chicago Rotary member Xavier Ramey says the key to creating an equitable society is understanding where we’ve been. Read his story
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.
On the day our grand daughter was born in December 2000, I planted a redwood seeding. As it grew taller, we began to decorate it for Christmas. The tree is now nearly 20 feet tall and I can no longer get lights to the top. 20 years, 20 feet in 2020.
Learn Something New
This section is curated by members Shags Shagrin 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 Shags.
Phonetic Punctuation with Victor Borge
I don't recall when I first saw this talented and funny fellow do this routine, but it stuck with me like fly paper! It recently came up in conversation when talking about using the dictation features of Android keyboards vs. peck-typing while texting. I hope you like it! -Shags
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!
Week of Dec 20th - Like and share a past program's Facebook page.
Here are some pages you can like and share:
Books to Brilliance - https://www.facebook.com/frombookstobrilliance
World Bicycle Relief - https://www.facebook.com/worldbicyclerelief/
Southern Oregon Air Academy - https://www.facebook.com/soairacademy/
Cooperative for Education (Guatemala Literacy Project) - https://www.facebook.com/coeduc/?ref=page_internal
Project Amigo - https://www.facebook.com/ProjectAmigo
Education & Community Learning Center - https://www.facebook.com/edcomcenter/?ref=page_internal
H2Open Doors - https://www.facebook.com/H2Opendoors
Uplift Northwest (Millionair Club) - https://www.facebook.com/UpliftNorthwest
Rebuilding the Appalachian Economy - https://www.facebook.com/CDCwayne/
Don’t forget to take a selfie or a screenshot and post it to the #52-ways-to-be-a-more-engaged-rotarian channel!
https://app.slack.com/client/TNH7VRC0M/C01CQ53AE95
Thank you to the following Rotarians for posting about last week's challenge:
-Gabi Lopez
-Ferheen Abbasi
-Armand Kambou
-Sandy Stabile
-Alexandra Heller
Gabi and her little Partner Serena made Christmas Cards to send to Love For Our Elders:
(Go to the General Slack channel to see more pictures! Serena is super cute!)
Ferheen sent cards to Love For Our Elders:
Armand and his boys sent cards to the Oakmont Senior Living in San Jose!
Sandy sent these cards to a skilled nursing facility. Usually, school kids made and bring cards for the seniors but they didn't get any this year because of the pandemic:
Alexandra and her kids, Annamaria and Mark, made the following cards to be given to a nursing home in Volketswil who have no relatives or had a very difficult year:
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/
Service Project Information
Club members, if you are participating or have previously participated in a service project as part of our club, could you please complete the following form:
https://forms.gle/jxfpHHiKBv7P5YXy5Seasons Greetings Everyone!
The holiday season is the perfect time to get together with friends and family. With that in mind, we’d like to invite you to our Ugly Sweater Sister Club Holiday Party!
Go find your ugliest Christmas sweater and join us for this can’t miss event. There will be contests, games, and good times as we gather wearing the ugliest Christmas sweaters in the Rotary world!
New Members Introduction
Jens Wiechers
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:
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.
Catherine A made a $25 donation.
I am grateful for email, which allows me to stay in touch with friends and family members during COVID-19. I'm not a fan of social media, yet I enjoy basic email. Send my donation to The Rotary Foundation.
Rory Olsen made a $20 donation.
Cool nights, warmer days. The cold weather and the long nights have made our cats be very sleepy.
Monique Ziesenhenne made a Other Amount donation.
TRF- even though I'm home more, my social media participation has gone way down this year. Very few selfies or comments, and days go by without checking my feeds. So I'm contributing to the challenge because I have accounts. It's been very liberating.
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.
Suzanne Van Stralen said:
Hi All, I found this week's meeting to be "spot on" in offering some options (solutions) for living successfully in today's world context. Thanks to Anil for his commitment and formula for happiness. I found myself so grateful for the many segments in this week's program. I was deeply moved by Keith's photography and Phil's artwork. Welcome Phil!
I find myself celebrating gratitude, beauty, loving relationships, purpose, giving, and the practice of humor. I feel renewed and inspired in the midsts of many challenges.
Raquel D. Juncal said:
Terrific meeting, Anil! Thanks to all who contributed to it!
Shout-out to those of you who are participating in the "52 Ways Challenge" every week! 🙃)
Nathan Gildart said:
Anil, thank you for the great presentation! I've been curious to hear more about your book and didn't know the back story. You're an incredibly resilient individual and it's clear you are surrounded by a wonderful family. There were a lot of takeaways in this. (and I particularly liked the point about dwelling on solutions)
Phil, welcome to the club - can't wait to learn more about the details of your interesting life story!
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 Technology and Tourism for Holistic Development of Himalayan Communities
Speaker: Jaideep Bansal
Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education, and how those contribute to service to others.
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 directly or submit THIS FORM so our Program Committee can contact them!
In the Indian Himalayas there are more than 16 million people still living in darkness without access to basic energy and development mainly due to the geographic remoteness of these indigenous communities.
Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE) is the one of the world's first organizations using the force of tourism coupled with technology to bring solar energy to these remote communities, as recognized by the WTTC, UN, and the G20. GHE conducts "Impact Expeditions" and uses a portion of the expedition fee to fund the capital cost of the hardware, transportation, installation and training of village-scale solar micro-grids. To date, Global Himalayan Expedition has solar electrified more than 130 villages in 3 regions of India, directly impacting the lives of more than 60,000 villagers.
Jaideep Bansal is the COO at Global Himalayan Expedition , a social enterprise that conducts Impact Expeditions to bring Solar Energy to remote Himalayan Villages. Under his leadership, GHE has electrified 130 villages and lit up the lives of more than 60,000 people through an innovative concept of Impact Tourism. GHE's work has been recognized by the UN, WTTC, and the World Tourism Awards, and has also been documented by National Geographic and BBC.
An IIT graduate, Jaideep has been pushing the narrative for sustainable development as a speaker at Davos, SEforAll, and ADB. He has been featured repeatedly by the WEF at Davos among the top leaders inspiring change in the world.
Members and guests, please welcome Jaideep Bansal!
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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