ATHGO International

Some of the Art Center kids with one of our group members in the break-out session.

Timothy Foresman and his awesome shirt.

From February 27 to March 1, three students from Art Center were lucky enough to attend ATHGO International's Global Forum at UCLA [with the tagline, "change your attitude, not the weather"].  At the forum, two things happened, there were speakers and breakout sessions. The speakers informed us about what is going on right now in the world. The breakout sessions were the attendees opportunity to come together and create some possible solutions to what the world is facing. These solutions were in the form of business models and policy outlines. On the final day, each of the nine break-out groups presented their ideas in an attendee moderated panel discussion.

Some of the standout speakers included John Zawalney, who did a climate change presentation with knowledge gained from training with former Vice President Al Gore. A big hit was Timothy Foresman, President of the International Center for Remote Sensing Education, and member of EarthParty.org. He talked about the need to check what we know, and that we can reduce pollution and make money doing it. He also ended one of his panels with everyone singing Imagine, because we have to have fun or else its just not worth it.

The break out sessions were awesome, and a great opportunity to meet people with different backgrounds that were interested in social and environmental responsibility. Hearing their ideas alongside those of the speakers was inspiring. Two of the more interesting ideas from the panels were the need for some kind of education program in today's schools and a green bank, that provides funds for private and businesses attempting to be green. I think both of these are issues that various people at Art Center help tackle with various toolsets [Banks need logos, graphics, letterheads, and so forth. An education program might need background research, interactive games, and engaging educational videos]. Out of all of this, the thing we came away with, was that all the ideas that we have come up with, already exist, they're just not well known enough. There are green banks, and there are green education programs, there just needs to be more. The same goes with the technology out there, everything we need, is out there, we just need to re-organize it in a meaningful manner that allows people to take advantage of it.