Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire
United Nations, New York, USA, July 27 2017 – The 7th annual NEXUS Global Summit on Innovative Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneur ship today at the UN Headquarters in New York City.
Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire
By Suzanne Tisserand
On Thursday, July 27th, the United Nations hosted the 7th annual Nexus Global
Summit on Innovative Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship. Guests speakers
included Anne Weaver – Representative for the Office of the UN Secretary General’s
Envoy on Youth; Kweku Mandela – grandson of Nelson Mandela and co-founder of
the Africa Rising Foundation; and Vic Mensa – American rapper from Chicago.
Created in 2011 as an international non-profit organization, Nexus ambitions to
connect communities of wealth and social entrepreneurs around the world.
The organization is composed for two third with young heirs of influential political,
business and philanthropic families; and one third of entrepreneurs with innovative
ideas to address current social, cultural and environmental issues. Today, Nexus
counts members in more than seventy countries who gather together for thematic
working sessions, events and summits.
For the executive team, the aim of holding a Summit at the United Nations is to
engage in public-private partnerships by bringing to the same table young
entrepreneurs, philanthropists, investors and UN agency representatives.
“We work each year with three different UN agencies who have campaigns that they
are hoping to scale. We are having two hours brain trust session with them to try help
them figure out how to accelerate their thinking and launch their initiative into new
countries, with new companies, with new types of partners, because our members
are very connected to all types of businesses and governments” – explained Rachel
Cohen Guerrol, co-founder and Global Director of Nexus.
This year, the targeted agencies and programs are: the UNICEF/USA “Kid power”
campaign, the UNFPA “Safe Birth Even Here” campaign and the UNDP “Equator
Initiative”.
“People come to the Summit with the aspiration of using their convening power, using
their finance, their relationships, their businesses to help make a better world”- told
Sergio Fernandez de Cordova, member of Nexus, to Europa Newswire.
“Everyone here is handpicked, out of the thousands of people that are involved in
Nexus, only four hundred are invited to come to the UN. Everyone within the
organization have to submit an application and within that, they must submit their
topic or issue of interest” – He declared, “It’s like a mini World Economic Forum of
young leaders”.
Going beyond the Summit, the Nexus executive team hopes to create long-term
collaborations between the parties.
Source: EuropaNewswire