Object lesson from Network 20/20

06 May Object lesson from Network 20/20

The consensus is that Telluride is a place " to die for." But the phrase is simply a figure of speech to describe the physical beauty of our surroundings.

Last week in New York,  on April 30, friends invited us to attend the Sixth Annual Foreign Policy Lecture and Benefit given by the nonprofit Network 20/20.

Former U.S. Senator/Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle was the evening's guest speaker on the subject of "America's Role in Global Security." During his lecture the senator observed, "People with nothing to live for, find something to die for;" there was no mistaking the cold reality surrounding the genesis of terrorist impulses. His point: "civility and decency" towards our global neighbors are "strategic imperatives." We need to stop regarding people on the other side of the world as The Other.

Network 20/20 is all about bridge building. Its purpose is to prepare the next generation of American leaders to participate meaningfully in the promotion of entrepreneurial diplomacy and global security. The organization accomplishes its necessary and noble goal by means of lectures at home and field research overseas to better understand on-the-ground realities in countries of global security importance such as Iran and Pakistan. The research published from these trips is circulated among government and private sector policy makers and NGOS. These young professionals really do make a difference.

In his latest book, "Blessed Unrest," entrepreneur/author/former Telluride Mountainfilm guest Paul Hawken talks about a movement so deep and so wide, trying to wrap our arms around it would be like "trying to hold the ocean."This movement is comprised of tens of millions ordinary and not-so-ordinary individuals and groups busily working to safeguard the environment, ensure social justice, and resist the threat of globalization on indigenous cultures. The talented, diverse, multilingual members of Network 20/20 from the world of business, professions, the media, NGOs, think tanks, government, and academia are among the change-makers advocating positive engagement in the world.