Charles Lee

Yesterday was Day 2 at the Q Conference in NYC hosted by the Fermi Project. I really enjoyed Day 2. I felt that the collection of presenters for Day 2 carried a rhythm and flow that was beautiful, authentic, and creative.

Speakers from Day 2 included:

• Louie Giglio | Passion
• Jamie Tworkowski | To Write Love on Her Arms
• Jim Wallis | Sojourners | Social Movements
• Michael Luo | NY Times | Reporting Faith & Politics
• Dave Gibbons | New Song | Third Culture
• Eric Reynolds | Nau | Sustainable Business
• Owen Leimbach | Think MTV
• Makoto Fujimura | Beauty in Culture.

I will eventually write about some of their thoughts in the weeks and months to come after I process it a little more…:)

I also participated in a 3 hour learning forum entitled, “New Urbanism: Sustainable South Bronx”. Here is the description from the program book:

Take an exploratory walk through the nationally renowned Sustainable South Bronx Project and learn how community should be designed and restored. Learn from Urban planners and social entrepreneurs on the importance of the Third Place and what defines a great city.

The Sustainable South Bronx Project an urban project initiated by Majora Carter (see her presentation on Ted.com). It is an honest engagement with environmental injustice. It seeks to bring more green spaces to the concrete jungle. It is creating third place spaces for the community to gather and it has literally transformed the overall culture of the neighborhood. The following are some photos from our tour:

This is a photo of a green line literally painted on the sidewalk to direct people to a newly (re)developed park.

This is the entrance of the park (which happens to be located right next to a city garbage-collection location). The tension of beauty and discard is clearly present.

This is a photo of a group of kids from the Bronx enjoying new realities like canoing and the outdoors with actual greenery.

This was definitely a beautiful experience of urban hope.

Finally, the evening came to a close with a private concert with The Fray (I know, we were spoiled…great music).

One more thing…

Throughout the conference, I had the privilege of getting to better know several great Asian American leaders (e.g., Dave Gibbons, Ken Fong, DJ Chuang, Seth Kim, Bryan Kim, Ted Law, etc.) from around our country through through a pre-conference invitation by the L2 Foundation (a foundation committed to developing Asian American leaders). This group was a source of deep encouragement and new friendships.

More to come…

Popularity: 2% [?]

This post is tagged Future, Innovation, NYC, Q Conference