​Dr. Eduardo Ochoa is an innovator and leader in education who understands the power of community support and social outreach.
 
As president of California State University at Monterey Bay, he has used the innovative capacities of a major American university to advance the implementation of business models that impact the broad community in mission critical ways.
 
He has made social equity and justice for neighborhoods and communities around the university a high priority. To advance community impact, he has set a unique course for the student body to become accomplished students and to also become citizens who advance community connection, higher learning, and career impact simultaneously. 
 
His work has set a new kind of standard for universities to provide resources within innovative partnerships to advance a region socially, economically and culturally.
 
As an example, early in his tenure, Dr. Ochoa was concerned that elementary and high school students in the county of Monterey were preforming well below the state average.  Research suggested that less than a quarter of students were college ready after graduating from high school.  Post-secondary education is often a requirement for advancing in the modern economy.  He knew that improved educational outcomes would drive social advancements, and support community health, safety, support structures, and other key dimensions of community success.
 
As a result, Dr. Ochoa founded the Bright Futures Education Partnership. 
 
The program fosters progress in education outcomes for local students from cradle to career. It is a collective of university and community leaders who commit to improving the pipeline of quality talent within Monterey County, a county with a majority Hispanic population and low incomes, low employment, and stressed livelihoods.
 
Together the leaders have committed resources to improve the educational experience of children and teens in the community.  Their goal is to lift the college readiness and graduation rates of the community from 20% to 60% by the year 2025. The program is well on its way to achieving its goals with defined targets and assessments implemented effectively to drive results.  .
 
Service learning is valued within the college curriculum and promotes student outreach to underserved communities and close opportunity gaps.  During the past academic year, more than 800 students provided service to 350 community agencies and schools throughout Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey counties.      
 
Ethical business is one of the cornerstone tenants of the university’s programming
 
Students in the business school are taught to impact society in powerfully positive ways through the creative use of business as a resource to provide services and products while advancing the cause of the broader society and the planet. Business school leadership has designed 5 bottom-line outputs to track success and progress, including a business’ impact on its people, ethics, equity, planet, and profitability.  Practitioners are encouraged to understand and drive all 5 “bottom lines.”
 
Dr. Ochoa committed his life to advocating for education as a tool for social change and social impact.  Through Dr. Eduardo Ochoa’s leadership, a major university has become a catalyst for social and economic development.  
 
The school’s mission extends beyond the halls of their institution to focus on community education and advancement.
 
For his innovative approaches to higher education and community advancement, we are honoring Dr. Eduardo Ochoa with The 2018 Human Excellence Award.
​

Nancy Lindborg believes that peace is possible.  
 
Everywhere. And she has spent most of a remarkable career proving that. 
 
At USAID, as an example, Nancy’s teams responded to conflicts in Syria, droughts in Africa, the Arab Spring, and the Ebola response to name several. 
 
She has traveled with her team to help transform social dynamics, working to help people survive in fragile and conflict-affected regions around the world. 
 
It is not easy developing new mindsets and frameworks to places that are ravaged by conflict.
 
She explained her work to Forbes Magazine when she was executive director of Mercy Corps:
 
“We are focused on what we see is our greatest value --to help catalyze social change after you have a disaster or conflict. To help people organize for the change that people want to see. We help people sustain the changes that they want to see. Working in economic realm has led us to be social entrepreneurs. When we look at projects, we look for innovations that can begin in a community but also can have a scale.”
 
Presently, Nancy serves as President of the United States Institute of Peace.  This non-partisan independent institution founded by the United States Congress provides practical solutions for preventing and resolving conflict around the world.
 
One way she helps create sustainable peace is to include more women in the work of conflict resolution and peace negotiations.    
 
Research has found, that there is a substantially better chance that a peace agreement will last 15 years or more, when women are included in the peace process.
 
Women, focused less on issues of domination and control, and more on issues of reconciliation, economic development, education, and social issues.
 
In her current role leading the United States Institute of Peace, Nancy helps create pathways for more and more women to enter leadership roles in peace negotiations.  
 
Striving to create more inclusive and respectful societies, the institute supports the work of local leaders, like a woman named Flor in Columbia. Flor graduated from the Institute’s mediation and negotiation training program. She went on to do work in her own community, such as organizing the families and parents of 38 children and teens who were abducted and recruited into a renegade army.  The team Flor led traveled unarmed into the jungle to meet with the commander where she engaged in multi-day negotiations, and successfully secured the release of all 38 children. 
 
Nancy Lindborg is the first woman president of the United States Institute of Peace.  She asserts that solutions for peace are not military, but result from new forms of human process, mindsets, and approaches to people with different backgrounds and cultures. 
 
She believes peace is possible and understands the complications and nuances to problems that lead to conflict, displacement and refugees, and war. 
 
Nancy Lindborg has lived a life that is a beacon of experience, expertise, and hope. 
 
She is a heroine and symbol for peace in the world.
 
For this, we are honoring her with The 2018 Human Excellence Award.
 ​

Join us at
The 2018 Human Excellence Awards to honor heroes in high-impact social innovation.
Harvard University
Tuesday, June 19, 2018 

Hear Nancy Lindborg
and other Renowned Speakers

Sam Vaghar says that he was a shy teenager.  He came to Brandeis University at 19, and was moved by the problems of global poverty and injustice.  At Brandeis, he found a voice and mission, and has since shared that with 1000's of young leaders around his Millennial Network.  While a student, there he created a network to mobilize students.  Through small scale concerts and events, the group first raised $5,000 for bed nets to prevent malaria.  And that was the beginning.  

Sam co-founded the Millennium Campus Network (MCN) that has since grown into a global non-profit convening and training 21st century social impact leaders, empowering student leaders across the United States with the resources they need to advance global development and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.  Through an innovative year-long experience, MCN helps young leaders find their voice and own their power for social impact on campus and in community. 

The MCN conferences enable students to share stories, make connections, and develop skills to launch social impact careers. They practice skills from networking to ethical storytelling.  They wrestled with big questions, like: should we be focusing our energies on Aid or Justice? And then the set out to help solve some of the world's mission-critical problems.
 
Students are transformed by MCN.
Testimonials: 

​On June 19, 2018, we are fortunate to have:
Sam Vaghar Keynote our 2018 Human Excellence Awards

​Join us to celebrate Hope, Community, and Human Excellence by honoring heroes in high-impact social innovation.
Harvard University
Tuesday, June 19, 2018 

Sponsored by 
Hope Collaborative and Divine Will Foundation with Meketa Investments, People Shores, The Sai Global Federation of Foundations, and Science for Society.

Our goals for the day are to:
 
1) Honor leaders and corporations making a difference as a model for a new generation and

2) Empower youth leaders with leadership skills in social impact and conversations that connect youth with companies doing powerful work for mentorship. The output of the conference will be a commitment to impactful projects in the neighborhood to have impact and make a difference.

See Sam Vaghar and our inspiring award nominees and speakers at the 2018 Human Excellence Awards, June 19, 2018.

Attendance is Free Thanks to Generous Donations from Funders.  ​

​
​High Impact Social Innovators Will Run Leadership Workshops with Young Leaders for Valuable Inspiration, Training, and Mentorship
 
Please join us June 19 at Havard University for the 2018 Human Excellence Awards and Youth Leadership Development Conference.

Top global social  impact innovators are coming to Boston to meet with you and your aspiring young leaders and burgeoning social innovators.  The Human Excellence Awards on June 19 at Harvard University provides an opportunities for interested parties of all ages to gather together.

The conference audience will include youth and young adult leaders from youth development programs to participate in the day and discuss their process of becoming impactful, connected leaders making a difference. We are hosting middle school, young adult, and millennial leaders from 12-25. And will be broadcasting youth leaders in from the United States and overseas for this special event.

We are sponsoring the 2018 Human Excellence Awards conference at Harvard to help ignite a revolution by focusing the energies of kids, teens and young adults towards social action. https://adobe.ly/2JDrHuq

• The conference will honor 5 top social business champions from around the world with "Human Excellence Awards."
• "The Power of Purpose" workshops will provide young people from the ages of 12 to 25 the opportunity to discuss and help drive the power of universal leadership, self illumination, and serving society by helping end poverty by working with leading experts and innovators. This year, we are linking motivated companies to young leaders in an effort to share and tackle the kinds of challenges that leaders face delivering innovative solutions for humanity’s difficult problems. Participants can participate in follow on virtual mentor sessions and social impact projects 
• Our sponsors include Hope Collaborative; The Divine Will Foundation of California, which is helping build free hospitals and education centers for the poor; Meketa Investment Group; The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital, which is the premier institute for raising awareness around the power of youth mental health and our collaborators and partners; Peoples Shores, and Sai Global Federation of Foundations, among other leading sponsors.

Participating organizations will receive:
– Up to 10 free seats at the event. 
– Participation in leadership workshops with global leaders such as Bunker Roy, Founder Barefoot College and Sam Vaghar, founder Millennium Campus Network, and Eduardo Ochoa, the president of California State University, among many top leaders, talents, and resources.
– Lunch for those in attendance with 2018 Award honorees
– Global network experience with other youth leaders around the globe--10 am to 3 pm EST.

We are welcoming middle school to high school students, and young adults who are just starting out on what we hope will be magnificent journeys of consequence in delivering solutions to humanity's hardest problems. Please also include your young leader advocates and staff for an exceptional day of development and learning.
​
Our goal is to spread the seeds of successful entrepreneurship and impact, so that more leaders and social entrepreneurs can better help society solve its mission critical problems. A second focus of the conference is to present models of corporate courage and partnership that have been successful in supporting leaders in social enterprise.

Young leaders will join exceptional social innovation and corporate leaders in the following workshops:
 
Grassroots Of Changes And Innovation,
Bunker Roy, founder of Barefoot College Workshop

Connecting To Impact Community, 
Eduardo Ochoa, president of California State University, Monterey Bay

The Power Of You (Power of We),
Kevin Sheehan, co-founder of Hope Collaborative

Peace is Possible – Peace is Practical,
Nancy Lindborg, president of U.S. Institute of Peace

Leadership Comes From Within,
Rev. Ray Rivera, Family Life Academy Charter School

Think Outside the Box – Manifesting Your Potential 
Laura Stone, Purpose Stone

Overcoming the Odds, Telling Your Story,
Steve Stirling, MAP International

 
We are honoring powerful innovators who deliver on a vision of higher civilization and a better society delivering lasting and durable change.

Heroes deploying medicine and healthcare to poor communities, insuring peace through human development, innovating technologies, sustaining the environment, ensuring safe labor and living wages, fighting for job opportunities, and dignity for people with disabilities.

The event will be held at Harvard University, in Cambridge, MA on Tuesday June 19, 2018 and will feature the work and approaches of some of the region and globe’s most effective social venture leaders and entrepreneurs. We will honor the companies and community organizations who have developed innovative partnership models that support and inspire the kind of innovative leadership approaches to take on the toughest problems.
​
Your and your students' attendance is free thanks to the generous support and donations of the conference donors and grant makers.