Traveling With A Purpose: Changing Careers, Changing Lives
VIEW EVENT DETAILS“Traveling with a Purpose” features speakers who left lucrative positions to travel abroad, serve philanthropic causes and return home to redefine their careers with passion, meaning, and purpose. From socially conscientious entrepreneurship in Asia to sustainable long term volunteer engagement, these experts will offer advice and lessons learned and allow you the opportunity to engage during the workshop portion of the evening. The workshops will allow audience members to interact with the panelists in a more informal Q&A environment. Come ready to learn, network and have fun. After Hours event at E & O Kitchen and Bar to follow.
This event is brought to you by the Asia Society Young Professionals Group (ASYPG) and World Affairs International Forum. ASYPG is an organization spearheaded by Bay Area young professionals who are passionate about fostering a greater mutual understanding of today's U.S.-Asian relations. ASYPG aims to keep the Bay Area’s young leaders of tomorrow informed about Asia today across all fields by organizing opportunities for young professionals to engage with community leaders at the forefront of those relations in the business, cultural, educational and political sectors. To learn more about the ASYPG, please visit our website or Facebook page.
The International Forum is a globally minded young professionals group that hosts social and networking opportunities at the World Affairs Council. To learn about other International Forum events and ways to get involved, please join their membership, visit the International Forum section of the website, or like them on Facebook.
Speakers
Britt Alm is the Founder & Chief String Slinger of Love Fest Fibers, a social enterprise that designs and creates textiles from natural and recycled fibers through partnerships with artisans in Nepal, Tibet, Cambodia and here on the West Coast. Prior to launching her business she was a lead consultant with Amplifier Strategies and a senior program officer with the Global Philanthropy Forum, a project of the World Affairs Council. Outside of her roles in the San Francisco Bay Area, Britt has worked with philanthropies based in China, India and Nepal for close to two decades and is a previous Freeman Foundation Asia Fellow. She has focused most specifically on the Tibetan Plateau where she completed Tibet University's two-year Tibetan language program in Lhasa. Britt holds an M.A. in Environment and Development from Kings College London and a BA in Environmental Studies and Anthropology from Pitzer College.
Nik Crain (workshop co-leader) is a Peace Corps Career Development Specialist and provides career and transitional counseling to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers in the U.S. and around the world. He’s a nationally certified counselor, a certified global career development facilitator and very proficient with the LinkedIn app. Prior to joining Peace Corps’ staff, Nik served as an Organizational Development Volunteer in Sighisoara, Romania. His work focused on tourism development as a means of sustainable fundraising for NGOs in his Transylvanian community – a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site. Upon completion of his service, he continued in international tourism development for Backroads, a luxury active travel company with over 16,000 guests annually. He held roles as field manager in Southeast Asia, Southeast Europe and, ultimately, as Trip Development Manager based in the Berkeley, CA headquarters. After a decade in the international travel industry, Nik earned his M.S. in Student Affairs Counseling from Syracuse University while holding advising roles in the Slutzker Center for International Services and the L.C. Smith College of Engineering.
Silke Knebel (workshop lead) has more than 18 years of experience in the non-profit, private and public sectors. Her professional background includes supervising staff and volunteers, spearheading business plans and fundraising efforts, launching marketing, sales and communications campaigns and leading community development initiatives with non-profits in the U.S. and worldwide. Knebel is passionate about traveling, has lived in 6 countries, traveled to 40 countries and has worked with many diverse organizations including Blue Planet Network (Silicon Valley), United for Colombia (Colombia, South America), Low Income Investment Fund (San Francisco), United Way of the Bay Area (San Francisco), Amnesty International (Australia), and the US Peace Corps (Guyana). Knebel has an MA in sustainable international development from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, and a BA in psychology, with a minor in German from Sonoma State University.
Yingzhao Liu leads product design for international markets at LinkedIn, and in her free time serves as an experiential educator and facilitator on topics of communication and transformation. She is also a resident and board member of Jikoji Zen Center, in the hills close to the heart of Silicon Valley. Yingzhao is native to mainland China, has traveled to five continents and 30 countries, always affirmed by people's relationship with the environment they live in--their creativity and spirituality in everyday life. At a young age she had envisioned a world without borders, and is constantly inspired by the next generation of global citizens and their ability to bring about that future.
Dave Meader has been a business professor, consultant, and startup entrepreneur for universities and tech companies. In 2014-2015, he traveled alone around the world for a year, 28 countries in all. In 7 of those countries he offered pro bono business consulting services to small social enterprises serving very low income communities. He is writing a book called The Lean Volunteer, to help adventurous business professionals do the same thing – find a solid social enterprise in an exotic country, and help them deliver on their mission by improving their organizational capability. And create, in the process, a once-in-a-lifetime personal experience that tours and organized travel can’t possibly offer. Check out his blog of this trip at davidmeader.com.
Brian Reyes, LEED AP, is Founder and Principal consulting for small-to-medium size cities as well as the private sector to meet their climate and sustainability goals. He has over a decade of environmental services, government, non-profit/NGO, and academic/research industry experience providing consulting and program management services in the areas of environmental planning and policy, climate action planning and mitigation, energy consulting, research, outreach strategies, resource recovery and waste programming, and transportation hauling. His passion for sustainability extends internationally with his voluntary planning and execution of regional to village level sustainable community development programs, which bolster disenfranchised populations in rapidly developing and climate vulnerable nations. Brian also currently works for the City of San Francisco as a Climate and Sustainability Analyst.
Program Agenda
5:30 – 6:00 p.m. Registration
6:00 – 7:15 p.m. Moderated panel discussion
7:15 – 8:00 p.m. Workshops, informal Q&A
8:00 – 8:30 p.m. After hours event at E & O
Workshop Discussion Topics
“Connecting Your Passion for International Development to Business Abroad” with Britt Alm
"How to Connect and Succeed in the International Nonprofit and Volunteer Sectors" with Nik Crain & Silke Knebel
"Skill Alchemy: Adapting Your Skills To What Nonprofits and Social Enterprises Need" with David Meader
"Traveling Alone and Venturing Into the Unknown" with Yingzhao Liu
Organized in partnership with :