100th celebration of The Rotary Foundation

Last week Tim and Cindy Murphy, San Asato, David Clynes, Jim Platt and I attended the 112th Rotary International Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. It was quite an experience and once again Rotary highlighted the great works that we as an organization accomplish in "Doing Good in the World."

A true highlight was having Bill Gates as a keynote speaker. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given over $500 million for the eradication of polio. Mr. Gates said the real difficulty has been finding the kids and now with Google maps it is much easier to find these remote villages and then to establish trust. Over 430,000,000 kids are given the polio drops each year, but we still have work to be done to eliminate the disabling and sometimes deadly disease in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. You can listen to a snippet of Gate’s address here.

 

Earlier in the day, leaders from countries all over the world joined Gates and Rotary in pledging new money toward filling the $1.5 billion gap in the funding that the Global Polio Eradication Imitative (GPEI) estimates is needed to achieve eradication. Rotary announced that it is increasing its annual fundraising goal to $50 million. Since the Gates Foundation and Rotary began working together in 2007, the two organizations have raised nearly $1.5 billion for polio eradication efforts. 

 

Jack Nicklaus was also a keynote speaker. He has become an ambassador to Rotary’s polio initiative. Nicklaus had a minor case of polio when he was a child. He had bad flu like systems for about two weeks, but recovered to go on to become one of the greatest golfers! Unfortunately Nicklaus infected his sister with the virus and her case was more severe, but she recovered to lead a productive healthy life.  

 

Another keynote speaker was Ashton Kutcher, an actor, tech investor and philanthropist, who focused on using technology to effect positive change in the world and on ending modern slavery and human sex trafficking. Kutcher’s non-profit organization, Thorn, drives technology innovation to fight child sexual exploitation. Thorn partners with nonprofits and academic institutions to gather new insights into the role technology plays in child sex trafficking, the creation and proliferation of child pornography, and the normalization of child sexual exploitation. Thorn then goes beyond insight to action to develop the tools, systems, and approaches to help address these issues. Currently, more than 1,100 law enforcement agencies use Thorn’s Spotlight tool, which leverages machine learning algorithms to allow officers in the field to connect disparate data to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of domestic sex trafficking investigations. This year alone, Spotlight is being used by more than 4,500 law enforcement officers in over 7,500 trafficking investigations. It has helped law enforcement identify more than 6,000 trafficking victims and 2,000 traffickers.

The biggest takeaway from attending an international conference is the scope of Rotary. We are not only people of action in Edina, the Twin Cities, Minnesota and the United States—but around the world. We met with three gentleman from Honduras on the $1.4 million water and sanitation system that will change lives for thousands. This is due to the efforts of Rotary.