This Week: Clinton Foundation Updates
Clinton Foundation CEO Kevin Thurm provides updates on the work of the Foundation’s programs.
Published in
3 min readSep 25, 2018
What to look for the week of September 24, 2018:
- On Thursday, September 28, the Clinton Presidential Center (CPC) will host a Day of Action with its long-standing service partner, the Arkansas Foodbank. The day will begin with a conversation at the Clinton Center with the University of Arkansas’s Center for Community Engagement’s director Angela Oxford and assistant director Claire Allison, followed by a hands-on service project at the Arkansas Foodbank. More than 220 students from eight schools are signed up to participate.
- From September 23–27, the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI)’s Women in Renewable Energy (WIRE) Network’s mentorship program will convene at the CAREC Renewable Energy & Smart Grid Conference in Miami. The 22 mentors and mentees will participate in workshops, networking opportunities, panel discussions, and practical demonstrations of resiliency planning and disaster management. Additionally, the WIRE members will hold closed private sessions and open sessions as part of the conference to discuss the importance of women in leadership roles within the clean energy sector.
Highlights from the week of September 17, 2018:
- Last week at the UN, President Clinton announced for the sixth year in a row the winners of the Hult Prize. Each year, the Hult Challenge issues a topic-specific challenge around which young people generate solutions through the creation of social enterprises. The winning team is awarded $1 million in seed capital to launch its business. This year’s Hult Challenge was “Harnessing the Power of Energy,” which focused on finding and developing energy innovations that can be scaled to improve millions of lives. The winners were team “SunRice,” a rice-drying service that aims to reduce rice wastage and empower rice farmers in Southeast Asia. Created in partnership with the UN Foundation and the Hult International Business School, the Hult Prize is the one of the largest start-up programs for college student social-entrepreneurs in the world. Also, at the event, President Clinton announced the 2019 Hult Prize Challenge to address youth unemployment, called “For Us by Us: Solving the Global Youth Challenge of Unemployment — to create jobs for 1,000,000 youth over the next 10 years.” For more information, please see an article from Markets Insider below:
- On Wednesday, “The Doctor’s Farmacy” podcast published an episode with Chelsea Clinton. She discussed her motivation to learn about health and health policy, and the Foundation’s work to improve health in schools through Healthier Generation, address and combat the effects of climate change through the Clinton Climate Initiative, and how women’s empowerment and equity is at the center of a number of our programs. Hosted by Dr. Mark Hyman, the podcast tackles key issues related to health, wellness, food, and politics. You can watch the full episode below:
- Last Monday, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Haiti Action Network (HAN) hosted a teleconference with more than 70 people participating. The goal of the call was to share updates from Haiti from the past few months across the following sectors: agriculture, health, education, economic development, and energy — particularly given the recent economic challenges in Haiti. CGI also discussed an ongoing effort to map the resources of organizations in the Haiti network with a view to improving disaster preparedness among the HAN members. Finally, the members discussed plans for the next year of the HAN and provided an opportunity for participants to discuss needs and resources with one another.
- The Clinton Presidential Center opened a special 25th anniversary exhibit of The White House Collection of American Crafts. In addition to press coverage of the opening celebration from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and ABC Little Rock, the exhibit has generated a story on the American Craft Council’s blog and a Style section feature in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
- On Monday, September 17, Clinton Global University (CGI U) launched the Commitments Challenge, a campaign that provides select CGI U students a platform to fundraise for their commitments, in partnership with GoFundMe. Fifty student teams from the CGI U Class of 2018 will compete to raise funds for their Commitments to Action, and the team that raises the most money for its commitment by Thursday, October 18 will be highlighted on stage at the CGI U 2018 meeting at the University of Chicago. Learn more about these select students’ commitments and their causes at gofundme.com/CGIU2018.
