1. Mentors at the LA ʻ11 Institute
Mitchell Wade educating at the 2010 New York Institute
Fellows dancing to save the world at the 2008 London Institute
LA ʻ11 Fellows at the 2011 LA Institute Launch Party
The StartingBloc Fellowship
2. WHAT IS STARTINGBLOC?
Howard Buffet educating at the 2010 New York Institute
Vinay Nagaraju (LON ʻ08) with Mohammed Yunus
Since 2005, StartingBloc has helped social innovators by giving
them the skills and the tools they need to address the most
pressing global challenges of our time.
Presentation from the 2008 London Institute
Sean Carasso, Founder, Falling Whistles at the LA ʻ11 Institute
3. STARTINGBLOC FELLOW PROFILE
“StartingBloc gave me the push I needed to start Generation Enterprise: the
tools, the confidence, and the friends and teammates who helped us go from
an innovative pilot project to a high-impact global organization.”
Clara Chow, NY ’05 Founder & CEO, Generation Enterprise
Generation Enterprise (“GEN”) is adapting venture capital and lean start-up methodology from
Silicon Valley (and Silicon Alley) and taking it to bottom-of-the-pyramid markets in megacities like
Lagos. In doing so, they're integrating so-called "unemployable" youth into the local and global
economy as entrepreneurs, employers, and community leaders.
Prior to GEN, Clara worked at McKinsey & Company. She also served as a project manager at
the New York City Economic Development Corporation. She is an alumna of the University of
Pennsylvania and Sciences Po Paris.
“The ILO estimates that halving youth unemployment could boost GDP in places
like sub-Saharan Africa by 12-19%. In the words of Kofi Annan: empowered,
young people can be key agents for development and peace.”
4. STARTINGBLOC FELLOW PROFILE
“StartingBloc simultaneously clarified my path and paved the road. At least two
non-profits, my career, and several of my deepest friendships and mentorships
would not exist if not for StartingBloc.”
Mark Laabs, BOS ’07 COO, Climate Bridge
Mark Laabs is a serial environmental entrepreneur based in Shanghai as the COO of Climate
Bridge Ltd., a multinational company dedicated to combatting climate change by facilitating
the deployment of clean technologies around the world. In China, He has supervised the
carbon implementation of more than 100 clean energy and energy efficiency projects. Prior to
Climate Bridge, Mark was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He graduated as a Robertson
Scholar from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.
“From policy advice to financial structuring to technology evaluation, Climate
Bridge is engaging with the senior-most public, private, and social sector thought
leaders in China to forge new innovations in the world's response to its most
ominous environmental challenge.”
5. STARTINGBLOC FELLOW PROFILE
“More importantly, I could start a number of ventures that all started in some
way or the other through StartingBloc. I have been fortunate for the ventures I
have been creating now to be able to recruit StartingBloc Fellows.”
Nitin Rao, LON ’07 President & Co-Founder, dplay
Shortly after becoming a StartingBloc Fellow, Nitin co-founded and ran two social enterprises in
India – Let Me Know, a unique portal that helps students across India find opportunities of various
kinds and Engineers for Social Impact, a unique fellowship program that connects top
engineering talent to credible social enterprises driving market-based solutions to development
in India. Nitin’s latest venture, dplay seeks to democratizes access to high-performance design
tools, and generate massive improvements over today's CAD market. Nitin was also a TED Fellow
and has an MBA from MIT Sloan.
“We're hacking at hard problems in gaming, cloud and computational design,
have presented at TED, and are bringing to market innovations from partners at
Stanford, Princeton, MIT and UC Berkeley.”
6. STARTINGBLOC FELLOW PROFILE
“StartingBloc has helped give me the confidence and the community I needed
to embrace the risk of running with Dance 4 Peace and building it up; allowing
me to take our violence prevention program to more youth in more corners of
the world.”
Sara Potler, BOS ’11 Founder & CEO, Dance 4 Peace
Sara Potler, a life-long dancer, was a Fulbright Scholar when she developed an innovative peace
education, conflict resolution program: Dance 4 Peace. Today, Dance 4 Peace has trained over
1,000 PeaceMovers and students around the world in an evidence-based, sustainable pipeline
curriculum and an international exchange of peace building skills through creative movement.
Sara is also the Chief Operating Officer for Atlas Corps. Sara is a Cordes Fellow and graduated
magna cum laude from the University of Virginia.
“Dance 4 Peace is unique as a peace education program in our ability to offer
interdisciplinary, dance-based character education and violence prevention as
part of core curricula. We are the pioneers in movement-centered learning and
measurement.”
7. STARTINGBLOC FELLOW PROFILE
“Surrounding myself with incredibly inspiring, fearless young leaders gets your
heart rate going. Impossible ideas seem plausible, taking risks start seem to less
risky, and changing the world not only becomes digestible, but likely.”
Alex Abelin, NY ’11 Community Affairs Manager, Google
Alex Abelin joined Google in 2005, after graduating with a Bachelor's of Science from the Haas
School of Business, UC Berkeley. In Alex’s first two years at Google, he was a member of the
Online Sales team. As the Community Affairs Manager for East Coast Offices and Data Center
Communities, he leads outreach efforts in communities where Google has a presence in the U.S.
Alex seeks opportunities for Googlers to volunteer their time and expertise, engage in local grant
making and helps to build relationships with local stakeholders. He currently lives in Manhattan,
and has worked for Google at their Mountain View, San Francisco and Dublin, Ireland.
“Google is a young organization and open to big progressive ideas. I'm able to
influence the direction of our outreach. I focus our efforts on bridging the digital
divide, supporting STEM educational programs and carbon-reduction activities.“
8. THE STARTINGBLOC COMMUNITY
Our signature leadership development program, the StartingBloc
Fellowship exposes young leaders to new models for achieving
social impact. Our community currently consists of 1800 Fellows
representing over 55 countries and more than 221 universities.
The 2011 Boston class of StartingBloc Fellows
9. THE STARTINGBLOC FELLOW PROFILE
Global
Trailblazers
Proven leaders with strong
aged 18 - 30
academic credentials
Diverse: 65% minorities / 55% women / Speak
53 languages / From over 50 countries
Focused on action, change
Multi-sector Experience:
and market-driven
Top Firms / 60%
approaches to solving social
issues Entrepreneurs
10. THE INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION
Survey of
Social Corporate
Innovation Partners
15 Inspiring Graduate
Experts Schools
Institute for Jeff Chapin educating at the 2010 Boston Institute
Jonathan Evans (NY ʻ10) presenting at the SIC
Social
Training on Innovation
Harder StartingBloc
Community
The 2010 New York Fellows taking part in a Transformative Action exercise
Skills
Social
Innovation 110 Social
Competition Innovators
Fellows working on the SIC case challenge at the 2010 Boston Institute
Andrew Zolli educating at the 2010 New York Institute
12. The StartingBloc Fellowship
LA ʻ11 Fellows take part in an exercise during Scott Shermanʼs Transformative Action Session.
StartingBloc NFP
For more information on the StartingBloc
349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 402
Fellowship and the Institutes for Social
New York, NY 10016
Innovation, please visit:
info@startingbloc.org
www.startingbloc.org tw :: @startingbloc
