2010 – TEDxCapital: Change the Equation

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is President Emeritus and University Professor of Public Service. He served as the 15th president of The George Washington University for nearly two decades, from 1988 to 2007.  He has received 15 honorary degrees in recognition of his contributions to higher education.  In 1997, Trachtenberg received the U.S. Department of State Secretary’s Open Forum Distinguished Public Service Award. In 1997, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Mount Vernon College. Also in 1997, he was awarded the Grand Cross (highest honor of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry); a portrait was dedicated and placed in the Hall of Honor at the House of the Temple.  He received the 1996 B’nai B’rith Humanitarian Award.  In 1988, the Connecticut Bar Association honored him with its Distinguished Public Service Award, and he was recognized by the Hartford NAACP for his contributions to the education of minority students. He received a 1987 Human Relations Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews.  Trachtenberg was named one of the Top 100 Leaders in the American Academy in a 1978 Change magazine poll.A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Trachtenberg graduated from P.S. 254 and James Madison High School. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1959, a Juris Doctor from Yale University in 1962, and a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University in 1966. In 1968, he was selected as a Winston Churchill Traveling Fellow for study in Oxford, England. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Trachtenberg and his wife, Francine Zorn Trachtenberg, have two sons: Adam and Ben.

Lisa Frank, a freshman at Georgetown University who is studying Spanish and Government, is an intern for Youth Service America. Prior to starting college, she was involved in numerous youth leadership efforts in her hometown Portland, Oregon, as well as nation-wide. Lisa first started doing service-learning in middle school with the W.K. Kellogg Youth Innovation Fund, a youth philanthropy effort addressing pressing issues like teen pregnancy. Through this opportunity she joined the board of the National Service-Learning Partnership which allowed her to learn more about service-learning and youth activism nation-wide. At age 16, the City of Portland hired Lisa to be one of its first two youth planners, a unique program in which young people are paid to facilitate youth involvement in local government. A cornerstone of this work was “Our Bill of Rights, Children and Youth,” the first bill of rights in the nation written by youth, for youth, and adopted by local government. Another group closely tied to this work was the Multnomah Youth Commission, for which Lisa was a policy liaison after working for the City. The Multnomah Youth Commission is a group of forty-two young people who serve as the official youth policy advisory body for the City of Portland and Multnomah County. They tackle issues like transportation and school health clinics to make life better for all young people. In addition, Lisa is involved in the America’s Promise Alliance Youth Network, Basic Rights Oregon, Georgetown University Pride (the LGBTQIA student group) and the Jewish Student Association. In her free time, Lisa enjoys playing the piano, running, and exploring the Smithsonians. Lisa is very passionate about youth voice and spoke at the National Service-Learning Conference in Nashville in 2009, and looks forward to sharing her ideas with TEDx attendees.

Roberto J. Rodríguez serves in the White House Domestic Policy Council as Special Assistant to President Obama for Education. Previously, Roberto was Chief Education Counsel to United States Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.  In this capacity, he managed the Democratic education agenda for the Committee and led policy development and strategy for legislation addressing early childhood education, elementary and secondary education, higher education, and adult education. Roberto began his tenure on Capitol Hill working for the Senate HELP Committee on the development of the No Child Left Behind Act. He has worked on various reauthorizations of federal legislation, including the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Head Start, Child Care, Higher Education, and the America COMPETES Act. Prior to working on Capitol Hill, Roberto worked as Senior Education Specialist at the National Council of La Raza, where he conducted research and analysis of federal and state education reform issues, as well as the development and evaluation of community-based education programs. He is a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a graduate of the University of Michigan and of the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Several years ago, entrepreneur Ryan Scott noticed a growing demand for online tools and technology in the nonprofit world. His solution was to create an online platform that could connect and empower some of the largest forces of change in the name of the world’s most pressing causes. In 2008, Ryan launched Causecast – an innovative social enterprise that delivers tools, technology and services that connect nonprofit organizations, brands, individuals, media networks, and celebrities.  Today, Causecast provides over a hundred organizations with the means to inspire, engage, and activate their supporters. These partnerships include Amnesty International, Invisible Children, TOMS Shoes, International Medical Corps, Kiva, Charity:Water and Save The Children. Under Ryan’s leadership, Causecast has expanded its reach in both scope and size through partnerships and collaborations with The Huffington Post, with Causecast entirely facilitating the content on the Impact vertical, AARP, The Los Angeles Times, and celebrity cause campaigns such as Ben Stiller’s StillerStrong campaign.  Unique in vision and strategy, Causecast continues to grow as an ideal agent for change, helping responsible brands, individuals, and organizations achieve real, measurable impact through cause-integrated solutions.

Dr. Ed Gragert is the visionary Executive Director of iEARN-USA (International Educators and Resource Network). In Dr. Gragert’s words, “iEARN is a community of educators, students and other individuals who share the vision that 1) education can be enhanced when students interact globally on issues that are of interest and passion; and 2) generations of global citizens who understand that the problems the planet is facing are human-made can be resolved when people work together…”  The way they share this vision of the world is through project-based learning. Students exchange educational and cultural ideas over the Internet. All iEARN projects must answer this question: How will this project improve the quality of life on the planet?  Dr. Ed Gragert started with a B.A. in Japanese political science and received an M.A. in Korean history and a Ph.D. in Japanese history from Columbia University, as well as a certificate from the School of International Affairs. Later, Dr. Gragert served as the Director of a student exchange program involving both high school students and community service volunteers.