Social Good Summit 2011: Awakening responsibility, potential, humor and happiness

After four days of social goodness, we wrapped up the summit on Thursday.

The second annual Mashable Social Good Summit   brought together some of the world’s greatest leaders, thinkers and entrepreneurs at “a time when new technology and social media are changing the world.” They gathered at New York’s 92Y but were joined by thousands of other digital participants who tuned in for the livestream.

  

Their goal: to connect with each other and to learn from each other in order make the world a better place. The summit’s impressive lineup of dynamic speakers   – which included Lance Armstrong, Geena Davis, Richard Gere, Christy Turlington, Ted Turner, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu – discussed a range of global issues, from maternal mortality to literacy and education. With a rich variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise, the speakers certainly covered a lot of ground.  They also proved to share quite a bit of common ground.

All speakers agreed that the best 21^st century leaders and entrepreneurs are using digital tools to make a difference in our world. They are using these tools to educate, to advocate and to empower.

On the first day of the summit, Ted Turner joined us in shared responsibility: “We have enormous global communications today that we didn’t have 100 years ago, and we can do things today that we couldn’t 100 years ago and more should be expected of us… it’s no longer you or me, it’s you and me, and we’re either going to make it together or not at all.”

On the second day of the summit, Elie Wiesel reawakened our potential: “Human beings all change. Not what they are but who they are. We have the power to change what we do with our life and turn it into our destiny.”

On the third day of the summit, Archbishop Desmond Tutu inspired our goodness: “We hold on to the fact that people are fundamentally good, and each one of us has an instinct that allows us to hone in on goodness… People at my age, the revered, aren’t usually the powerful, the macho. You could say a lot of things about Mother Teresa, but macho would not be one of them.”

On the final day of the summit, Yossi Vardi prescribed our happiness: “There are many ways to prescribe happiness but there is one way that is available to everybody, it’s not very expensive … it’s very democratic, and everyone has acesss to it. It is: Find someone who needs help and help him for no ulterior motive.”
Fundly   can’t wait until next year.

Until then, our social fundraising   platform will keep connecting people and organizations in the name of #socialgood. The sky’s the limit.