A Walk from Cheonggyecheon, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from riacale’s photostream

Rotary is an international organization of more than 1.2 million business, professional, and community leaders. It has over 34,000 clubs worldwide with a commitment to “Service Above Self.” The Rotary Foundation’s Group Study Exchange pairs non-Rotarian team members in different countries to participate in a unique cultural, vocational and civic exchange opportunity. In 2012, the Pittsburgh area and Seoul, South Korea exchange will focus on green building and development. The first part of the exchange began with Rotary District 7300 hosting a team of architects and designers from Korea, and it culminates in a trip to Seoul in May 2012.

The eligibility criteria are:

1) Live in Rotary District 7300 (Allegheny or Beaver Counties)

2) Be between 25 and 40 years of age

3) Be employed in their field for at least two years

4) Not be a Rotary Club member or be an immediate family member of one

5) Be available to travel for the full duration of the Group Study Exchange

6) Have up-to-date travel documents

7) Professional fields of architecture, design, engineering, urban planning, real estate development, or related fields are preferred but not required

Selected participants will receive a travel grant.

The application deadline is November 4, 2011. For applications and more information, please contact: Ron Gaydos, Rotary District 7300 GSE Chair, at rgaydos@city-net.com

You can read more about the Rotary Foundation’s GSE Program here and an announcement about the program here. For additional information, go to www.rotary.org and enter “gse brochure” in the search window. You can also find the Seoul-Pittsburgh GSE page on Facebook here.

Gandhi sign at his ashram in Ahmedabad, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Ben Sutherland’s photostream

October 2 is the day of Mahatma Gandhi‘s birth. It is also the day that the United Nations General Assembly declared to be the International Day of Non-Violence to honor this pre-eminent leader of the Indian independence movement who achieved his goal through a strategy of non-violence. Gandhi inspired the world — in the political, philosophical and spiritual realms — through his pioneering use of “satyagraha” which he defined as follows:

Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase “passive resistance”, in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word “satyagraha” itself or some other equivalent English phrase

The Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh will celebrate Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday and his teachings this Sunday with cultural performances, inter-faith presentations, and more. The day will also include a lecture by Dr. Uma Majmudar, Gandhian researcher and published author. “Gandhi’s Legacy of ‘Satyagraha’ in the Modern World” will explore the meaning of that philosophy both as used by Gandhi and how it pertains to our modern times.

Along with The Asian Studies Center, sponors for this event include Sri Venkateswara Temple, Alliance for Humanitarian Initiatives Non-violence and Spiritual Advancement, Hindu Jain Temple, Sunday Morning Forum of the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon Multicultural & Diversity Initiatives, Gujarati Samaj of Greater Pittsburgh, Chinmaya Sanjeevani Ashram, Rotary Club of Monroeville, the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association for India’s Development (AID), and Silk Screen.

CELEBRATING GANDHI: THE MAN AND HIS TEACHINGS
WHAT: Annual Mahatma Gandhi Birthday Celebration
WHEN: Sunday, October 2, 2011, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
WHERE: Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, University of Pittsburgh

Tucson High Takes to the Streets: 3 of 6, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0)image from cobalt123′s photostream

Luminari, Inc.is a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit founded to “foster original activities that broaden minds, inspire innovations and promote community engagement.” Councilman Bill Peduto has worked with Luminari founding member Hilda Pang Fu to help mentor young Pittsburghers to become civic-minded individuals. One of Luminari’s projects is the I Want to be an Ambassador! camp. It’s a seven-day program designed to teach the vital art of diplomacy to 8th to 12th grade students. The teens participate in activities which concentrate on communication skills — especially those which involve negotiating and conflict resolution. It also features cultural field trips, media literacy, introduction to foreign languages and a two-day Washington, D.C. excursion to experience how ambassadors work together to improve our world. I Want to be an Ambassador! camp takes place from Jun 19 – Jun 27, 2012 at the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, PA and in Washington, D.C.

The cost to attend the camp is $1,200.00, but Luminari announced this month that they will provide a merit-based scholarship to attend the camp for Pittsburgh area students who will be in grades 7 through 11 during the 2011-2012 academic school year: The Luminari Award. Luminari will select up to eight area schools to participate in the award competition. Award winners from each school will receive a scholarship for an all-expenses-paid admission to Luminari’s I Want to be an Ambassador!From Luminari:

“We have two goals for the Luminari Award. One is to reward students for their noteworthy personal and academic qualities,” said Luminari founder and President Hilda Pang Fu. “The second goal is to honor the dynamic schools and inspiring teachers who support these students.”

To qualify, schools must commit to opening the competition to all eligible students; and gather at least six successfully completed applications from students in their district. Luminari Award winners will be announced in mid-February 2012.

Ms. Pang Fu said, “We are looking for students who are motivated, open-minded, and willing to learn and be inspired by ‘out-of-the-box’ activities. Winners will attend the I Want to be an Ambassador! camp in June 2012. The camp is committed to young people coming together to discover ways to collaborate, build sustainable working relationships and become agents for positive change in our world.”

For more information on how your school can participate,interested public and private schools should contact Luminari no later than September 30, 2011.Contact Jacqueline McWilliams at 412-877-1888 or at jaq.mcw@gmail.com. Visit Luminari on the web at http://www.luminari.org/.

Silk Fabrics, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Kelly McCarthy’s photostream

The Silk Screen 6th Annual Asian Film Festival kicks off this week in Pittsburgh with an opening night Gala on May 6th at the Omni William Penn Hotel. Silk Screen aims to put Pittsburgh on the map not only for having one of the best Asian film festivals, but by creating a center for Asian culture. As they note on their website, over 40,000 Asians live in Western PA, but there’s “not one central place for all Asian groups to meet together or to interact with the mainstream community.” The Silk Screen Asian Arts and Culture Organization hopes to build a world class Asia center in Pittsburgh as there is no significant center of this kind between New York City and San Francisco. This year’s film festival runs from May 6th to May 15th and includes films from China, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Japan, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, the Middle East, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. You can see a full list of the films to be screened here and purchase festival passes here.

The Gala and Opening Night promises to be exciting:

Taste sensational sips and exotic ethnic dishes from Japan, China, India, Korea, and more. Dance with Pittsburgh’s premiere Asian performers. Mingle with celebrities, gaze upon international fashions, and enjoy a world of colorful fabrics and faces.

The Gala is on Friday, May 6th (8:00 PM to midnight) at the Omni William Penn Hotel, 530 William Penn Place in Downtown Pittsburgh (map). To give you a taste of a Silk Screen Gala, here are some photos of last year’s performers (more photos here):

The 2011 festival opens with the Indian film “I Am” which the Post-Gazette describes as “weav[ing] together four stories exploring dark themes about child abuse, criminalization of homosexuality, single motherhood and political tension in Kashmir.” Here’s the film’s official trailer:

Councilman Bill Peduto has been a part of the festival from its inception. He secured grant funds to get Silk Screen started and he currently serves as a member of its Advisory Board. Peduto has also recognized Silk Screen and its founder, Harish Saluja (seen below), with proclamations before Pittsburgh City Council for “for providing year round education and entertainment to the Pittsburgh region.”

City Planning IV, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Sebastian Niedlich’s (Grabthar) photostream

If you were in control of a city’s energy, water, retail and banking industries, could you make a better, more sustainable place to live? If you answered in the affirmative, you can now test whether that’s true with IBM’s CityOne game. IBM believes that playing their game will enable industries and municipalities to apply innovative technologies to city planning and learn what kind of outcomes they can expect from that technology (but you can play too).

Sam Jones at Green Futures reviewed CityOne (you can read his entire article at This Big City) and describes it as follows:

Players are presented with a series of energy, water and economic problems, whilst charged with providing an urban space conducive to growth – all within a total available budget. They’re armed with a series of gauges measuring business climate, citizen happiness and environmental wellbeing, and assisted by several simulated consultants (presumably a lot cheaper than the real thing).

Among the challenges they face in the 100 or so ‘real world’ scenarios are traffic congestion, water shortages and supply chain problems. They’ll be expected to use techniques such as service reuse, cloud computing and collaborative technologies to help make organisations in city systems more ‘intelligent’ and responsive.

Among the choices they make is whether to deploy new technologies, or re-organise existing systems to make them cleaner and leaner. After the allotted number of ‘turns’, they’re awarded a score which can be compared with like-minded individuals the world over. The game itself has built-in cloud-computing capabilities, allowing players to communicate and confer with industry experts.

CityOne gives players the opportunity to see how they compare with others by geographic location, by industry, and by player type (Pragmatic Leader, Conservative, Evader, Short-Term Thinker and Futurist). How intelligent can you make a city’s infrastructure? You can join the conversation by registering to play here. But, before you start, here’s a trailer for the CityOne Smarter Planet game, as well as a brief introduction video:

Repatriated Mamas at the fountain, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Julien Harneis’ photostream

According to the United Nations Development Programme:

Globally, almost 1 billion people lack clean drinking water. 2.4 billion people have no access to hygienic sanitation facilities; 1.2 billion lack any sanitation facilities at all. Each day, an average of 5,000 children die due to water and sanitation related diseases, many easily preventable.

Investing in the water supply yields an average economic return of $4.40 for every $1.00 spent. Currently, the lion’s share of the burden of collecting water falls on women and children. Each day, women worldwide spend 200 million hours just collecting water for domestic use. According to Gary White, co-founder of Water.org, “This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target, and Kroger.”

Beyond the economic issues and disease aspects, in some countries, children are too busy finding water to attend school, girls in particular are forced to drop out of school due to a lack of sanitation facilities, and women are threatened and assaulted when collecting water or visiting public toilets.

By now, you may well be asking yourself, “What can I do to help?”

Amizade is conducting their Fourth Annual Water Walk in Pittsburgh on Saturday, April 9th (April 10th in Morgantown, WV). Participants will carry a water bucket during the 2 mile route in solidarity with, and to bring awareness to, the 1 billion people around the world who do not have access to safe water. Additionally, Amizade supports water projects around the world including:

- Brought clean water to over 300 schoolchildren in the rural Karagwe region of Tanzania.

- Led workshops on the benefits of Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS) — a method to produce suitable drinking water utilizing solar rays from the sun.

- Installed a massive 300,000 liter water-harvesting system, including gutters, underground piping, and a solar-powered pump for a new school in the small village of Chonyoyo.

Amizade’s Pittsburgh Water Walk Details:
Saturday, April 9th, 2011
Registration opens at 11:30, Walk begins at 1:00
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, PA
On the Academic Walk

You can also register online here.

Eric Hartman at his Journey toward Justice blog has much more on Amizade and the world water crisis here. Also, be sure to watch this thought-provoking video created by a Duquesne University student:

P1120468, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from wyliepoon’s photostream

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) is the regional planning agency serving the Pittsburgh area (Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington, and Westmoreland counties). Its responsibilities include planning and prioritizing the use of all state and federal transportation funds allocated to this region. Federal mandates include the publication of a 20-year plan, establishment of a 4-year improvement plan and development of a “unified” planning program which identifies all transportation planning activities currently underway. SPC offers the public an active role in the development of these plans and programs. To that end, they have a Public Participation Plan which outlines how they foster proactive participation in their process. They’ve recently updated their Public Participation Plan to “reflect the enhanced use of technology.” There’s a 45-day open comment period for the draft plan which began on February 28th and which will close on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 4pm (you can view the official notice here).

A presentation of the updated plan will be held at a meeting which is open to the public:

Thursday, March 24, 2011
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Xplorion Lobby
Regional Enterprise Tower
425 Sixth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

They will accept comments there. If you cannot make this meeting, written comments can also be made:

Via Email: comments@spcregion.org

Via Mial: SPC Comments, 425 Sixth Avenue, Suite 2500, Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Via FAX: 412-391-9160

You can view the actual draft Public Participation Plan here (.PDF).

VO!CE of the Region

Here’s another way to voice your opinion. VO!CE of the Region is an online community of residents in our tri-state area who participate in polls, surveys and forums on local, regional and national topics of interest. Recent topics have included “Allegheny Riverfront & Mellon Arena site development; pros and cons of a City/County merger; Marcellus Shale: drilling, regulating, and educating the public on the facts and their rights; public transportation shortcomings and alternatives, and options for balancing the state’s budget. ” Participants include regional government, businesses and organizations. You can sign up to get started here.

INTA Communities of Competences

Lastly, INTA is a global effort to open up conversation. It’s an “association of public and private policy-makers and urban practitioners to share knowledge, experience and tools for integrated urban development.” The ultimate goal is to ensure that urban areas in the future will be more sustainable and more cohesive. The following Communities are currently active:

Urban Development in the New Economy: Workspace urbanism – co-animated by Larry Barth (Architectural Association, London), Charles Lin (NCTU, Taiwan), Rémi Feredj (RATP, Paris).

Innovative Metropolitan Development – co-animated by Paul Gerretsen (Deltametropolis, The Netherlands) and Abel Enguita (CEIM, Madrid).

Innovation, Services and Territories with sub groups on Tourism and Heritage, Health, Retail – co-animated by Pascal Carré (group ING), Christine Lor, Marc Bechet (Rhône Alpes Tourism) and Joseph Tossavi (OGOLD, Benin). [In French]

Innovative Habitat – co-animated by Maurice Charrier (International Laboratory for Popular Habitat), Marek Bryx (Warsaw School of Economics), Mohamed Mbarki (Agency for the Eastern Provinces) and Marc Brabant (Logistransport).

Child Holding Green Plant, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Pink Sherbet Photography’s photostream

What would our world look like if instead of our best and brightest college grads needing to take whatever job they could find right out of school, they could focus their energies and passions on building a sustainable society?

TerraShift is a Pittsburgh-based social venture which offers fellowships to recent college graduates and young professionals that include hands-on work experience, skill-building workshops, networking, and independent study time. It also gives them the time, space and support to do this by covering all their living expenses for one year. TerraShift’s focus is on giving these young people the skills and experience to go on to meaningful careers in the fields of sustainability, social justice, and societal progress. TerraShift then helps to place their fellows in effective change-making organizations (entrepreneurial, organizational, and institutional).

Here’s where your involvement is key. The Unreasonable Institute is a mentor-intensive program for startup entrepreneurs hungry to tackle the world’s greatest social and environmental problems. They’ve launched a competition in which the public votes with their wallets to decide who will be accepted into their institute. Forty-five finalists were chosen from across the globe and TerraShift is one of them. In order to win, they need to be one of the first twenty-five finalists to raise $8,000. To prove their entrepreneurial mettle, they must achieve this goal with the broadest support possible — meaning for this first week of the competition, supporters may not donate more than $10 (contribution caps increase incrementally each week). The competition aims to reach one million people worldwide.

You can view TerraShift’s video entry below. Once you have, you can tell the world that Pittsburgh is a city that supports social entrepreneurs by heading over to the Finalist Marketplace and making a contribution to TerraShift.

At the beginning of October the International Urban Development Association held their INTA33 Congress in Taiwan to discuss the topic of “Innovative Urban Environments.”  The mission of INTA is to bring together public and private urban practitioners in a series of conferences, seminars, peer-to-peer panels and yearly conferences to promote an exchange of ideas, and to create strategies to work towards achieving the goal of sustainable development.

Councilman Bill Peduto has been involved with INTA since 2003.  He was granted a scholarship by the group to travel to The Hague in the Netherlands to study “regional governance” from a global to local perspective with this organization. In 2005, Councilman Peduto joined the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation in welcoming them to Pittsburgh.

INTA helps us all to understand that the problems facing cities are the same worldwide, and so are many of the solutions.

Learn more about INTA33