Archive for the ‘Thunderbird for Good’ Category

Thunderbird School of Global Management’s Thunderbird for Good has partnered with MicroMentor, an online service that connects small business owners with volunteer business mentors.

The organization’s mission is to help small businesses grow faster, generate more revenue and employ more people.

“The system is like match.com for mentoring,” said India Borba, program manager, Thunderbird for Good. “We constantly have alumni contacting us asking how they can get involved and give back, so this is an opportunity to engage alumni and offer them the chance to give back.”

The mission of MicroMentor is to help small businesses grow faster, generate more revenue and employ more people. The program is a good fit for Thunderbird’s mission of creating sustainable prosperity worldwide.

MicroMentor makes it easy to be a mentor, find a mentor and build a business.

Register here and follow the links to join the organization and create a profile. Mentor profiles describe the mentors’ strengths and expertise, while entrepreneur profiles describe the entrepreneurs’ business and goals.

Bpeace (Business Council for Peace) is looking for a T-bird finance food processing expert to share his or her experience and skills.

Bpeace is a nonprofit organization that promotes women’s empowerment through encouraging entrepreneurship and job creation.

T-bird Gita Patel ’96 currently volunteers as a researcher with the nonprofit and said the organization is a great match for T-birds who like to travel and want to use their skills to better the lives of women.

The Finance Food Processing Expert would travel to El Salvador and work with a family-run food processing business in Santa Tecla.

 For more information and to get involved go here.

The Thunderbird alumni chapter in New York is hosting a special evening this upcoming Monday to support the launch of the new book “The Dressmaker of Khair Khana,” a non-fiction work about Project Artemis fellow Kamila Sidiq.  Project Artemis Afghanistan is a unique business-skills training program run by Thunderbird that aims to build the entrepreneurial skills of promising Afghan businesswomen.  Sidiq went through the program in 2005.

The evening, March 21, 2011 at the Princeton Club on 43rd Street in New York City, will feature a talk from the book’s author, Council on Foreign Relations fellow Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. Ms. Lemmon is a world renowned author and journalist as well as the Deputy Director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Women and Foreign Policy.

Her pieces on entrepreneurship and women have appeared in leading publications such as the New York Times, Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune. For more about the book and Kamila Sidiq, the woman who inspired it, check out this great interview by NPR.

Also in attendance will be Lynda Hammes, a ‘11 T-bird who is Deputy Publisher and Director of Digital Strategy for Foreign Affairs magazine. This event, hosted by the Thunderbird School of Global Management Alumni Association of New York City, is the only New York engagement open to the general public. Don’t miss this exclusive opportunity to meet these extraordinary women and learn more about entrepreneurship in Afghanistan.

Update: Toni Maloney, the CEO and co-founder of Bpeace will also be speaking.  Since helping found Bpeace in 2002, Maloney has been committed to the idea that business people have a significant role to play in peace building. Before downshifting her strategic marketing consulting business — The Maloney Group — to lead Bpeace full-time, she held executive positions at American Express, Ogilvy, and McCann-Erickson.

Bpeace– the business council for peace– is a non-profit network of business professionals. They volunteer skills to entrepreneurs in conflict-affected countries to help them create significant employment for all, and expand the economic power of women.

When: Monday, March 21, 2011 from 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM (ET)

Where: The Princeton Club of New York City

15 West 43rd Street

Between 5th and 6th Avenue

New York, NY 10036

Ticket price: $45 includes a food and drink subsidy and a special surprise.

To Purchase Tickets and Preregister : http://gaylelemmoncfrtbird.eventbrite.com

Questions, please contact Victoria M. Cox ‘03 at victoriamcox@gmail.com

Two videos created by Paula Lerner with photographs of Thunderbird’s Project Artemis fellows are up for the ViewChange Online Film Contest. If either of them wins, Thunderbird for Good receives a portion of the prize money.

Please vote now to support Thunderbird.

The videos are called “Kandahar Treasure” and “Bee Business: Women Beekeepers in Afghanistan”

“Kandahar Treasure” is the story of a dangerous, volatile region of Afghanistan and what one Afghan-American woman is doing at the grassroots level to promote peace.

“Bee Business: Woman Beekeepers in Afghanistan” tells the story of a woman who had the courage to start a honey-making business in Afghanistan under the Taliban, even though it put her life at risk.

Votes will be accepted until September 15^th and votes can be submitted up to once per day.

Project Artemis Afghanistan is a unique business-skills training program that aims to build the entrepreneurial skills of promising Afghan businesswomen. The newest group of 20 fellows will arrive at Thunderbird on Oct. 16.

Twenty new laptop computers loaded with software await this year’s Project Artemis fellows when they arrive in October, thanks to the generosity of T-bird Rob Owen ’06, an adjunct professor at the school.

Owen, who also provided computers to the 2008 fellows, said he will continue to contribute for years to come.

Project Artemis Afghanistan is a business training program that aims to build the entrepreneurial skills of promising Afghan businesswomen. The newest group of 20 fellows will arrive at Thunderbird on Oct. 16.

In a recent e-mail Owen described why he believes in Project Artemis and what inspires him to help:

“I don’t give laptops to contribute to Project Artemis. I hate injustice, and injustice is what I see a great deal of in Afghanistan, especially so to women. I also feel for people who feel they lack power and the opportunity to be powerful. (A much more complicated conversation than one simple sentence) The real reason I give is because I know my contribution of 20 laptops goes to 20 specific people; and what’s even better, I get to meet the 20 people. I get the human connection that I may be making a difference for that person. It is not nameless, faceless, giving.”

Rob will deliver the laptops to the fellows during an informal orientation the day before their program starts Oct. 18. He said he will ask nothing in return, only for the recipients to “make a difference for someone else.”

Project Artemis Program Manager Wynona Heim ’08 said that the laptops donated by Owen have set this program apart from many other similar programs.

“This year we had more applications than we’ve ever had before, and from more provinces in Afghanistan and a wider diversity of business models,” Heim said. “It’s a fantastic group of women and they all seem to be budding leaders, so we’re excited to see what they can do.”

Forty-four women from Afghanistan have participated in three previous sessions of Project Artemis, held in 2005, 2006, and 2008. This year, the fellows will leave Thunderbird on Oct. 31 and head to Washington, D.C. for three days, where the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council will host them.

They will then head home – with fresh knowledge and skills, a new professional network, and, because of Owen’s gift, their computers.

Jeff Lockwood ’68 believes that self-confidence and self-awareness in children comes from learning.

And although Lockwood and his children have had the opportunity for quality education, he knows that there are many students whose circumstances have hindered them.

That’s why the Bay Area-based owner of Lockwood International steps away from the office and into the classroom one day each week. And that’s also what has kept him coming back to help for 13 years.

“You hear some of the children’s backgrounds and you’re just amazed,” Lockwood said. “You think of regular kids and what they go through to go to class, but these kids really have it pretty rough in some cases.”

Lockwood volunteers in a Northern California school district where many of its children are living in poverty. Regular meals are provided to the students, but oftentimes they need a little extra attention.

“I’m blown away by how smart these kids are,” Lockwood said. “We just give them a little encouragement.”

In addition to emotional support, Lockwood follows a lesson plan for math that is created by the class teacher. One day each week, he and 14 other tutors fill the classroom and give one-on-one attention to the children.

Lockwood said that he believes math and reading are most important.  Lockwood focuses exclusively on math.

“I think we’ve been fairly effective based on the test results,” Lockwood said. “But these teachers are also remarkably dedicated.”

Lockwood said he was inspired to help after serving as the chairman of the board of directors for a school foundation group. He wanted a more “hands on approach,” so he headed to the classroom.

Lockwood looks forward to his tutoring time each week. And he even follows up his morning routine with some more generosity – a visit to his former secretary and her husband, who are in their 80s. The pair is from England, so Lockwood brings them “little treats that are English” and takes them out to eat.

This Mother’s Day, honor an important woman in your life by fulfilling another woman’s dream for a thriving Afghanistan.

Thunderbird will welcome twenty select Afghan women entrepreneurs to campus this October as Project Artemis Fellows. These women will participate in a unique business-skills training program that aims to build the entrepreneurial skills of promising Afghan businesswomen.

Many of our Project Artemis fellows have had a number of successes. Rangina Hamidi is one of them. She’s the owner of Kandahar Treasure, an embroidery company with more than 400 employees. Her business exports products worldwide and does all of this from a patriarchal, war-torn environment where women still have no legal protection.

If you would like to donate to the Project Artemis Campaign in honor of your mother, grandmother, sister, aunt or friend, Thunderbird will send a card to her on your behalf that recognizes your gift and tells the story of Project Artemis.   Make your gift today.

For more information about Thunderbird’s work with women entrepreneurs worldwide, check out the Thunderbird for Good blog.