gamechangers

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GA M E C H A N G E R S I S A M AGA Z I N E F O R S O C I E T Y ’ S C H A N G E AG E N TS . W E A R E SPEAKING TO TRUTH SEEKERS, REBELS, H E R O ES , O U TCASTS — P E O P L E W H O A R E W I L L I N G TO ST I C K T H E I R N E C K O U T TO M A K E A D I F F E R E N C E . WE’RE NOT AFRAID TO TAKE RISKS A N D MAKE MISTAKES. WE ARE ON A MISSION TO EXPLOIT THE CRAPPY STUFF THAT’S GOING ON IN THE WORLD AND FIGURE O U T WAYS TO F I X I T.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR EDITION // FALL 2011

G A MECHANGER S the magazine issue 01


EDITOR IN CHIEF

ASSISTANT EDITOR

ASSISTANT EDITOR

ADVERTISING

REGULAR COLUMNISTS

DESIGN DIRECTORS

CONTRIBUTORS

ART EDITOR

PHOTOGRAPHY

CONTRIBUTING INTERVIEWERS

MAILING ADDRESS

Kari [email protected]

Laura [email protected]

Kari [email protected]

Natalie [email protected]

James [email protected]

Darya [email protected]

Coral [email protected]

Taylor Raquer [email protected]

Felix [email protected]

Matthew ClarkPatrick DaltonFranca DavenportCaroline DavidsonJon FordhamHanspeter KuenzlerMallor ReidRenee Yearwood

David [email protected]

Mark [email protected]

Bourke [email protected]

Patrick [email protected]

Blake MycoskieCaroline DavidsonJon FordhamHanspeter KuenzlerMallor ReidRenee Yearwood

5010 15th ave Seattle WA98105, USA

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Gamechangers is a magazine for society’s change agents. We are speaking to truth seekers, rebels, heroes, outcasts— the people who are willing to stick their neck out to make a difference. We’re not afraid to take risks and make mistakes. We’re on a mission to exploit the crappy stuff that’s going on in the world and figure out ways to fix it. Thank you for being a part of our inaugural issue.

Kari Davidson

E D I T O R ’ S L E T T E R


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08An interview with Victoria from charity: water —Making Trade Offs

Meet Chris Hines —The man behind Surfers Against Sewage

Toms Founder Blake Mycoskie Discusses New Book —Start Something that Matters

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G A M E C H A N G E R ST H E W O R K

G A M E C H A N G E R ST H E R E P O R T

20Artist Highlight,Emma Hanquistcreates pieces of social commentary

McNally JacksonA new print on demand machine just might save the book —and the bookstore too.

Roland Tiangco’s type revealing poster

Pheobe Washburn New York artist whose work addresses recycling and sustainability

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28Silicon Valley, Seattle Chattanooga?Could Tennessee be the next think tank?

Nike Jumps into Venture Capital

Peace, Love and Venture Capital, a look at Summit Series Conference at Sea

Most Promising SocialEntrepreneurs

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36Water Pollution in America — Photo essay by Damon Winter

Occupy: We arethe World — Occupy Wall Street has spread across the world

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T H A N K S T O O R G A N I Z AT I O N S S U C H A S C H A R I T Y : WAT E R , T H E I S S U E O F WAT E R I S O N O U R C O L L E C T I V E R A D A R S A S S O M E T H I N G T O W H I C H W E M U S T PAY D I R E AT T E N T I O N .

THE PEOPLE

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Charity: water is a grassroots non-profit based out of New York City, working to bring clean and safe drinking water to some of the 1.1 bil-

lion people on the planet without it. In two short years, they have funded freshwater wells and basic sanitation projects in fourteen countries. Conducting most of their fundraising through online campaigns, photo and video installations, and unconventional public awareness initiatives, creative communications are a key to their suc-cess. Viktoria explains, “When we started, we knew we wanted to do charity a little differently. We wanted to ignite people’s passion for help-ing through photography, design and creativity. We’d seen charity appeals that didn’t work, that were made to guilt people into helping instead of stirring the kind of connection that arises when a person sees something differently for the first time. When they finally get it. Perhaps it’s some-thing they’d seen 100 times before, but the 101st time it was presented to them in a different for-mat, in a different light or context, and unexpect-edly, they were fundamentally moved. And this is the true power of advertising.”

Of course, a non-profit environment is a far cry from a big advertising agency, and everyone must adjust accordingly. As Viktoria describes her new role, “When I left the conventional world of advertising, my focus was narrow. I knew storyboarding and design. And I knew it well. Everything else was done by someone else and our trendy penthouse design firm was a well-oiled, Henry Ford assembly line. The designers designed, the editors edited, the producers pro-duced and the 3D guys 3D’d. The day I quit my job to come work for charity: water, I remember buying a pair of black pumas that were as ver-satile a shoe as you can get. The point being: I knew I’d be doing every job under the sun. In my first few weeks working here, (back then it was

just three of us), I helped put on an event, car-ried boxes around the city, edited a video in Final Cut, made a webpage in Dreamweaver, went to Liberia, West Africa for the first time and ended up in Lenox Hill Hospital three weeks later with malaria wondering what in the world did I get myself into? Right now, I’m the designer, web, editor, project manager, producer and creative director. And I clean the dishes on Fridays. Do-ing jobs we are in no way qualified or trained for has been our greatest challenge. Every week brings new and exciting problems that we have to just figure out, do or die. But in this constant state of growth, it’s amazing how competent you become when there’s no one to there to help you figure it out.”

Of course, such versatility demands a supreme level of organization to stay functioning. Viktoria tells us, “The demand at charity: water is enough for 30 people easily, and there are 7 of us on staff. We often get distracted doing things that are ur-gent, but not critical to our overall mission. And if you’re not careful, those things can consume your entire day. Many people, especially at start-ups, spend all their time reacting to demands that are not important but always feel urgent. A printing job gone wrong that consumes your entire morning, or tracking a package that’s been lost in the mail. So, we’ve kept to-do lists, prior-ity lists, and tried to create systems and processes just to keep sane. But when it comes down to it, there are only 24 hours in a day and a billion peo-ple without water. You have to make trade-offs. It’s really useful to create a purpose statement for your role in a company or an organization. Write down two-three sentences about where

M A K I N G T R A D E - O F F S :

EMILY HEYWARD

THE PEOPLE


THE PEOPLE

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THE DAY I QUIT MY JOB TO COME WORK FOR CHARITY: WATER, I REMEMBER BUYING A PAIR OF BLACK PUMAS THAT WERE AS VERSATILE A SHOE AS YOU CAN GET. THE POINT BEING: I KNEW I’D BE DOING EVERY JOB UNDER THE SUN.

you want to go in your professional career if the sky were the limit. Then, evaluate your daily tasks and ask yourself what are the things you do each day that get you closer to that goal, and which in fact take you farther away. And then you can start wisely choosing which projects to take on, and which ones to pass off if you have that luxury. If not, try asking your boss if you can find an unpaid intern to help someone who can learn from you, and free up your time so you can pursue the big picture. For others, a purpose statement can re-veal some sad truth as well. Perhaps you are in a limiting position that’s stunting your growth, and its time to go.”

In such a small, intense environment, healthy collaboration is key to moving ideas forward. Viktoria describes their process, telling us, “In this office, we’re constantly yelling ideas across the room. About 80% of them get shot down the second they’re uttered, and the other 20% make it to execution. Sometimes the best ones get stolen and claimed by people other than their creators. And I have a piece of advice regarding that: Don’t’ be upset, because giving away your best ideas en-sures that you continue to create new ones. Col-laboration and group brainstorming provide a sounding board for your thoughts and the sooner you let your ideas be heard, the sooner you can know whether they’re worth pursuing or should be let go. But most importantly, you can’t allow your feelings to get hurt when your idea is reject-ed. There’s no room for that in collaboration, and picking your battles is key. There’s a time to fight for your idea, and there’s a time to let it go. Once you realize that delicate balance, collaboration can truly be a productive exercise.”

Viktoria strongly believes one must be brave, both within collaboration and idea generation: “I know it’s scary, but get your idea out there. Don’t worry about having all your pieces in place that will come with time. Many people wait years to prepare the perfect pitch, the perfect website and the perfect brand before letting anyone see it. This kind of thinking can intimidate and over-whelm you, and can sometimes cause you to

abandon the project all together. I’m not saying make promises you can’t keep, but get your feet wet and test your idea on friends, relatives and co-workers. When there’s no one to hold you accountable, it’s easy to let other priorities get in the way. Let others see your idea when it’s just a sketch on a napkin, and it will create a sense of accountability for you. I know it’s scary, but know-ing that there are people out there waiting to see your idea executed forces you to follow through.”

That being said, forward-thinking endeavours require a strong foundation. Viktoria explains, “When it comes to design, rules were created to be broken. But you have to know them to break them. It has to be intentional, not accidental. My first intern was terrible at creating a layout, but she was genius at the big ideas. So I got her a book on grid systems and composition. Even-tually she began to understand the fundamental principles of the invisible grid in layouts, and her work became professional, intentional and put together. The point being: you really have to know the rules first to be able to break them, or else your work will always look like an accident.”

At the end of the day, perhaps ideas are more likely to happen when you are motivated by a truly worthy endeavour. Viktoria’s passion for her work shines through when she explains what she’s working for: “In America, we’re among some of the most fortunate people on the planet. Food, clothing and water are abundant and al-ways available. But in villages all across the Afri-can continent, mothers wake up before daybreak and walk two, sometimes three hours to kneel in an almost dry riverbed and scoop disease-in-fested water, knowing it will make their kids sick. They have no other choice. We, as Americans, use an average of 150 gallons of water per day to cook, clean and drink. The average person in a developing nation will struggle to find 5.”

Hearing these troubling but inspiring facts, we are so grateful that talented minds are working every day to raise awareness and generate ideas that will make the world a better place.

THE PEOPLE


THE PASSIONATE SURFER IS THE ULTIMATE ARCHETYPE OF THE FREE SPIRIT. HE OR SHE CONJURES, TOO, NEGATIVE IMAGES OF TIME-WASTING DRUGS AND RUINED HAIR. TODAY A NEW FIGURE IS RISING FROM THE WATERS: THE ARDENT CAMPAIGNER FOR CLEANER SAFER SEAS

THE PEOPLE

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Activists who form a campaign group most typically have a desire to hand humanity a more progressive operating code. Humanity

may or may not listen. Greenpeace’s origins lie in the determination of a core group of activists to “bear witness” to nuclear testing beneath the island of Amchitka; Amnesty International’s gen-esis was in lawyer Peter Benenson’s article on two forgotten Portuguese prisoners, published in this very newspaper.

The conception of Surfers Against Sewage, 20 years ago, had a different timbre. Surfing at his local break in St Agnes, Cornwall, Chris Hines popped up from beneath a wave with a panty lin-er stuck to the back of his head “The wings were like ears,” he adds, helpfully and a human turd squished between his chest and his surfboard. He had simply had enough.

Hines and his surfing cohorts spent every other day immersed in sewage. They ingested it, they breathed it in, and they became ill with gastroen-teritis and ear and throat infections. Meanwhile, they suffered the smarting injustice of Margaret Thatcher’s categorical assertions on TV that all sewage in the UK was treated before it was dis-charged. “We were well aware that 400m gallons of raw sewage were being discharged every day into the sea,” says Hines, still angry.

He teamed up with Andrew Kingsley-Tubbs (or Ange), who, with a sales and marketing back-ground, grasped the need to communicate the decidedly non-sexy issue of sewage in as visual and irreverent a way as possible. By the 1990s surfing was at its zenith. The mere association with it could sell anything, from washing powder to flip-flops and cars. “Everyone wanted to be a surfer,” Ange says.

Hines, Ange and two other core members per-fected the art of media-friendly stunts. They wore gas masks with their wetsuits to spread the word that their playground was seriously polluted. The

original SAS slogan T-shirts told everyone that surfers were “sick of being sick”. There was huge public buy-in and the SAS summer ball became a fixture on the festival calendar, marking the end of summer; surf rock band Reef, remember them? headlined the ball in 1995.

Pleasingly weathered, and humoured, Chris Hines MBE and Ange are now pillars of the lo-cal community. Nobody passes the table where we’re sitting in the late afternoon sun, above the beach at Porthtowan near Truro, in Cornwall, without approaching for a chat. But 20 years ago they were about as popular in these parts as the bubonic plague. “It was like in Jaws nobody talked about the great white shark,” says Hines. “Here nobody talked about the great brown slick. Businesses actively loathed us.” A local Newquay councillor threatened to ban surfing altogether if SAS didn’t put a sock in it. Given that, accord-ing to 2005 figures, surfing pumps £64m into the south west’s economy above golf (£34m) and yachting (£18m) and provides in the region of 18,000 jobs, it’s lucky that that councillor didn’t get his way.

To boost their credibility, SAS enlisted micro-biologists at the University of Leicester to look at viral and bacterial loads caused by untreated sewage in water, and their connection to diseases

LUCY SIEGLE

S U R F E R S A G A I N S T S E WA G E

THE PEOPLE


such as gastroenteritis, hepatitis and a poten-tial killer, E coli 0157. This was backed up by, as Hines puts it, “a gruesome trial of evidence” comprising loads of crude outflow pipes and condoms, to be shown to journalists.

By the end of the 1990s, the press touted SAS as “some of the government’s most sophisticated en-vironmental critics” and “Britain’s coolest pressure group”. Hines became a special adviser to the en-vironment minister, and billions were invested in cleaning up the UK coastline and overhauling the sewage system. “You have to commit to activism,” says Hines. “It’s a bit like committing to a wave.”Today SAS is run by Hugo Tagholm, 35, whose background is in the NGO Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, and campaigns manager Andy Cum-mins, 32. They are the new Hines and Ange, and are just as committed. Clad in wetsuits, they pad across one of Cornwall’s most prestigious tour-ist hot spots, Watergate Bay, holding aloft a giant inflatable turd.

The SAS tradition of surreal photo calls contin-ues. The giant turd was selected from the exten-sive props cupboard back at their HQ at Wheal Kitty, a former tin mine where employees can keep an eye out for big waves. We chose among a giant cotton bud, a portable ceramic toilet and many costumes ranging from mermaids, alien suits, the gas masks from the early campaigns and DayGlo bras and wigs, to help communicate the issue of the gender-bending hydrophobic chemi-cals in plastics.

“Twenty years ago you’d go for a walk on the beach and you’d see the signs of sanitary waste,”

says Tagholm. “Now you won’t, because the grid across the CSO pipe will have trapped the sanitary towels. But it’s not a total filter: the massive bacte-ria and viral load will still be in the sea.” I later see a photograph of the grid/screening system. If you had a colander that ineffectual in your kitchen, you’d chuck it out.

Marine litter is ubiquitous. According to SAS, only 15% is found on the beach itself, while 15% sits on the sea surface waiting to come in, and 70% is on the seabed, waiting to be re-animated by a storm. The small bits of plastic absorb hydrophobic chemicals. The effect of that cocktail of chemicals is unknown, but they will be ingested by sea wildlife and enter the food chain. By far the largest littering appears to be green plastic fishing nets. In the past, nets were made of hemp and fishermen would mend them. Now they are cheap and disposable and cut up and thrown in the sea.

Dumping waste into the sea is one issue, water conservation another. “Im-agine this morning, when 66 million people brushed their teeth in Britain and left the tap running,” says Cummins. “That clean, fine water takes up capacity as it goes down the drain, takes up capacity at the treatment centre. That’s ridiculous, a waste. That’s not responsible.”

Tagholm and Cummins may be serious campaigners don’t be fooled by the Scooby Doo-style van and funny props but they don’t always get the respect they deserve. One SAS campaign, Return to Sender, collects dis-carded packaging from beaches courtesy of bright green bins and returns it to the manufacturer, the idea being that they’ll be hugely embarrassed and print better disposal recycling signs on said packaging in the future. But a returned Speedo packet provoked the following response from the manager of the flagship store: “I am writing this in acknowledgement of an item that you sent to my company… You obviously don’t think, as you are all a bunch of self-righteous twats with your heads so far up your arse you have forgot-ten what real problems society faces. Here is a tip. Get over yourselves, get a real job, and start contributing to life in a meaningful way.”

I should point out that since this email, Speedo has fallen over itself to apologise. But there’s no doubt that a lingering prejudice persists against the “surfing community”, an accusation that they are dropout hippies and dreamers who preface each sentence with “dude”. “In effect we represent hundreds of thousands of leisure water users,” says Tagholm, “and many different types of people surf, including doctors and lawyers. They don’t necessarily drive VW vans, and they’re all over the country.”

as a membership organization sas relies on public support. join for as little as $1.75 a month — sas.org.uk Peninsula and Bournemouth.

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R E A L J O B , A N D S TA R T C O N T R I B U T I N G T O L I F E I N A M E A N I N G F U L WAY.”“A S Y O U A R E A L L A B U N C H O F S E L F - R I G H T E O U S T WAT S —

H E R E I S A T I P. G E T O V E R Y O U R S E LV E S , G E T A R E A L WAY.”“A S Y O U A R E A L L A B U N C H O F S E L F - R I G H T E O U S T WAT S —

H E R E I S A T I P.

G E T O V E R Y O U R S E LV E S , G E T A R E A L J O B , A N D S TA R T C O N T R I B U T I N G T O L I F E I N A M E A N I N G F U L WAY.”

“A S Y O U A R E A L L A B U N C H O F S E L F - R I G H T E O U S T WAT S — R E A LJ O B , A N D S TA R T C O N T R I B U T I N G T O L I F E I N A M E A N I N G F U L WAY.” R E A L J O B , A N D S TA R T M E A N I N G F U L WAY.”“A S Y O U A R E A L L A B U N C H O F S E L F - R I G H T E O U S T WAT S —

H E R E I S A T I P. G E T O V E R Y O U R S E LV E S , G E T A R E A L J O B , A N D S TA R T

C O N T R I B U T I N G T O L I F E I N A M E A N I N G F U L WAY.”“A S Y O U A R E A L L A B U N C H O F S E L F - R I G H T E O U S T WAT S — R E A LJ O B , A N D S TA R T C O N T R I B U T I N G T O L I F E I N A M E A N I N G F U L WAY-

—Speedo store manager


THE PEOPLE

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T O M S F O U N D E R , D I S C U S S E S N E W B O O K—S TA R T S O M E T H I N G T H AT M AT T E R S

JESSICA PROIS

For the disillusioned office worker who’s realized that boring cubicle life won’t cut it, this book’s for you. Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS, released his first book last week called

Start Something That Matters. In it, he shares the secrets of his success and that of other entrepreneurs who are doing work that’s had a significant, positive effect on the world. It’s only fitting that Mycoskie’s book assumes TOMS signature one-for-one model. When readers buy a copy, a child in need will get a book through the organization First Book, a nonprofit that con-nects publishers and local organizations. In Start Something That Matters Mycoskie shares insight from Scott Harrison, charity:water founder, about earning donors’ trust. He chats with Tony Hseish, the name behind Zappos, about company culture and ultimate customer service. Mycoskie also divulges tips from Timothy Ferriss, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek,” about chasing your dreams and enjoying life.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER

THE PEOPLE


Huffington Post talked to Mycoskie about the book’s back story, the entrepreneurs featured in his work and a new one-for-one twist—

HP: You were already on your fourth startup when you started TOMS in 2006. Is it realistic to think anyone with passion could succeed in a venture like this?Mycoskie: I think it appeals to everyone. On one level, you have the kind of young person just out of college who’s an entrepreneur and excited about this book. And on another level, in this time and economy, people are also just looking for positive stories. They want to be inspired in general. The book is, and I hope you’ll agree with me, very conversational and story-driven. It’s not necessarily a how-to book. It’s a fun, en-tertaining and inspirational book.

HP: The way this book gives back is two-fold. Can you talk about who you’re helping?

Mycoskie: The primary reason to start the book was to help other people start something that matters. The number one question that I get is, ‘How did you get started?’ My purpose was to inspire people to go out, whether it’s a day or two a month or two days a year and help others. Or, to start an organization like TOMS, or convince big companies you work for to start a give-back program. Or even build morale and somehow incorporate giving.But then we’re also helping kids. One of the things that was most obvious was that children don’t always have the necessary school materi-als. In my travels, I’d visit a school and see five kids sharing one book. In my heart, I’ve always thought it would be great to help them.

HP: What makes this one-for-one different is that you’re using some of the product proceeds to provide your readers with grants. How will this work? Mycoskie: We’re offering the grants available on our website using half of the proceeds from the book. People will soon be able to apply online. It will help people start their own ‘thing that mat-ters.’ With the grants, I wanted to put my money where my mouth is. It’s my way of giving back to readers and asking them to start something.

HP: Tell us about the people you interview in the book. Why did you choose someone like Scott Harrison of charity:water, for example?Mycoskie: Each person in the book has, in their own way, shown me or taught me something very interesting about getting started. Someone like Scott Harrison speaks to a new breed of

nonprofits out there. Scott really shows nonprof-its how you can brand yourself and make yourself stand out. He shows how critical it is to be very transparent. One of the biggest complaints you hear is, ‘How do know where the money goes?’ He assures them that 100 percent goes to help and he shows them the GPS coordinates of the well that they build. That type of detail and shar-ing is critical in getting trust from donors. That’s one reason why Scott was important.

HP: What about Tony Hsieh of Zappos? You include him in the book, but his company is a for-profit.Mycoskie: A lot of people don’t see the connec-tion with him in the book, but he has built one of most amazing cultures, a culture of trust and fun and because he has done it all in quirky ways, he has built unbelievable customer service. He challenges employees to do things in an uncon-ventional way. I thought his advice fit really well.

HP:You just rolled out the sunglasses in June and the book this fall. Should we expect one-for-one launches more often now?Mycoskie: This will be it for a bit. The book has been developing for over three years. The eye-wear was a long-term project we developed. It took three years to build the eyewear business and it has already helped people to see again – or for the first time. I think what you can really look to see from TOMS coming up are great success stories of people who have been helped by the one-for-one model.

huff post: impact 9/16/11

ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WAS MOST OBVIOUS WAS THAT CHILDREN DON’T ALWAYS HAVE THE NECESSARY SCHOOL MATERIALS. IN MY TRAVELS, I’D VISIT A SCHOOL AND SEE FIVE KIDS SHARING ONE BOOK

I T W I L L H E L P P E O P L E S TA R T T H E I R O W N ‘ T H I N G T H AT M AT T E R S ’

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THE PEOPLE


EMMA HANQUIST


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MCNALLY JACKSON

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ROL AND TIANGCO


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PHEOBE WASHBURN


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The city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, is truly dangling wads of cash in front of nerdy in-novators everywhere. A mix of local and

national investors have partnered to launch the Gig City Gig Tank and are offering $300,000 of cold, hard, start-up cash and prizes to be split among entrepreneurs and students with the best ideas for how to create the fastest internet yet.

The catch: To claim the prize, you have to go to Chattanooga. When we think of American tech innovation, places like the Silicon Valley and Seattle tend to come to mind more readily than Chattanooga. But maybe we should give Tennessee’s fourth largest city a bit more credit. Last year, the city-owned Electric Power Board brought the country’s first gigabit-per-second fiber optic network to 150,000 households and businesses in a 600-square-mile radius.

Jack Studer of Lamp Post Group, a “venture incubator” backing the Gig Tank, told Wired.com that his parents, who live on a farm 35 miles outside of Chattanooga, have access to the net-work. If you’re suddenly feeling very envious of a couple of farmers in rural Tennessee, you should be according to The New York Times, the gigabit network allows for connections 200 times faster than the average broadband speed in America.

But there are some major kinks to be ironed out. Chief among them is the price tag GigaOm reported earlier this year that Chattanoogans pay more than $300 per month for gigabit ser-vice. Not so good compared to the $27 per month some South Koreans are paying for the same speed.

The idea of the Gig Tank isn’t to fix this prob-lem, necessarily, but to give students and tech entrepreneurs a chance to use the network, which is not yet affordable or available on a wide scale, to design high-speed apps and businesses.

If you are one of the lucky few selected in what has been dubbed the Geek Hunt a moniker cho-sen to evoke techiness and the Southern pastime of hunting, said Studer the world is your oyster, and your oyster is a faster series of tubes than Sen. Ted Stevens could have ever imagined. The thousands of dollars of start-up cash should come in handy too, especially in a time when venture capital isn’t exactly growing on trees. The Gig Tank will give each of 10 entrepreneur teams $15,000 to work with, and at the end of the program the team with the best idea will take home $100,000. Ten to 15 students will com-pete for a $50,000 prize, but won’t receive any start-up cash on the front end.

And there’s still money in it for you even if you’re not the next Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey. In a promotional video calling for applicants, the Gig Tank hails geeks as the pioneers of the 21st century successors to sea-faring explorers, westward-bound settlers, and astronauts. “But geeks are a furtive kind and can be difficult to track,” the video says, “so to find them, we need your help.”

The Gig Tank is asking people on Facebook or Twitter to tag friends who might be good can-didates. A $1,000 finder’s fee will be awarded to anyone whose nominee applies and is chosen. Applicants can also nominate themselves.

When Wired.com asked about this approach, Studer explained that “if you can’t figure out how to tag yourself online, you’re not nearly geeky enough” for the Gig Tank.

It will be interesting to see the ideas that sur-face in Chattanooga during the program, which will run from May to August of 2012, but the most intriguing storyline is the gigabit plot.

S I L I C O N VA L L E Y, S E AT T L E —C H AT TA N O O G A?

BY MARK RIFFEE

Technically the gigabit-per-second technology can be used anywhere that has a comprehensive fiber optic network in place, but Americans are years, and perhaps decades, away from having it at their fingertips for an affordable price.

President Obama vowed to prioritize digital innovation in his State of the Union address earlier this year, and said “we will make it pos-sible for business to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans” in the next five years.

We’ll see maybe Chattanooga is the unlikely first small piece of the puzzle, but for now the U.S. is lagging behind countries like South Ko-rea, whose average broadband speed is already 200 times faster than America’s. And by the end of 2012, South Korea plans to make a gps net-work accessible from every household in the country at a price that’s one-tenth of what Chat-tanoogans are currently paying.

So here’s a pat on the back, Chattanooga nice work so far but you and the rest of America have a steep hill to climb to get back to the top of the world of Internet innovation.

B U T G E E K S A R E A F U R T I V E K I N D A N D C A N B E D I F F I C U LT T O T R A C K ,” T H E V I D E O S AY S , “ S O T O F I N D T H E M , W E N E E D Y O U R H E L P.

THE WORK

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N I K E J U M P SI N T O V E N T U R E C A P I TA L

Nike announced this week that it’s launching a venture capital arm called the Sustain-able Business & Innovation Lab to invest

in start-up companies in renewable energy, ef-ficient manufacturing and healthy lifestyles. The world’s largest sporting goods brand made the announcement in its corporate sustainability re-port, which says its mission “is to enable NIKE, Inc. to thrive in a sustainable economy.”

Nike wants to support green businessess but its investments will also be guided by choosing companies that offer innovative ideas for its own business growth. It also plans to finance partner-ships with government and non-profits.

The company is looking for new product ideas that incorporate sustainability and ways to re-duce costs for raw materials, energy and other expenses. Last year, Nike started selling soccer uniforms made from recycled polyester and is looking for other products that will attract the green customers.

In the past, mostly pharmaceutical and tech-nology corporations had venture capital arms, used mostly to expand their businesses, but now that’s extending to consumer product compa-nies. Intel, for example has invested over $9.8 billion in over 1100 companies since 1991.

Nike has long been considered one of the lead-ers in sustainability among corporations, and was on our SB20 List, the World’s Top Sustain-able Stocks.

As a founding member of Business for Innova-tive Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), Nike joined a coalition of companies advocating for the passage of meaningful energy and climate change legislation. In 2009, Nike made head-lines for resigning from the US Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors because of its

EMMA HUTCHINGS

active lobbying against climate change legisla-tion. Last year, Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization founded by yogurt maker Stony-field Farm in 2007, ranked Nike first among US corporations for the fourth year in a row, for its emissions reduction policies and sustainability and awareness reporting.

NIKE BETTER WORLD

T H E C O M PA N Y I S L O O K I N G F O R P R O D U C T I D E A S T H AT I N C O R P O R AT E S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y A N D WAY S T O R E D U C E C O S T S F O R

R AW M AT E R I A L S , E N E R G Y A N D O T H E R E X P E N S E S .

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Like the World Economic Forum in Davos, the conference brings together leaders from a variety of fields to brain-storm about political, cultural and economic advances. But

Summit Series targets the rising generation: Its headline speak-ers included the creators of ventures like DonorsChoose.org, Second Life, Blackboard, Threadless and Craigslist. They and some 650 acolytes came to Washington for the fifth and biggest gathering so far in a series that aims to inspire and train a new wave of innovators. Their tools: iPhones, BlackBerries, Face-book, Twitter, iPads and those MingleSticks. With them, this generation of leaders can mobilize legions of support in an in-stant, from the palm of their hand. “Technology in a flattening world allows us to do a lot more positive,” said Justin Fishkin, founder of the Holster Project, a collaborative organization that uses music to raise social awareness of global issues.

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C ATHERINE CLIFFORD

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THE SHORE... THE SHORE..YOU CAN’T DISCOVER NEW LANDS —

UNTIL YOU HAVE COURAGE TO LOSE SIGHT OF

E SHOR. THE SHORE... THE SHORE... THE SHORE... THE YOU CAN’T DISCOVER NEW LANDS —

UNTIL YOU HAVE COURAGE TO LOSE SIGHT OF THE SHORE... THE SHORE... THE SHORE... THE SHORE... THE SHORE... THE SHORE... THE SHORE...

THE SHORE... THE SHORE..YOU CAN’T DISCOVER NEW LANDS —

UNTIL YOU HAVE COURAGE TO LOSE SIGHT OF

E SHOR. THE SHORE... THE SHORE... THE SHORE...

-2011 Summit at Sea

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Sean Parker of Founders Fund, said he wants and expects to see Gen Y’ers more effectively use their social networks the growing “social graph” for good. “I would be happy to see more appli-cations that help people derive value from their set of relationships,” Parker said in a discussion moderated by David Kirkpatrick, the author of The Facebook Effect. One of his latest creations is a Facebook application called Causes, which allows any Facebook user to set up a page to raise awareness and money for an issue.

“I am not seeing a lot of interesting new utili-ties,” Parker said. “Currently, you look at the top 10 [apps] on Facebook, it is like nine games.”

Tapping the ingenuity that built those games and creations like Facebook itself to tackle deep-er issues is the goal many of the gathering’s fea-tured entrepreneurs say they share.

Ronnie Cho, a community editor at The Daily Beast who worked on President Obama’s cam-paign before joining the news site, sees what he calls a “groundswell” of ambition and optimism in Generation Y. Summit Series attendees left Washington with fully loaded MingleSticks, but the key will be to see what they do with those Mingle bumps and digital contacts. “To connect that online activity and enthusiasm to offline out-comes is going to be the most meaningful part of Web 2.0,” Cho said.

Ventures uniting idealism and entrepreneurship were on display everywhere throughout the con-ference. Panels featured companies like TOMS Shoes, which gives away a pair of shoes in needy communities for every pair purchased by more affluent shoppers, or FEED bags, which donates a portion of the proceeds from the sale of each bag to provide meals for hungry children.

“I never saw myself in the beverage business,” Honest Tea co-founder Seth Goldman told at-tendees at a talk about the advantages of going green. He was focused on the “bigger picture” of creating a product that would be healthier for the environment and for consumers. All-natural tea happened to be the one he started with.

But with a little ingenuity, doing good can pay off both karmically and financially. One of Gold-

man’s innovations was a new bottle design that used less plastic. That environmentally friendly move saved the company millions of dollars.

Or take Method, the cleaning supply com-pany that makes non-toxic cleaning products. “I think the problem that we have made as an en-vironmental movement is not changing people, but changing the products they consume,” said Adam Lowry, the company’s co-founder. To get regular consumers to buy eco-friendly products, the product can’t be crunchy, smelly and brown, as Lowry puts it: “The people that matter are the people that aren’t already part of the environ-mental fold.”

To keep its supply chain Earth-friendly, Method is pragmatic. It motivates vendors with another kind of green: cash. For every ton of carbon the vendor removes from its manufacturing process, Method pays a bonus. Instead of mandating spe-cific changes, Method lets each vendor decide how to tweak its own processes to meet the goal. “Sustainability is always aligned with the cost,” Lowry said. “To me, that is the secret.”

The challenge for this generation will be to build on that momentum. Can paintball field trips and tea-and-cookie lounges, just two of the dozens of activities on tap at the weekend’s gath-ering, give rise to meaningful connections?

One prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist,

TECHNOLOGY IN A FLATTENING WORLD ALLOWS US TO DO A LOT MORE POSITIVE THAN WE COULD BEFORE— JUSTIN FISHKIN

-2011 Summit at Sea

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M O S T P R O M I S I N G S O C I A L E N T R E P R E N E U R S

PUSHING FOR PROFITS AND SOCIAL IMPACT:

The social enterprise—a sustainable business that creates social or environmental value alongside profit is no longer a niche concept. Social entrepreneurs inhabit nearly every sector of the economy, from banking and insurance to energy and manufacturing. That breadth is evident in Bloomberg Business-week’s second annual U.S. roundup of promising social entrepreneurs. The companies profiled here were selected from more than 200 candidates suggested earlier this year by Businessweek.com readers. They range from fresh startups to established, multimillion-dollar enterprises. All share a commitment to using business to create a broader benefit. Flip through this slide show to read profiles of each, then vote for the one you consider most promising at the end of the slide show. Voting ends on June 25. We’ll announce the top 5 vote-getters on the Small Business channel on June 29.

BLACKGOLD BIOFUELS Philadelphia | Founded: 2004 | Employees: 4 2009 revenue: $1.4 million

In 2004, the Energy Cooperative, a nonprofit that promotes low-cost and renewable energy in Pennsylvania, formed BlackGold Biofuels, which spun off as a for-profit corporation in 2008. The company does consulting and devel-ops equipment that chemically transforms sewer grease into biodiesel. It sells the systems to water utilities and wastewater pumpers that extract the grease, process it into biofuel, and sell it to distributors and vehicle fleets. In 2009, Black-Gold Biofuels sold a system to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. “We’ve changed the economics of disposal,” says Chief Executive Officer Emily Landsburg, 32. “Now there are financial incentives for proper grease handling.” Over the past five years, the company has re-ceived $400,000 in cash investment, $600,000 in grant funding, and $700,000 of in-kind support through partners such as the Energy Coopera-tive and the U.S. Agriculture Dept. Landsburg plans to increase hiring and sign contracts in the Northeast and Southeast this year.

BTTR VENTURESEmeryville, Calif. | Founded: 2009 | Employees: 72009 revenue: $200,000

Two of University of California, Berkeley busi-ness students — Nikhil Arora and Alex Velez perked up when a business ethics professor mentioned a sustainable business opportunity: using nutrient-rich discarded coffee grounds to grow mushrooms. Hooked on the idea of “creat-ing a business out of waste streams,” Arora says, the pair tested the idea in a fraternity kitchen in early 2009. When their mushrooms sprouted a

month later, they started BTTR Ventures, and by the time they graduated that May, they had a $5,000 grant from Berkeley and interest from such customers as Whole Foods (WFMI) and Berkeley chef Alice Waters. BTTR Ventures col-lects 8,000 pounds of coffee grounds each week that shops such as Peet’s Coffee (PEET) would otherwise discard. When they’re done growing mushrooms, Arora, 23, and Velez, 22, donate the compost to local schools and community gardens. In addition to selling the mushrooms they grow in their 2,500-square foot warehouse, they sell starter kits to let consumers grow their own mushrooms. The home kits now move at a rate of about 200 a week in local Whole Foods, with additional sales online, and make up half of BTTR Ventures’ business.

CLEAN LIGHT GREEN LIGHTMount Clemens | Founded: 2008 | Employees: 242009 revenue: $2 million

While apprenticing as an electrician in 1997, David McKinney, a self-described “lifelong tink-erer,” made his first prototype light-emitting di-ode bulb. LEDs use 75 percent less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs and can last 50 times longer, according to Energy Star. In 2001, McKinney brought on Rudy Mayes and Tom Meyer because of their business backgrounds and they formed an enterprise to manufacture energy-efficient lighting for industrial, com-mercial, and government clients. By 2006, they had established operations in Shenzhen, China, increasing their production capacity as major manufacturers started to enter the LED market. McKinney says his company has had no trouble attracting large, long-term customers, including the City of Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S. Steel (X), Sherwin Williams (SHW), and Siemens (SI).

DRIPTECHPalo Alto, Calif. | Founded: 2008 | Employees: 102009 revenue: $20,000

In 2008, Peter Frykman one mechanical engi-neer student at Stanford University, designed a small, portable laser-manufacturing system that could quickly and accurately punch holes in cheap plastic tubing to make affordable drip irrigation systems. In June 2008, he founded Driptech with $5,000 of his own money. The 26-year-old entrepreneur has raised $600,000 from grants, donations, and investors. Driptech’s simplified systems, designed for farmers with plots smaller than one acre, do away with ex-pensive parts. A kit for a one-acre farm can cost $300, a fraction of what many larger drip irriga-tion systems cost. “It targets a market segment that is not addressed by commercial drip irriga-tion,” Frykman says. “It scales down to the needs of small farmers.” The company—which has 10 employees in the U.S., China, and India—sold 200 systems to the Lingqiu County government in China’s Shanxi Province. Frykman expects to fill orders for over 1,000 farms this year. While Driptech currently manufactures the systems in California, the company plans to set up local production lines near farms overseas by yearend in order to reduce operating and shipping costs.

ELEEKPortland, Ore. | Founded: 2000 | Employees: 122009 revenue: $1.2 million

When husband and wife Eric Kaster, 40, and Sattie Clark, 45, wanted to start a metalworking shop, Clark says they asked themselves: “Can we start a business that uses resources that are readily available in our community and there-fore keep stuff out of the landfill and keep stuff

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from getting shipped all over the globe?” Eleek, which manufactures lighting, sinks, and other home fixtures, is their answer. Founded in 2000, the company hopes to catalyze a “local manufac-turing” movement akin to local food, whereby manufacturers reuse scrap material discarded in their communities. Clark says scrap metal is of-ten shipped to China, melted down, and shipped back to the U.S. for use. The pair—who work out of an 8,000-square-foot Portland, Ore., work-shop—use nearly all recycled materials. Eleek has also partnered with a local nonprofit called the ReBuilding Center, which salvages reusable building materials.

HELLO REWINDNew York | Founded: 2010 | Employees: 32009 revenue: N/A

Todd Smith, Jess Lin, and Greg Wong, partners at a design firm in New York, started Hello Re-wind in February to help victims of sex traffick-ing in New York. The company makes custom sleeves for laptops out of old t-shirts, but its underlying mission is to help sex trafficking vic-tims prepare for jobs. “They don’t really have the job skills or English language training that they need,” says Lin, 26. “A lot of them return to pros-titution.” Working with the nonprofit Restore, the group has hired three workers and has a waiting list of at least five. Demand for the laptop sleeveshas outpaced their expectations; retailers and a major computer manufacturer have asked to carry them, Smith says. What started out as a side project has become “a beast of its own,” and the group is actively looking for separate office space and ways to expand the operation.

GLOBAL CYCLE SOLUTIONSCambridge, Mass. | Founded: 2009 | Employees: 52009 revenue: $800

Global Cycle Solutions makes gadgets that let farmers in the developing world use bicycles to shell maize or charge mobile phones. Jodie Wu conceived the idea in 2008 while a student at MIT’s D-Lab, which incubates technologies for developing countries. She and six co-founders launched the business in 2009 with $30,000 from an MIT business plan competition and $200,000 from angel investors. The company’s devices each attach to the back of a bicycle and make use of pedaling power. Global Cycle Solu-

tions began manufacturing products in Tanzania late last year and Wu, 23, says she expects to ex-pand production to China or India. Wu says in from Tanzania. Because all a customer needs is a bicycle, “there are no barriers to the scalability and flexibility in the products to come.”

GREEN DEPOTNew York | Founded: 2005 | Employees: 382009 revenue: N/A

Founder and president Sarah Beatty bills Green Depot as the country’s largest green building supplier, with 10 showrooms and 20 warehouses across the Northeast. She says the fast-growing business isn’t expanding merely for the sake of growth, but to make sustainable building prod-ucts accessible and affordable so they can be easily adopted in standard construction. Beatty, a former MTV marketing executive, is also ada-mant about combating “greenwashing”—dubi-ous claims about environmental benefits. Beatty, 44, submits every product Green Depot sells to rigorous in-house assessment to ensure it pro-vides the environmental benefits claimed by the manufacturer. The formula is paying off for the 38-person business, despite the downturn in construction and housing: Beatty says revenue was up 250 percent year-on-year. Green Depot has also begun to target consumers. In February 2009, it opened a flagship store in Manhattan’s SoHo district and in March it hired a full-time employee to manage its online presence and e-commerce store.

MAR SYSTEMSCleveland | Founded: 2005 | Employees: 82009 revenue: N/A

When prospective clients call MAR Systems, which makes a sorbent that removes mercury and arsenic from industrial waste streams and water in municipal treatment plants, they lean on ano-nymity and the subjunctive. “Our phone rings all the time with questions like, ‘If I did have a prob-lem, would your stuff work?’” says Chief Execu-tive Officer Tony Lammers. The “stuff ” is called Sorbster, and the way it works sounds magical: Within seconds of being added to contaminated water, Lammers explains, the patented product binds with a slew of heavy metals, making the resulting material disposable without restric-tions, even sellable as concrete filler. He says the

compound, made from an industrial by-product called alumina and sold by the pound in granu-lar form, is a breakthrough invention that could transform the way wastewater is cleaned, drasti-cally reducing time, cost, and hazards. Sorbster, which has been on the market since April 2009, was developed with EPA scientists by former BP procurement specialist Claude Kennard. As the owner of Metaloy, a recycler of industrial waste materials, and founder of an earlier spinoff that processes waste material for reuse by refineries, Kennard has access to plenty of alumina. Lam-mers, 53, who met Kennard, 61, while both were earning MBAs at Case Western University, says the company has raised $3.3 million from inves-tors and expects to be cash-flow positive, but not profitable, by yearend.

MISSION MEASUREMENTChicago | Founded: 2005 | Employees: 122009 revenue: $2 million

Consulting firm Mission Measurement aims to help companies, foundations, and governments track their efforts to effect social change and make them better at it. “There’s a big gap in the market in how to figure out whether we’re get-ting any value from the money we’re spending on social change,” says founder Jason Saul, 40. Started in 2005, Mission Measurement counts among its clients Wal-Mart (WMT) and US-AID. Saul says Mission Measurement’s consult-ants use data to measure outcomes and then use the information to improve the programs. “Let’s get the data and figure out what works, and then use that data to inform our strategy,” he says.

bloomberg buisnessweek

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Illustrations of water pollution in America through photo reporting.

DAMON WINTER


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It is the meme that began a thousand camps. The protests in Wall Street, London and Oak-land may be its flagships, but the Occupy move-ment is a global one, stretching across six conti-nents, more than 60 countries, and sparking up to 2,600 demonstrations. There have been 10 camps in Britain alone.

It is hard to say who started it. Occupy Wall Street, which began in September, was the first to popularise the term. But #OWS was itself pre-dated by camps in Madrid, Athens, Santiago – and even Malaysia. The day most Occupy camps got going – 15 October – was first proposed because it marked the five-month anniversary of the Spanish occupation.

What unites them? A common rage at eco-nomic and social injustice and the feeling that “the 99%” are being shafted by society’s richest 1%. But each protest has been different. Some were no more than rallies, and their demands differed from protest to protest – if they existed at all. Many protesters propose tweaks to capital-ism – a Robin Hood tax, perhaps. Others want wholesale systemic change. Often, anger has a local twist. At St Paul’s Cathedral, occupiers have precise demands for the City of London. In Chile, they attacked university fees; in Spain, youth unemployment.

In almost all cases, though, the camps them-selves are a kind of demand – and a solution: the stab at an alternative society that at least aims to operate without hierarchy, and with full, partici-patory democracy. Wall Street: The US’s first occupation was even-tually cleared from its New York base in Zuccotti Park on 15 November, two days shy of its two-month anniversary. The camp had swelled to around 200 tents before being cleared, and tens of thousands showed their support by joining in protests two days later, attempting (unsuc-cessfully) to shut down Wall Street and march-ing over Brooklyn Bridge. Occupy Wall Street events have continued since, with students from the City University of New York occupying a college, and a drum circle being set up outside

O C C U P Y : W E A R E T H E W O R L D

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Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s West Side apartment. Lawyers for the occupation have been given until 9 December to file a fresh lawsuit, which protesters hope could yet allow them to soon re-occupy Zuccotti. Vancouver: The Vancouver-based group called Adbusters was the first to suggest occupying Wall Street, and, fittingly, Vancouver is home to the largest Occupy movement in Canada. Some 4,000 people joined a march on 15 October that turned into the occupation of the lawn of a Van-couver art gallery. Protesters were evicted on 18 November, moving to Robson Square, near the city’s court, but were moved on 22 November, leaving the occupation without a camp for the first time in five weeks. A small group of 100 protesters occupied a construction site in cen-tral Vancouver on Tuesday in a “non-GA backed action”, but left after being ordered out by police and remain without a base. Occupy Vancouver is also involved in the west coast port shutdown. Portland: The occupation was first removed by police on 13 November, but demonstrations in Portland have regularly attracted thousands of people. During demonstrations on 17 Novem-ber, a protester was pepper-sprayed by police at point-blank range. The moment was captured on camera, and until events at UC Davis and Seat-tle where 84-year-old Dorli Rainey was pepper-sprayed by police – was set to become one of the most striking images from the protests so far. Protesters are continuing to hold general as-semblies in Portland, and gather each Sunday to plan new actions. Portland police have prom-ised to limit their presence at rallies held by the group, in part due to a lack of manpower. AGA tent belonging to a UC Davis protester makes its message plain. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Oakland: The occupation of Oakland’s Frank H Ogawa Plaza has been the scene of the most violent clashes between police and protesters in north America. It first attracted widespread attention when former marine Scott Olsen was seriously injured as police cleared the camp on 25 October. Police have repeatedly used tear gas, rubber bullets and other non-lethal projectiles to suppress protests in Oakland, which have included a march that shut down the the city’s port, costing millions of dollars in lost revenues

and wages. The camp was finally shut down in a relatively peaceful opera-tion by police on 14 November. Protesters are looking for new sites to oc-cupy and are planning a “co-ordinated West Coast port blockade” for 12 December. UC, Davis: Video footage from University of California, Davis, quickly spread around the world last week. A police officer is seen stepping over a line of seated, silent university students, before flamboyantly waving a pepper-spray canister aloft and then dousing each protester in an orange mist. The demonstrators were given this treatment on 19 November after refusing to dismantle their small camp, which had been erected the night before. Two protesters were hospitalised and have since been discharged, while UC Davis’s police chief has since been suspended along with two officers. Seizing on the increased interest the pepper-spray incident has garnered, Occupy UC Davis staged a student strike on Monday, in protest against tuition fees and the university’s funding practices. Santiago: Led by charismatic 23-year-old Camila Vallejo, 25,000 Chil-eans marched in solidarity with Occupy on 15 October. But their own occupations started much earlier: since May, students against university fees have occupied more than 200 high schools. Unlike their European counterparts, the Chileans see themselves as having clear demands – free higher education – and their actions are having a demonstrable effect on politicians. Last week, the government proposed raising education fund-ing by hundreds of millions of dollars. Even these concessions might not be enough for the protesters, who plan to reoccupy schools in March, the start of Chile’s academic year, if demands for free education are not met.


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Madrid and Barcelona: Spain’s indignados hit the streets as early as 15 May. Centred on Ma-drid’s Puerta del Sol and Barcelona’s Plaça Cata-lunya, thousands camped out in up to 30 cities, protesting, in some cases, for almost a month about the country’s 43% youth unemployment rate. The success of the 15M movement, as it became known, prompted some indignados to call for a worldwide protest on 15 October, the date that sparked a wave of Occupy protests. In Madrid and Barcelona, hundreds of thousands gathered under the Occupy banner. No major occupations have since taken place, but many indignados are occupying empty buildings and sheltering families recently evicted from their homes. The day before Spain’s general election last week, won the conservative Popular party, a few hundred protesters gathered again in central Barcelona – but hardly any in Madrid. London: Immediately evicted from their first target, the London Stock Exchange, Occupy London settled a few feet away on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. They were initially welcomed by the church hierarchy – but after a drop in ca-thedral revenue, the camp was asked to disband. This prompted the resignation of both Canon Giles Fraser, who supported the protesters, and the dean, who was felt to have mismanaged the situation. Criticised often for harming the church more than the City, the occupiers then released a set of demands for financial and legal reform in the Corporation of London. Along the way, they expanded to a second site in Finsbury Square, and began squatting a building owned by financial services company UBS.

Frankfurt: Occupy camps have emerged across Germany – with more than 50 tents pitched out-side Frankfurt’s European Central Bank. There are two sites in Berlin alone, while 15 mem-bers of Occupy Hamburg recently disrupted a speech given in the city by the CEO of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann. In early November, nearly 10,000 marched in both Frankfurt and Berlin in support of Occupy. Rome: Thousands of protesters gathered in Rome on 15 October in what was the largest and most violent of the Occupy demonstrations in Europe that day. Riots broke out after a bomb went off, and an occupation – known locally as an accampata – later began outside a church in the centre of the city. The camp is still going – but recently relocated to the site of the ruined Roman Baths of Caracalla, a mile down the road. Tel Aviv: On 15 October, 1,000 Israeli protest-ers held a dance party in an affluent Tel Aviv street. It was called Occupy Rothschild Boule-vard. But this was less Israel’s answer to Occupy Wall Street and more the rebranding of a much larger campaign of civil disobedience that had mushroomed across Israel throughout the sum-mer. From July onwards, two months before protests reached Wall Street, tent cities sprang up in protest at the rising cost of living – first on Rothschild Blvd, and then throughout 25 other towns and cities. In early September, 430,000 Israelis took to the streets in support, but by the end of the summer many had started to leave the tents. Police evicted the last campers in October. Kuala Lumpur: Dozens of protesters have per-ipatetically occupied Dataran Merdeka, a square in Kuala Lumpur, since late July. Unlike many other occupations, Occupy Dataran is not a con-tinuous occupation, but meets every Saturday night for a low-key “general assembly” – similar to those in London and New York – that lasts un-til the small hours. Hong Kong: Sited underneath the first HSBC bank, the 30-strong Occupy Hong Kong is not as large as many western camps but, unlike its counterparts, it has avoided upsetting authority. By limiting their activity to music and low-key political discussion rather than more ambitious civil disobedience, the protesters have remained untouched by police.

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OVERCOME THE NOTION THAT YOU MUST BE R EGULAR—

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