Skoll Global Threats Fund

Larry Brilliant on pandemics and resilience

Bruce Lowry — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:56:02 +0000

Skoll Global Threats Fund President Larry Brilliant spoke last week at the Rockefeller Foundation Global Centennial Initiative launch event, which included a series of speakers looking at different aspects of resilience. Larry’s comments focused specifically on pandemics, and how educating people on the true risks of a pandemic is as important to resilience as developing early warning, surveillance and point of service diagnostics are to actually managing disease outbreaks. Larry’s segment, which last about 6 minutes, starts at 17:08 in the video below.

Skoll Global Threats Fund Joins U.S. Water Partnership

Sylvia Lee — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:04:25 +0000

On World Water Day, the Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton launched a new partnership to improve water security. The U.S. Water Partnership is a public-private partnership formed to share U.S. knowledge, leverage and mobilize resources, and facilitate cross-sector partnerships to find solutions to improve water security around the world, particularly in countries most in need. In her remarks, the Secretary stated: “We believe this Water Partnership will help map out our route to a more water secure world: a world where no one dies from water-related diseases; where water does not impede social or economic development; and where no war is ever fought over water.”

The Skoll Global Threats Fund is proud to be a founding member of the Partnership. We will be working very closely with the partners to shape an initiative that focuses on water security and transboundary water management. The recently published Global Water Security Intelligence Community Assessment by the State Department’s National Intelligence Council may provide a framework to approach about water security as a global security challenge. The Secretary called the study “a landmark document that puts water security in its rightful place as part of national security… It’s not only about water, it is about security, peace, and prosperity.”

Click on photo to enlarge

Video: Skoll World Forum Panel on Catastrophic Risks

Bruce Lowry — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:25:38 +0000

Watch below the panel on catastrophic risk from the recent Skoll World Forum moderated by our president, Larry Brilliant. It’s a far-ranging, insightful discussion of why we, as humanity, are finding it so hard to tackle the big challenges before us. Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, Joe Cirincione of Ploughshares Fund, Helene Gayle of CARE and Ian Goldin of the Oxford Martin School share their perspectives.

Global Threats at the Skoll World Forum

Bruce Lowry — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:21:51 +0000

Our president, Larry Brilliant, hosted a panel here at the Skoll World Forum yesterday focused on the big global challenges we face today – climate, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, et alia – and why we have so much trouble, as humanity, in tackling them. It was a unusual mix, but great individuals: Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, Helene Gayle of CARE, Ian Goldin of the Oxford Martin School and Joe Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund.

The panel surfaced a number of issues that contribute to our inability to date to make serious strides on global challenges, including income inequality, failure of governance and lack of leadership. It also explored some deeper issues around pysche and society – people’s inability to convert information to wisdom, the loss of sense of self, the challenges of hyperconnectivity, and questions about economic models and motivations that have long underpinned concepts of growth and wellbeing. The session was filmed, and we’ll make public that link once the file is available. In the meantime, here are some of the more memorable quotes (which may not be verbatim, but this is how I wrote them down):

“When people say something is impossible, that just means it’s hard.”

“Inequality is becoming an existential threat.”

“We’re at a crossroads. We can make progress against these big issues or we can kill ourselves.”

“We need inclusive globalization, to give everyone a stake in the future.”

‘Fatalism is our most deadly adversary.”

“What we’re lacking is not IQ, but wisdom.”

“We need to tap into the timeless to solve the urgent.”

Much more from the Forum is available on the site: video of plenaries, photos, social media streams from the event and more. Another very inspiring and educational week in Oxford…

Skoll World Forum Kicks Off

Bruce Lowry — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:27:43 +0000

The Skoll World Forum, the signature event of the Skoll Foundation and the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, kicks off today in Oxford. Visit the site for details on the program, including what will be live streamed. Audio and video for many of the sessions will also be archived. The Skoll Global Threats Fund has been involved in helping pull together a few sessions.

On Friday, March 30, our President, Larry Brilliant, will moderate a panel with Arianna Huffington, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, Helene Gayle, the President and CEO of CARE, Ian Goldin, Director of the Oxford Martin School, and Joe Cirincione, the President of the Ploughshares Fund, to talk about threats to the global commons and how we need to surface new ways to think about them.

Members of our team also helped pull together two “Connect and Collaborate” sessions, one on faith communities as communities of action and another on risk management in a world of global warming. These are but two of a huge number of interesting sessions. Plus, of course, plenaries with some high level folks, including former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, George Soros, Hans Rosling, Carl Pope and more. Again, much of the content will be available either live or archived, so if you can’t join us in Oxford, you can still get the goods!

Sea Level Rise

Bruce Lowry — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:53:10 +0000

New research out of Climate Central and a new tool allowing folks to assess the potential for sea level rise in their regions have generated a lot of media attention over the last couple of days. It’s good to see science reporting getting this type of focus. You can watch NBC Nightly News’ coverage below. The New York Times also gave this serious attention with a page one story.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Scientist Problem?

Bruce Lowry — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:30:31 +0000

Sometimes you just have to laugh….Although the attack on science from multiple quarters is certainly a serious problem. If we can’t make decisions based on data, what should we make them on?

Via the Rick Mercer Report

Jeff Skoll Profiled in Stanford Social Innovation Review

Bruce Lowry — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:10:45 +0000

Our founder and chairman, Jeff Skoll, is profiled in the current edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. The interview provides a good overview of Jeff’s commercial (Participant Media) and philanthropic (Skoll Foundation, Skoll Global Threats Fund) work, and how he aligns both behind his vision of a sustainable world of peace and prosperity. It’s a unique model.

You can read the article here.

Talking Nuclear Safety and the Upcoming Nuclear Security Summit

Bruce Lowry — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:17:57 +0000

This video highlights the leaders of two Skoll Global Threats Fund grantees, the Ploughshares Fund and the Fissile Materials Working Group, talking about the risk of nuclear terrorism and the challenges of protecting nuclear fuel supplies. Joe Cirincione provides a good overview of the threat and Alexandra Toma outlines the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit that will take place in Seoul, Korea, at the end of March. Joe starts at about 5 minutes in, Alex at around 15 minutes in.

2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: A Policy Discussion from The Korea Society on Vimeo.

Smallpox vs. air pollution

Bruce Lowry — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:19:52 +0000

Since pandemics and climate change are two of the issues we tackle here at the Skoll Global Threats Fund, I found this cartoon, received via a Center for American Progress email, appropriate. It begs a fairly sad question. We succeeded in eliminating smallpox, a horrible disease which killed hundreds of millions of people – from pharaohs to kings to commoners - since ancient times. Yet we can’t solve air pollution and climate change, problems we’ve created ourselves since the industrial revolution? Ironic….