Earlier this year, Nicholas Piffeteau, Toni Ayonrinde, and Lau Prieto joined the Rising Sun team as paid fellows through Collabriv, a social venture based in San Francisco that helps young professionals worldwide gain global collaboration and leadership skills. Nico…

Day one, read here Day two, read here DAY THREE: This morning I had an engaging conversation with a Vice Chancellor from Kenya and an expat living in Kenya who has developed a low cost private school model in Kenya. The organization, a for profit, opens schools in rural areas  where schools do not exist and charges parents about $6 a month per child schooling. $6 per month is about 10% of the average monthly income. Parts of the lessons are taught with model tablets that can store a great deal of curriculum, lessons and books, bringing mobile technology into the rural areas. It is an interesting model for education and one I want to think and learn more about. The morning session was about how children succeed; the hidden power of character. Paul Tough gave the keynote address, which emphasized that character building skills are as important as basic academic skills for a child's success. Character building skills are defined as curiosity, optimism, creativity, self-control, zest, gratitude and grit.  He defined grit as the passion and perseverance for long term goals. He stated that there are two critical times in a child's life were intervention in teaching these skills is imperative: early childhood and adolescence. Adolescence because of the brain’s development at this time and its ability for metacognition; reflection of one’s own behaviors and ability to change patterns, habits and behavior. This made me reflect on the CYES program and the opportunity we have to foster these character building traits with our youth. In fact, much of what we do does exactly this, but a key question is how can we continue to enhance our program to foster this and continue to develop the inner strength and resilience of our youth? A couple examples Paul gave was around teaching youth to manage failure and mistakes through consistent and honest feedback that was tough and demanding as well as supportive and encouraging. This builds trust and shows care, which is essential in building grit. He also said communicating high expectations and belief in them was critical. He defined the creativity equation as not just about brainstorming and innovative ideas, but also the ability to turn those ideas into something through productive, hard work where there was lots of iterations. These are the skills that help a young person become successful.

Rising Sun Executive Director Jodi Pincus goes to the WISE Summit in Qatar You can read on day one here. Day 2 After a depressing morning session that focused on how far away the world is from reaching the UN millennium goal of…

Rising Sun Executive Director Jodi Pincus goes to the WISE Summit in Qatar The first day of the WISE Summit, I grab my UN headset, which translates at least five languages, and sit down for the opening session. This year's conference theme is imagine-create-learn: creativity at the heart of education. The opening scene is a theatrical presentation with phenomenal production values. Click here for the video. Her Highness, Sheikha Moza Bint Nassar (The Queen) gets up to speak. She has tremendous style, like Jackie O, and besides being an incredibly interesting woman to look at, I am struck by her leadership and initiative to educate the fifty-eight million out of school children around the world. She is doing remarkable things with her wealth and pushing the boundaries for women in the Middle East. I sit in the room with over 1,800 people from around the globe, 130 countries represented and I remember why I find this conference so exciting. The next speaker is Tony Wagner, first Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. He talks about the reality, that education is no longer the key to upward mobility and that creativity is now a moral imperative. In order to prepare children for the 21st century we need to cultivate their creativity, their ability to solve problems differently and that education based on testing and getting the answer right, it not the right kind of education for the 21st century. He went on to say that with the internet, knowledge is now a free commodity like water (although we can debate whether water is free commodity for all) and that information is easily accessible for to all. What matters most is not what you know but what you can do with what you know. Businesses are looking for people who can solve complex analytical problems, collaborate to solve those problems, can figure things out on their own and can innovate. The key question is what must we do differently to develop people’s capabilities to innovate? We are all born curious, and it makes me ponder how can formal and non-formal education – such as Rising Sun’s programs -- foster this. Wagner thinks this can be done by teaching collaboration; teaching that failure is key to innovation; and encouraging risks, failure and mistakes. “Fail early and fail often.” He also says the role of a teacher is as a coach and not a knowledge bearer; that changing education is an economic necessity in an innovation economy. The session made me think about the role of nonprofits a problem solvers to social and environmental problems and how we are part of a system in which the funding doesn't necessarily give us the flexibility to solve these problems creatively through trial and error.

Rising Sun Energy Center’s mission is to empower individuals to achieve environmental and economic sustainability for themselves and their communities. Through our California Youth Energy Services (CYES) and Green Energy Training Services (GETS) programs, we strive to achieve our mission and have the most meaningful impact on our participants and for the environment.

At Rising Sun Energy Center we strive to think of our annual staff retreat as an opportunity to continue to build a robust sense of connectedness and community amongst our staff. As a whole, according to Elena Foshay, Director of Adult Programs, and Julia Kim, Marketing and Development Coordinator, the retreat…

Richmond                                                                                                                                                 Phon Chanthansasak, Leader-in-Field-Training Last week in Richmond our Energy Specialists worked really hard; despite appointment cancellations they were still able to bounce back by making on-the-spot appointments with their family members. Our ESes are really making the city better by installing an average of 25+ CFLs per day. After…

Environmental Protection Agency grant to help fund expansion of the California Youth Energy Services program. Rising Sun Energy Center (Rising Sun) was recently awarded the “Environmental Education Regional Grant” by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This year was the first, and unfortunately last, year that this…

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]Innovation and technology are the paths to a successful future for the world’s youth There are over 1 billion youth in the world today…

This weekend April 20-21, the Rising Sun Energy staff will be out in full force promoting energy conservation and sustainability at several Earth Day events around the Bay Area. Make sure you stop by our booth to hear about our FREE Green House Call service! Check out the…