Yunus in Vancouver – Crazy Week!

So Dr. Yunus will be arriving in Vancouver Thursday night and I’m just off the phone with the organizers, finding out what opportunities we will have to be involved. They’re very supportive of our efforts and though very busy, we had a great conversation. This man (Yunus) lives one craaazy schedule and his itinerary here is sliced and diced into 5 minute windows at times to accomodate media, officials, academics, and people working in the community.

Through our discussions and earlier efforts, we’ve been invited to create and present the questions for the public panel discussion on Friday morning, and to attend some of the smaller invite-only events to ensure we have a better chance to take part. We’ve also been provided an opportunity to meet briefly with Dr. Yunus to share our story! As he’s such an icon in a lot of the work we do, and given that this year has built to such a frenzy for us, we’re really excited to be involved.

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I’m sitting here alternating between MSN and telephone with our communications team and other members of the organization as we try to make sure we are organized to take best advantage of these opportunities – they’re scheduling media interviews and following up on press releases while others of us are trying to accomodate requests for assistance from the organizers.

Its also proving to be a frantic (but great) week in general, as Sean Peters, one of our core founders, is a guest of honour for a prestigious award from the Simon Fraser University Business Faculty recognizing his service to the community. That banquet goes Thursday as well! To bookend it all we have a networking social Weds and are attending a conference all day Saturday, with Kiva is in town to take part, so we’ll be spending some time with them Saturday evening.

Should be fun…but it makes me tired just writing it all…will update again once we’re on the other side!

Shawn