How 10 Global Impact Leaders Are Redefining What It Means To ‘Be Cool’ On Social Media
Can we measure our individual actions towards sustainable development? If so, what role does technology and social media play? In this article, I answer these questions using Global Impact Network as a case study to show you a sneak peak into our world. Our platform serves as an evidenced solution for how we can all take action and measure our unique individual positive impact with the ultimate goal of understanding how we can all contribute towards progressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We empower you to know the role we can all play in solving the world’s toughest environmental, social and economic challenges.
I will showcase real examples of our top 10 performing impact ambassadors that are making sustainable choices daily, who are part of a generation that are the first to measure their positive impact and how they are becoming leaders of sustainability; paving the way for a new social discourse on behavioural change by redefining what it means to be cool on social media.
“At Global Impact Network we believe: Whatever gets measured gets done, whatever gets rewarded gets repeated.”
— Junaid Aziz (Chairman of Global Impact Network’s Advisory board, CEO and Founder of Sherpa & Lecturer at the Design School at Stanford University)
Curating legendary status: Your digital footprint of positive impact towards sustainable development
A bit of background: Who are we?
Global Impact Network is the first of its kind social media in digital revolution that tracks, measures and showcases positive impact for sustainable development.
We empower all levels of society to take action. We have combined the use of modern technology to develop algorithms that validate and automatically verify your action to give you tangible outcomes and impact statistics so that you know exactly how you are creating sustainable change. We award an impact score for all the good you do for people and the planet; and use gamification and ranking systems so that you can compare your sustainable performance to people from all corners of the world. Our ability to capture real time data on sustainable action enables our global society to understand where progress has been made and where progress is required for a sustainable future.
A new era of social media
We believe in disrupting the status quo. For the last decade, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok have dominated what social popularity and status means. We’re familiar with the vocabulary:
‘How many friends to do have? How many followers do you have? How many likes did that post get?’
On Global Impact Network we’re shaping a new type of dialog. Soon you’ll be hearing ‘What is your impact score? What is your Global Impact rank?’. Status shifts towards being recognised as part of a generation of leaders that showcase exactly how they change the world, with outcomes to back actions.
Despite this, no other social network has utilised the power to enable the nearly 5 billion people online to bring significant change and empower network effects to solve the world toughest environmental, social and economic challenges. Specifically, I argue that exisiting social netwoks fail to optimise on the opportunity to capture real time data towards sustainable development. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok all have their own space. Their mission is just different to ours. There is a missing link, I believe. Where is the social innovation space? Where is the space where what you do with your life and the change you bring to the world matters more than how many likes your selfie gets? Where is the space for impact driven leaders? You know, the ones we read about in history books? Covid-19 has propelled and further catalysed the increasing growth of globalisation and the shift to the digital boom.
Our digital footprint on the internet will be the new collection of history books. So what kind of legacy will you leave? How will future generations remember you?
Skip to the below section on how 10 Global Impact leaders are shaping our world through daily sustainable action if you wish to.
We are creating a social network where every citizen with access to the internet can measure their unique contribution towards creating a sustainable world. Sharing the stories that inspire wide scale change. Every single human beings action counts. Now, there’s a way to recognise people and projects that really matter, to introduce a new era of influencers.
Unlike other social networks, its a thousand ways of making and recording your impact in your pocket or on your screen. Global Impact is not just about making an impact, but measuring your own unique contribution towards changing the world. It’s a social impact network that measures positive impact, empowers people to know how and where to make an impact, to collaborate on that impact, and then to showcase your efforts of becoming a Global Impact Leader.
For example, when you re-use a water bottle, you know exaclty how much grams of plastic you saved, how much CO2 emissions would have gone into the production of plastic and how much you decrease waste in your country. Everytime you take action you work towards unlocking a badge that is showcased on your profile. Every badge is linked towards one or more of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (and their specific targets and indicators). You are able to understand the tangible outcomes of your actions. From increasing literacy rates to improving our understanding on national recycling rates; we provide a new, easy, fun and exciting outlook on the role social media can play in changing the world. Every citizen has the opportunity to lead their communities and countries out of poverty, increase access to education and decrease the catastrophic effects of climate change. We invite you to be a part of disrupting the status quo.
“Lead masterful lives filled with creativity, productivity and prosperity but also exist in a way that passionately elevates humanity” — Robin Sharma
The individuals below are responsible for shaping our future, and paving the pathway towards the new cool. Here’s the latest update on our top 10 Global Impact leaders as per their impact score ranking on the leaderboard.
1. Rishi Manoj
Rishi is a Biomedical Engineering Student at the TKM Institute of Technology, Kollam, Kerala. A Social Volunteer (Selected as a V-Force volunteer under UN Volunteers India) and a Tech Blogger to spread internet freedom, fight social media misinformation and frauds, find ways to achieve SDGs with technology.
Rishi has taken part in a variety of challenges from donating old books, advocating on important issues, recycling, donating food to people in need to eating meat free meals. The image above showcases the books he donated to set up a small library for children below 18 years old.
Connect with Rishi on LinkedIn- https://in.linkedin.com/in/rishimanoj
2. Kobus Scheltema
Kobus actively recycles. It’s refreshing to see so much enthusiam he has around the role of recycling. Every time he re-uses or recycles, he is able to see how much of an impact he makes in his home country South Africa.
“I am a student, that is passionate about sustainable living. Exploring all available avenues, to be the change that I want to see in the world. I am well versed and passionate about cleaner transport, reusing and recycling”.
3. Mahima Jain
Mahima takes action through the ‘Meat Free Meals’ badge and more about the positive impact she creates towards the environment by reducing her consumption of meat. She believes in being ‘accountable for the role we play in climate change and environmental degradation. This baby step towards a greener planet is just the beginning. This will create a positive impact and showcase our power to save our garden of humanity’.
She is a chemical engineering undergraduate and will be pursuing her master’s in Food science at University of Georgia next year. Follow Mahima on Instagram: https://instagram.com/mahimaa065?igshid=3hdah6ejffy9
4. Avikalp Gupta (aka SocioEntrepreneur)
Avikalp tutors programming to a group of highschoolers. He is able to understand the positive impact he creates with each lesson. He is one seriously smart guy. I was lucky enough to meet him during our studies together at Stanford University.
“I am a technology innovator, trained in computer science from one of the top technical school in the world, IIT Kanpur. I am the founder of Alokit Innovations (https://alokit.in), which is a gamified mentorship platform for enhancing the talent pool in STEM fields. (focussed towards SDG4, SDG8 with additional efforts on SDG5 and SDG17)”
If you’re in the mood to get inspired listen to this: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1iLt2phSzqgmqW37HCAdUM?si=m5BafecpT9qfmH1cVKvoxw
Avikalp Kumar Gupta:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avikalp-gupta/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AvikalpGupta
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avikalp_gupta/
Alokit Innovations:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/alokit
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alokit_in
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alokit.in/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alokit.in
5. Ilina Trend
“I was with the Bulgarian Red Cross Youth for four years and am now in the process of re-starting my engagement with the Red Cross and gaining the status of a first-aider.
I am a vegan and low-waste eater, consumer and liver.
For the past year, I have been a volunteer with Bookmark Reading helping children across England with their reading skills and comprehension and instilling an interest in books and creativity.
I am also in the process of starting a non-profit focused on mental health and anti-bullying, more details on this as it develops in the next year.” — Ilina Trendafilova
Connect with her on Instagram, @ilinatrend and LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilina-trendafilova-02878580/
6. Sarvesh Rathi (aka Sheldon)
Here’s what Sarvesh’s profile looks like on Global Impact Network. The top post is his impact statistics from his latest post on the ‘iDonateFood’ challenge. The left shows all the different challenges he is participating in.
“I am really honoured to be a Global Impact Network Ambassador”
Sarvesh is a technology enthusiast and an engineer specifically interested in AR and Robotics. I also met Sarvesh during our studies together at Stanford University during a class called ‘Technology Entrepreneurship’ — he has continually inspired me with his enthusiasm to innovate. He is an entrepreneur and has been ideating focusing on tech that could specifically reduce the unemployment of Indian population, thus helping them become self dependent.
If you would like to connect with Sarvesh, get in contact with him on LinkedIn
http://linkedin.com/in/rathisarvesh
7. Owokodu Bukola
Owokodu Bukola is the Founder of Damsy Foundation (DF).She is an advocate of elimination of Gender Based Violence (GBV) including child sexual abuse, Female Genital Mutilation (FGN). She is passionate about restoring hope to devastated, marginalized and Vulnerable Groups particularly Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC). She left the banking job for humanitarian services and over the years she has touched and impacted lives. She has experience in leading programme implementation on women’s rights and other social justices issues relating to women and children.
She is Women and girls’ rights defender under UNDP Spotlight Initiative. She is grassroot mobilizer for UNICEF on Malnutrition in Children and Measles Vaccine. She has impacted over 4,000 youths across 7 States and through volunteering. Damsy Foundation has reached out to over 10,000 people during this pandemic and empowered 115 women and youth for self reliance as well as supporting them finacially & technically.
Damsy Foundation was the first NGO to initiate the Home Learning Initiative in Ikorodu LGA for children who do not have access to digital learning. A recipient of Nigerian Volunteers Award 2020. Follow her on instgram @owokodu_bukola
8. Giovanni Turri
Giovanni participates in the ‘Re-user’ challenge as seen above. He takes a picure of his reusable bottle, posts it and immediately learns he has saved 9.9 grams of plastic and 82.8 grams of CO2 by choosing to re-use instead of buying a plastic bottle.
Giovanni is an ICT Engineer and co-founder of NewHopeU, a youth empowerment community that supports social start-up’s projects from issues discovery to the launch with your perfect team, focusing on global brainstorming and cross-countries collaboration.
Connect with him on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanni-turri1996 or Instgram: gioturri96
9. Sarah Baird (Let There Be Light)
Sarah is the Founder and Executive Director of Let There Be Light International (LTBLI) ,a nonprofit dedicated to combatting Climate Change and Global Energy Poverty through solar programming in off-grid Africa.
Sarah hosted a fantastic virtual impact event on Global Impact Network focused on her work towards SDG 7: Clean and affordable energy.
Let There Be Light focuses on sustainable energy access in low-resource, rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa. To-date, LTBLI has solar-electrified 42 prioritised off-grid health clinics in Uganda and donated 16,500 safe solar lights via local grassroots partners to vulnerable individuals and families living in extreme Energy Poverty in Uganda, Malawi, and Kenya.
Connect with Sarah through the below links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-baird-36b3673b/
https://twitter.com/ShineOnLTBLI
https://www.instagram.com/shineonltbli/
https://www.facebook.com/LetThereBeLightInternational
10. Yasmine Mhirsi
Yasmine takes action by shopping locally produced goods. On Global Impact Network she measures the positive outcome of every locally sourced food she buys. Yasmine is a memeber of UCL and the Global Space Association. She is a human and animal rights advode and an enviromental activist. Fun facts: She is vegan and mostly walks or uses public transport instead of private vehicles. She decided to decrease the usage of plastic in her household to only 30 percent.
Connect with Yasmine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yamine-mhirsi-46548b133/
Please note: The people above have given the author permission to publish their personal information.
Global Impact Network is the virtual door that allows everyone, anywhere to leave behind a positive impact fuelling legendary status. This is not for the weak. This is for the brave, courageous change-makers that desire to curate a life filled with purpose and create significant positive and sustainable impact for future generations to come. It is my honour to introduce to you, your Global Impact Network and our Impact-driven Leaders.
Stay tuned for my next aricle on specific details on how the platform works and subscribe to our website so you can be one of the first global citizens ever to use it. Join our incredible community and network and become a Global Impact Leader.
If you enjoyed reading this article and learning about Global Impact Network’s 10 champions of sustainability, please kindly take a minute to share it. It would mean the world to us, to get the world out and inspire other change-makers to be part of this digital revolution for sustainable change.
If you are interesting in interning with us or working with us, contact us on info@globalimpact.world — we look forward to changing the world together.
