It’s Finally Here! Registration for the #SOGenUin Summit!
By Natalie Franzi
Today is the day,
It’s finally here,
To greet all our leaders,
With incredible cheer!
We are overjoyed to welcome our 120 Global Youth Leaders to Los Angeles, California! Over the past few days our leaders have been traveling from 30 countries around the world for the opportunity to pitch a project to create a more inclusive community. As leaders arrive in the hubbub of LAX they were greeted by #SOGenUin Staff members and shuttled to their hotels.
At registration, each leader received a swag bag with goodies from Mattel, Toms, Essilor, Lions Club, and Right Foods. With the Summit not starting till tomorrow leaders are spending this time exploring LA and getting to know one another.
Special Olympics India Leader, Rithik Hukkis shared with us some information about his project “My project is based on cricket. I want to give unified cricket lessons to 12 children. I will be coaching 6 boys and 6 girls to play cricket. I am excited to share my project to the summit and hope that cricket spreads to the USA.” During the Summit, Rithik and our leaders will be participating in a speakers series learning from Sarah Cronk, Dan’l Lewin, Deepak Chopra, Tim Harris, ESPN’s Kevin Martinez, NBA Player Damian Lillard and others. He will also have the opportunity to be mentored to develop his “impact projects” through project pitches that will be judged by Brooklyn Decker, Muhtar Kent , Tim Shriver, Loretta Claiborne, will.i.am, and emceed by Nancy O’Dell! Kai Fong Ka from Malaysia shares the same excitement for the pitch sessions. He shared with us at registration that “I am excited for the pitch session. I would like to see everyone’s ideas,” said Kai. The top five projects will receive funding to make their dream into a reality.
Be sure to follow us on twitter @SOGenUin and our hashtag #SOGenUin to hear about all of our adventures!