My friends, my friends, my friends. I am SO sorry but it took me FOUR days to finally set aside time to upload the pictures from the Kairos Summit. This week was absolutely fantastic. I’m hoping things will die down this weekend a bit. But, regardless, here’s my post and photos about last weekend when I was in New York for the Kairos Society Global Summit 2013.

If I learned one thing from the ENTIRE weekend it’s this:

My “field” of higher education is a great one – I’ve learned a lot as I study to become a student affairs professional but, in all honesty, in the higher education conferences I’ve attended I’ve encountered people that talk about their own research and themselves and what they want to do in the university context.  I believe that the energy these people put into their jobs will change students and by virtue will change the world. That is why I love my field.

But I can’t tell you, in words, how much I love being a part of the Kairos Society because it offers me opportunities to engage, professionally with those outside of my field. I get to soak up so much information not about people and what they are studying but about what they are DOing. And I think that’s so fantastic. Young people don’t get a chance to DO a whole lot within higher education. When you’re talking to entrepreneurs, they make things happen for themselves. I can’t wait to combine these two aspects once I graduate.

To follow is the blog post I wrote on the bus back from New York last Sunday. I hope you enjoy.

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It was three days ago.  We were in a gypsy cab on my way from the bus stop to the hotel in the middle of New York City, and I started thinking to myself – man, how excited am I for the next three days? Two VERY full days and three nights of connecting with some of the most interesting people in the world.  It felt like it was an unlimited amount of time – Sunday was so far away. Well now I sit on the MegaBus at about 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, in Baltimore Maryland, on my way back to D.C. to pick up the car with the guys, and head back to Blacksburg.  This trip was not nearly long enough.

Incase you didn’t already know, I spent the weekend in New York City for an exclusive event called the Kairos Society Global Summit.  The Kairos Society is a collection of a few hundred of the world’s most innovative, driven, and inspiring young entrepreneurs from all over the world.  This exclusive society was founded five years ago with one very basic premise:

What if the CEOs of today were best friends 30 years ago, working together to solve the world’s biggest problems?

Thirty years ago we didn’t have as many ways to connect as we do now.  The amount of physical separation between states and between countries and, therefore, between people, was something that was more of a challenge to overcome.  The Kairos Society seeks to help limit those barriers. So, for the weekend 350 fellows from all over the world, some from as far as Pakistan, the Netherlands, China, etc., packed into the Yotel to experience some fantastic brainstorming workshops and networking events.  We networked with 150 of today’s CEO’s, CFO’s, and other influential business men and women, from companies like Johnson and Johnson, Neutrogena, GE, Autodesk, and Forbes Media just to name a few.

This opportunity was one that I wasn’t immediately fond of.  A great friend of mine, Caroline, recommended that I go out and apply for Kairos about a year ago.  I thought she was crazy. I’m not an entrepreneur at heart. I’m not a co-founder of a company nor do I have a vision to create one.

BUT this weekend, one of the mentors gave me a great piece of advice.  Rob Fiance, a board member at International Education Ventures Inc. and a partner at Edumetrix, shared his perspective that an entrepreneur doesn’t need to have a venture or a start-up.  I had just finished explaining to him that my passion is for meeting people.  Of course I have my goal for meeting one new person everyday, and I met over 300 of them this weekend (evidenced partially by the less than 20 business cards I have left out of the 200 I brought with me).

Even just being at the Summit this weekend, and being able to MEET, CONNECT, and ENGAGE, with so many amazing people, I realized – I, in fact, AM an entrepreneur. In the way that the ‘traditional’ entrepreneur has a passion for the solving the problem they are solving with their companies, I am solving one of the world’s problems through my own personal strategies one at a time.  Through Actively Caring wristbands, through my cards that say “thank you for being the one new person I’ve met today,” and from realizing the beautiful, all-important connection of making meaningful relationships with the people that you meet.  I realized why I was there.

When Caroline recommended I come to New York, I was nervous.  When she recommended I sit on the Kairos DC & Southeast Region 2013 Kickoff event to speak on a panel of entrepreneurs back in December, I was even more nervous. What am I going to talk to all of those driven, successful, start-up working students about? I don’t have one of my own. When they say, “so what’s your venture, what do you do?” how do I reply?

Well I replied with, “that’s the funny thing about me. I don’t have one.  I just believe in connecting with people.  I’m just here to network and engage with as many people as possible.  I have a personal goal of meeting one new person everyday and I think that if we could all take the time to make more meaningful relationships out of that one daily interaction, the world would be a much better place.”

I can’t count how many entrepreneurs, both students and mentors, told me that they would take this general social rule and implement it into their own lives, in the context of their ventures and in their personal lives as well. In two words: mission accomplished.

Overall, this event was easily the best conference I have ever been to.  I’ve been to many conferences – journalism conferences, student leadership conferences, higher education conferences, but the Kairos Global Summit, by far, blew any of those out of the water.  Getting so many people in the same room, through the Kairos 50 (fifty of the most cutting-edge, innovative and forward thinking ventures by Kairos students), with incredible start-ups was a fantastic strategy to brainstorm some of the solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems.  For me, I’m starting to ask myself the question – why would I want to go to a higher education conference and network with people who are just like me and have similar passions?  I got so much energy from connecting with people from numerous fields that are expressively different from my own, and talking with them about how we can all help make the world a better place in our own way.

From the GREEN Program to VirtualU, I sat in amazement on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange about what my friends were accomplishing.  Some of these people were my neighbors at Virginia Tech years ago.  Others were people I met in DC six weeks ago and immediately felt like they were my best friends. And others I met on Thursday and felt like a brother of by Sunday. All of them have incredible potential, and now have access to some of the most fantastic resources, to get their ventures off the ground, and really fill a void that the world doesn’t have.

Alcohoot has an iPhone breathalyzer.  VirtualU, founded by Virginia Tech students and invested in my Virginia Tech alumni, is changing the game when it comes to 3D body scanning.  Layer by Layer is changing the game in the field of 3D printing.  The GREEN program is revolutionizing the term Study Abroad by putting students with different ontologies and from different academic programs all into the same experience and sending them to Costa Rica to learn about clean technology and renewable energies amongst other things.  I’m so thankful that I was able to be present and connect, engage, and continue making meaningful relationships with the students behind such fantastic ideas.

To me, Kairos is fulfilling its mission of uniting the best student entrepreneurs from across the world.  I can’t wait to look back in a THIRTY years and know that these people are my friends – people that I was able to connect with and make meaningful relationships with at the 2013 Kairos Global Summit.

Next year, I am happy to announce that Kairos will be following up on this year’s 3D printing and mobile healthcare breakout sessions by developing a workshop and challenge based in Education and solving some of the world’s greatest barriers to providing quality education across the world.  This, along with the prospect of reuniting with so many fantastic Kairos fellows, makes me even more excited for the Kairos Global Summit, 2014.  I wonder if the Yotel will be our place of stay again, even after it caught on fire Saturday night (that being said, if you EVER have the chance to stay at a Yotel in the future, do it – it’s a fantastic and truly one of a kind space-ship hotel property). ☺

Here’s to continuing the fantastic relationships that have begun in the heart of New York City this weekend.  Thanks for reading, and if we met over the weekend – THANK YOU for being one of the new people I was fortunate enough to meet through this wonderful organization and even more wonderful opportunity.

And, as Fahim said in his blog post, if there are any Kairos fellows reading this I am more than happy to help!

“You as Kairos fellows are ambassadors. You as Kairos fellows give me confidence that the world tomorrow is in good hands because its leaders will measure their success on impact and not just wealth. You all can truly make a difference in this world. Good Luck.

-Sir Richard Branson