Our task, as we understood it, was to get teen leaders involved in Citizen University’s Youth Collaboratory excited about working alongside adults to create change — what we call cogeneration. As it turns out, teens in the program were already excited about...
Purpose Prize
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Want to Jumpstart a Conversation About Collaborating With Teens?
When CoGenerate and Citizen University launched a project to deepen cogenerational ties, our goal was to get teens excited about working alongside older adults to create change. What we discovered surprised us. Teens didn’t need convincing to work across generations....
Reinventing the American University for a Multigenerational Future
In an episode of this season of Hacks, the Emmy-winning intergenerational comedy, the older comedian Deborah Vance returns to her alma mater (UC Berkeley) to receive an honorary degree. Shortly after arriving, a video containing offensive jokes she delivered early in...
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David Roll
Purpose Prize Fellow 2009
To help socially minded entrepreneurs with their legal needs, Roll persuaded members of a global network of law firms to provide free legal services.
While visiting Peru in 2005, Roll was struck by the juxtaposition of rich and poor. On his way to a lavish law firm reception in Lima, the country’s capital, he rode through miles of slums and “grinding poverty.” Witnessing that stark contrast affected Roll, an attorney. “I would use my leadership skills and what I knew best – the law and lawyers – to make a difference in the world,” says Roll, 69. Soon after the event in Lima, Roll set out to harness the expertise of Lex Mundi – a global network of independent law firms – to provide free legal services to social entrepreneurs who address poverty. (Such individuals are innovative leaders who use entrepreneurial approaches to solve social problems.) Roll founded the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, which taps the network of 160 top-tier commercial law firms in 100 countries: 22,000 lawyers in 500 offices worldwide. The foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of Lex Mundi, which means “law of the world” in Latin, matches potential clients with member firms. In 3 1/2 years, the foundation has recruited firms to handle more than 489 legal projects for 241 social entrepreneurs. In one example, a Lex Mundi member firm helped negotiate a multimillion-dollar bank loan that enabled a nonprofit to purchase books for needy children.