In the past if you were to imagine a room filled with around 100 people with a combined net worth of $50 billion, you might imagine a pretty homogeneous group of staid, white-haired older men. Last week's Nexus Global Youth Summit was a rainbow of unique and enthusiastic Gen-X, Gen-Y and even Gen-Z (15-year-olds) passionate social entrepreneurs.
This summit was convened by Jonah Wittkamper, director of Search for Common Ground-US, "We aimed at connecting young, wealth holders with social entrepreneurs. Instead of feeling isolated, today's wealthy youth can be inspired to change the paradigm of wealth away from materialism to philanthropy."
John Kluge, Jr, age 28, conceives a notion that, " a billion person problem requires a billion person solution." He explained to the UN General Assembly (and his peer audience) that "...the new definition of billionaire is someone who is relentlessly taking on billion person problems -- water, sanitation, illiteracy, etc."
Also attending the Nexus Summit were progeny of first generation entrepreneurs whose parents have created and sold firms to large conglomerates and their family has become instantly wealthy by a single event. Theses young people have found their lives dramatically changed, and these wealthy next generation have found a satisfying calling to combine their wealth and the feel good power of socially responsible philanthropy.
--April Rudin, writing in the Huffington Post
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