Inspiring People: Stories of Innovation and Service

Leanne Fan is a high schooler from San Diego, CA. In 2022 she was named America's Top Young Scientist by 3M. Fan's invention can both detect and treat mid-ear infections, and at a low cost. Details: By 2050, 1 in 4 people will have hearing loss to some extent. In children, the majority of this hearing loss is caused by mid-ear infections. Loss of hearing that comes from repeated ear infect...

We hear from Hung Wei, the District Governor of our Rotary District, number 5170. District Governor Wei was born and raised in Taiwan. She came to the States in 1979 to study at UCLA, received a Master’s Degree in Teaching English as A Second Language, moved to San Jose in 1981 and to Cupertino in 1990. While her children were in school, she volunteered in many school activities and took leadershi...

Shags Shagrin shares how he came to create a fully-functioning online community platform for several hundred senior adults who were about to lose an existing platform that brought them together during COVID protocols. Within 24 hours of learning that sponsorship of a current community platform would be ending, a new one was put together by volunteers. Within 72 hours, over 100 members joined. And...

The League to Save Lake Tahoe, in collaboration with ECO-CLEAN Solutions, have introduced an innovative new technology to address beach litter, targeting the most difficult to detect, hard to remove, and potentially harmful litter: tiny bits of plastic that have the potential to become harmful microplastics and other debris. The BEBOT has been recognized by the TRPA as an important Environmental I...

The Chicago Eco House and Southside Blooms transforms vacant lots into sustainable urban flower farms, turning blight into economic opportunities for majority-Black inner-city communities. Local youth are trained as florists and farmers through our workforce development program. Why flowers? The floral industry generates $35 billion a year. 80% of flowers sold in the USA come from out of the count...

Erin Smith, a Paul Harris Fellow, who lives in Kenya and sometimes Florida, is a trailblazer in both the corporate and environmental sectors. Erin is the CEO and owner of Ocean Sole, which is transforming ocean debris into awe-inspiring art, and championing environmental causes coupled with creating opportunities in Kenya's coastal communities. Her career spans continents and industries, from high...

This week's speaker, Tina Fernandez Steckler, will present an overview of HERS Breast Cancer Foundation, this presentation includes HERS Breast Cancer Foundation history, mission, programs and services, outreach, needs, fundraising efforts, and community impact. A Fremont resident since 1991, Tina has volunteered and worked for nonprofits since the early 2000s. Tina joined HERS in 2017 as Exec...

AdventHealth (formerly Florida Hospital) engages in global mission work because, at its heart, it is our mission: "Extending the Healing Ministry of Christ." Through their Global Missions and Sharing Smiles departments, they deliver healing and hope through quality healthcare, education and training. We partner with host country healthcare providers and Rotary clubs to build a sustainabl...

In this talk our speaker will present an overview of the global 4-day week movement, which aims to shorten working hours without cutting salaries or productivity. You will learn how companies, nonprofits, and governments have made the transition, as well as what challenges they've faced and benefits they've enjoyed. Alex will conclude by talking about strategies for making the case for a 4...

This week's speaker, Camilla Johns, is Head of Development at the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, a charity not-for-profit that preserve's six historic sites in Antarctica. This includes Port Lockroy, the southernmost public post office in the world which is surrounded by a vocal gentoo penguin colony. Each of the six sites has an amazing history and story, and the Trust works to protect the...

Two billion people globally suffer from malnutrition, aka hidden hunger, hitting Africa the hardest. Many lack access to healthy food, relying on starchy flour for every meal. This poor diet, lacking vital nutrients, tragically leads to 8,000 preventable child deaths daily. While developed nations enjoy fortified foods like cereal, milk, and salt, two billion people worldwide lack this basic human...

Cellular agriculture, or the cultivation of seafood and meat directly from cells, has emerged as a promising approach to offset the unsustainable practices and deleterious effects of our food system. Unlike plant-based approaches to recreate flavors, textures, and nutrition, cellular agriculture involves growing animal cells into familiar cuts of seafood in brewery-type systems, without the need f...

Rabbi Sanford Akselrad has served as the spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Tamid in Las Vegas, Nevada since 1988. During this time, the Synagogue grew from approximately 60 to more than 600 families, becoming the largest Reform Jewish Synagogue in the State of Nevada. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he turned his congregants' fear into faith with weekly messages focusing on calm, courage, res...

Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation strives to obtain inalienable dignity for every individual for their entire menstrual cycle, from the womb to the tomb. An international collective of diverse organizations and individuals from across the globe, the coalition unites to transform the menstruation movement to center dignity as the mechanism of dismantling the misogynistic and patriar...

The National AIDS Memorial has been sharing the story of the struggle against HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the pandemic. Through their programs, they remember in perpetuity the lives lost, and offer healing and hope to survivors, inspiring a new generation of activists in the fight against stigma, denial and hate for a just future. Among these programs, the AIDS Memorial Quilt has been one of t...

This week's presentation will cover the basics of how waste contributes to climate change, differences between textile waste, industry practices that lead to waste, and FABSCRAP's work to provide solutions. Our speaker, Erin Wiens, is an ethical textile waste management advocate currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Her experience as a buyer in secondhand clothing spurred her interest in...

As AI tools become more prevalent, they raise important and complex questions about their intellectual property implications. Who owns the works created using AI? Do AI-generated works violate IP rights? Do AI models violate IP rights when they use third-party works for training purposes? This talk will answer these questions, and your own, in an effort to clarify these confusing IP topics. Our sp...

Although the harms of tobacco use are well-known to almost everyone, the harms that tobacco causes to the environment are less recognized. These harms start with tobacco growing, which is very hard on soils and woodlands, diverts agricultural efforts away from food production, and harms farmers and their children who are engaged with this cash crop. Tobacco product manufacturing is a dirty busines...

Our speaker today, Siddhu Pachipala, will make the argument that we can do far better identifying and treating suicide risk. For all the radical leaps forward we've seen in machine learning, biotechnology, and renewable energy over the past 70 years, it feels like psychiatry is sitting firmly in the dust. Just look at the way we handle suicide. The moment a patient walks into the clinic, they&...

In this talk from Rotarian Anahita Dalmia, you'll learn about Agents of Influence, a media literacy video game teaching the next generation to be more responsible information consumers and actors. You can also consider bringing it to your communities. Our speaker is a third generation Rotarian originally from New Delhi, India, and currently part of the Rotary Club of Newport Beach. Anahita is...

The Climate Action Committee of the Rotary Club of Cupertino works with local nonprofits to fund and install solar systems on their roofs and replace their gas water heaters with electrical ones. They have developed a unique project structure that leverages several small capital and time investments by multiple partners into a large financial benefit for the nonprofit that will continue year after...

This week we'll hear about Thinking Huts, an international NGO that 3D-prints schools. They most recently opened Madagascar's first 3D printed school Bougainvillea and are now in development for their most ambitious project yet, Honeycomb. Honeycomb is a 3D printed campus on the west coast of Madagascar serving an initial 240 students aged 4-16 from 3 neighboring villages. Primarily involv...

Algenesis is a bio-materials company that is addressing the problem of plastic pollution with the first biodegradable plant-based alternatives for high performance polyurethanes: bio-based polyurethanes made from plant-based feedstocks. These bio-based plastics are an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional petroleum-based plastics, which are a major contributor to pollution and climat...

Joel Baraka , who grew up and attended school in the Kyangwali Refugee Camp in Uganda is the founder of My Home Stars , a nonprofit with the mission of making education accessible to refugee children. He designed 5 STAZ, an educational board game that aims to get children excited about learning. An engineer by profession, Joel was inspired by his father, who learned masonry craftsmanship despite n...

Hardshell Labs is working on revolutionary applications of emerging technology to solve difficult conservation problems, largely centered on reducing the conflict between birds, humans and threatened and endangered species. Our speaker, Tim Shields, will describe these efforts and the conservation successes they have yielded, as well as the surprising benefits of the work for human safety, the red...