CGIU conferences are an amazing opportunity for students who are pursuing social entrepreneurship to network with one another, attend skill sessions and office hours with leading social innovators, and identify new mentors.

The call for student delegates will open in September 2019 and culminate in November 2019.  Students must be enrolled full-time during the academic year to receive travel funding assistance from Cornell.

2018 CGIU conference highlights

• Hosted by President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, the 2018 annual CGIU meeting, held in Chicago, included student leaders from more than 100 countries representing more than 300 colleges and universities.

•  Cornell University sponsored 14 delegates. Read short descriptions of students’ projects which are intended to be delivered in Sri Lanka, Morocco, Brazil, Nigeria, and the United States.

•  Dejah Powell ’18 was one of five delegates – selected from more than 1,200 – to be honored at Friday’s Opening Plenary Session, which centered on the theme of “Expanding Civic Engagement.” Powell, who is from Chicago, started a project called HEAL: Health, Engaged Activism, and Learning, to address the problem of healthy food access and poor school quality in some Chicago communities. The organization partners with schools to create garden clubs that grow produce, as well as help students learn about social justice, food accessibility, health, crime, problem solving, and activism.

• Cornell students Jannie Li’ 20 and Emily Wang ’20 were selected to participate in a codathon conducted the day before the conference. Working in conjunction with IBM, this year’s CGIU codethon focused on developing faster response to natural disasters.