I was thrilled that Haas was so well represented at the conference.  As someone who worked with the conference organizers to secure Haas as the primary source for volunteers…it was great to see the my classmates in action!  Christy Martell and Lauren Bergeson did a great job coordinating the volunteer effort (over 25 Haas volunteers — we were well represented compared to other bschool programs) and creation of the SoCap wiki.

The highlight for me was getting to blog about the experience for nextbillion.net.  I am a huge fan of that blog started by WRI and now co-led with Acumen Fund…it was one that I used to read everyday when I was working out of a cubicle at Yahoo! and dreaming of a career at the cross-section of social enterprise and international development.  (The other key influential blog for me was socialedge.org).  So it was an absolute honor to get to work with Rob Katz and Francisco Noguera and contribute to the nextbillion conference coverage along with so many industry professionals!

We had 5 bloggers from Haas working with the nextbillion team!  You’ll find blog posts from key Global Initiatives members like Champa Gujjanudu, Cindy Chen and Charlene Chen.  You can also find my blog post there too.

I have had so many wonderful experiences during my first full year of grad school, and attending SoCap08 and blogging for nextbillion was another to add to the list.  That list is getting pretty long!

You can read all about the class including the specific topics and speakers for each week.  This class is going to be an excellent forum to discuss and learn about these newer market-based approaches to development.  My goal is to make the class as inter-disciplinary as possible by inviting students from across the campus to join the debate and dialogue about these topics.   We want to use this class to help students meet others who are interested in these same areas, regardless of their discipline.

This speaker series is the result of a partnership between GIH and two excellent ambassadors to this field: David Lehr and Jocelyn Wyatt.  David and Jocelyn have volunteered their time to lead lectures at the beginning of each class and used their fantastic network to recruit some top-notch speakers!  I can’t thank them enough for their dedication to making this class happen.

I look forward to seeing you in class!

-Roxanne Miller

The story of this doctor is relevant as many of us prepare to do work in developing countries this summer. I am looking forward to hearing how these trips and experiences change our lives, just as they changed the life of this family.

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When you watch something like that, you only want to share it. It is absolutely inspiring.

I also think of his amazing speech at closing plenary of the Skoll World Forum. I think of meeting him briefly in Oxford in a tent in the rain.

But most of all, I think how I can follow in his footsteps. I better make use of my life to make as much of a difference as I can. Because as a woman born in this country I am so lucky. So blessed. It would be shame if I wasted that blessing.

Last summer when I was in Tanzania as a Kiva Fellow, I got a crazy request from the Director of PR.  She needed me to film a Kiva client for a story they were doing for The Today Show.  I had to see if I could find a camera, buy some film and find Rehema Hamisi and interview her.

It was a tough assignment for me.  I had never really held a camera and had to do some google searching to try to find the basic instructions.  I knew to hold the camera still and try to get the sun in the background but that was about it.  I totally had to wing it.  Somehow I managed to pull it off and capture enough good film that it was used in the story.

I have to tell you I was so excited when I got this feedback from Amy Unell, a producer at the Today Show:
“THE FOOTAGE LOOKS AND SOUND GREAT!!!!
Rox Star – I’m dying to know, what do you do when you are not doing wonderful things in Tanzania?  You’re a great journalist!”

My response at the time was :
Amy,
Thanks for the wonderful compliment..you made my morning!  When I was growing up I always told people I wanted to be Jane Pauley…so I’ll have to forward your email to my mom
Outside of volunteering for Kiva I have worked in marketing at Yahoo! and will be starting bschool at Berkeley in the fall. Long-term I want to start my own socially-responsible business.  At home in SF I Tivo lots of news shows…so maybe all those years of watching 60 Minutes and Dateline have helped me out.
Thanks again for the compliment and it’s been a pleasure working with you!
-Roxanne

Between you and me, I don’t watch Dateline, but I felt like I had to say that since she was from NBC.

But the whole experience had really left me wanting to learn more!  I was so frustrated when I was filming because I knew I wasn’t doing a great job, but I didn’t know what to do to make it better.

Lucky for me, today was my day to learn what to do. Larry Warner, an accomplished documentary filmmaker and photographer who films for CBS news programs like 60 Minutes and 48 Hours, trained me in documentary filmmaking techniques.  Yes, somehow I lucked into getting trained by a guy who works with the team at 60 Minutes.  Wow, I am so, so, so LUCKY.

This wasn’t a one-on-one training.  It was part of a larger training on story telling that the Blum Center put together for this year’s group of Blum Fellows.  There were 25 of us there soaking up everything that Larry was dishing.

Larry was AMAZING.  He is such a PRO in the business. I learned all kinds of things.  For instance, for every scene, you should get a wide show, medium shot, close-up and cutaway. If there is sound in the background, you cannot turn on and off the camera, you have to keep it running while you are moving so that you can edit the film together later without having to cut all the noise.  I learned how to compose the picture, how close a real close-up should be, how to fill the frame and most importantly how long to hold a shot.

As part of the training we did a group project. I worked with Will, a graduate student at UCSF and the School of Public Health, who will be going to Bangladesh to work on arsenic education and Priya, an undergraduate Peace and Conflict Studies major, who is going to Congolese refugee camps in Tanzania.  Amazing stuff.

When Larry critiqued our film, it was clear how much practice I was going to need to even get close to right.  Although the Blum Center is furnishing most of the teams with cameras, I’m determined to find a way to buy my own.  I want this project to be the beginning of my efforts to start capturing stories on film.  I want to practice before I get to Uganda. I want to try to film as much good stuff as I can so that maybe we could put together a mini-documentary when we get back.  How cool would that be?  SO COOL!

So now I’ve got my work to do.  I want to watch a bunch of documentary film or news reports with my new found knowledge.  I want to learn by what others do and I want to practice filming stories before I go.