Nadia Laurinci recently joined the Sandbox team as the Chief Innovation Agent. She explains why she joined in an open letter to Steve Jobs.

Hi Steve,

I wanted to write you a brief note to give you some peace of mind.

Now that you’ve retired from Apple and your innovation impact is coming to an end (even though your powerful lessons will stay with us forever), you may find yourself wondering:

Is there anyone left out there still capable of real innovation? Capable of really pushing the boundaries, creating things that make this world a better place, testing and experimenting with groundbreaking ideas?

Rest assured; there is!

It was about a year and a half ago – on a lovely, sunny Sunday morning in New York City. I had recently quit my job at Goldman Sachs to venture into strategy consulting and was on my way downtown to Union Square. I found my way to a rustic Peruvian restaurant, opened the door, and there, a group of young people was getting together, engaging in what seemed like a very interesting conversation. Something uniquely uplifting was circulating in the air.

Little did I know that a few minutes later, I would find myself surrounded by some of the most driven, creative, and visionary people on the planet…all unified by one common thread – they were all Sandboxers. One Sandboxer ran a sustainable fashion business, the other co-founded a magazine covering all things 2.0, the next was powering young entrepreneurs in South America, enabling them to make their creative dreams come true.

I was rocked to my core. Never before had I been surrounded by such an envelope-pushing, dream-uncompromising, fired-up group of people.

Since that morning, I’ve had the privilege to meet, brainstorm, and become friends with dozens of Sandboxers in many corners of the world which gave me hope that even though you’re now retired, Steve, with people like those in Sandbox, real innovation will continue.

These are the key 3 things I observed about Sandboxers:

1. Sandboxers don’t follow, they lead: a few weeks ago, my mentor Kaihan Krippendorff  pointed me to a fantastic book – The Intelligent Entrepreneur by Bill Murphy, Jr.  – with insights on how to succeed as an entrepreneur/artist/creator. A rule from the book that particularly resonated me says that at some point, you will have to stop following. You will have to stop managing (projects, pipelines, factories, people) and you will have to start leading – charting the uncharted path, risking things, resisting the resistance of the skeptics, the “experts”, and the other non-believers out there. Eventually, you will have to find the strength, the passion, and the persistence to do it your way. Sandboxers are doing this every day.

2.  Sandboxers don’t preach, they enchant: when you meet a Sandboxer face to face, you quickly start feeling that in their presence, the world seems different; it doesn’t seem negative, it doesn’t seem stuck, it doesn’t seem boring, black and white, or difficult. When you talk to a Sandboxer, you enter the YES-territory of the world, the Go-For-It country, the race to be won, the challenge to be conquered. Things not only become possible; they become actionable, they become urgent, they get done!

3. Sandboxers take initiative and start things: as one of my entrepreneurship heroes Josh Linkner (author of Disciplined Dreaming) said, “Getting started is the hardest part. You could spend your whole life preparing, analyzing, and covering your tracks…or you can move forward with the spirit of a warrior. Leap into your work and imagine you are Van Gogh, da Vinci, or Mozart. You have the same talents inside you.” Sandboxers have the habit of doing just that – they start things. Sometimes they do fall but they always stand up and continue their quest. They fight the fight, take initiative, and as you, Steve, they give it their best, every day, putting a ding in the universe.

So don’t worry, Steve. With Sandboxers pushing the boundaries every day, in 48 countries around the globe, things will get done; innovation will not stall, recessions will be overcome; and new and better things will be borne into this world. I’m honored to be a part of this movement.

Yours truly, always hungry and sometimes foolish,

Nadia Laurinci
Chief Innovation Agent, the Sandbox Network
@laurinci

Building the first Sandbox Hub in Africa is no mean feat. You need all the help you can get. So a few days ago I casually met up with Acumen Fund’s head of Global Fellows Blair Miller, and the Fund’s East Africa Fellowship coordinator Suraj Sudhakar, which quickly turned into an organic  brainstorming session with 14 people about how to best attract talents into our respective networks and communities.

Also on the quest to find young movers were Ashoka Kenya’s Jenny Jin and Simon Stumpf. Ashoka outlined their vision for the Youth Inspire program, while Tori Hogan, a great supporter of Sandbox Nairobi, pitched the concept of collaboration among networks to efficiently connect with the people that push Kenya forward.

Senior Adviser to Sandbox Nairobi Michael Onyango, PR head of ZK Advertising, commented that the Kenyan Government and private sector vision to turn Nairobi into the creative hub of Africa – the consortium will launch this plan to the public on April 6^th.

As I listened to the other guests, I realised that this vision was certainly becoming reality. The enormous energy in the room was inspiring; Susaneve Oguya and Jamila Abass of M-Farm, a mobile tech non-profit supporting farmers, and Africa Yoga Project founder, Paige Elenson, plus the head of operations Moses Mbajah. Even Just-A-Band’s Jim Chu Chu attended despite his hectic schedule, preparing for the launch of their next music video in an art exhibition titled TRNSMSSN_2 at the Goethe Insitut April 2^nd. Indeed, at that date (potential) Sandboxers will dine at Ralano’s at 6pm before joining the band at the exhibition and launch. Drop me an email with a motivational statement if you consider yourself a potential Sandboxer: sebastian@whattookyousolong.org.

Nairobi as a city is becoming ever more exciting and I’m proud to be setting up a Sandbox Hub there. Thanks to Erik Hersman, Tosh and Jessica Colaço of iHub Nairobi for sharing their innovative space for this event.

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Click here to apply to become an Acumen Fund East Africa fellow and click here to nominate yourself or someone for Ashoka’s ‘East African Social Entrepreneurs in Rural Innovation and Farming’ fellowship.

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Sebastian Lindstrom is Sandbox’s first Ambassador in Africa. Alongside Philippa Young and Alicia Sully, he is building an exciting new Sandbox Hub in Nairobi.

For at least the last decade, the music industry has had an ever growing problem: record companies (publishers) and their artists have been fighting the battle against digital piracy and losing terribly at it, driving down the margins.

Beyond Oblivion is a new, disruptive digital music service due to launch later this year. When the company’s remarkably down to earth CEO Adam Kidron (in his previous life a top-notch-producer) met Sandboxers for lunch today, he explained how “Beyond Oblivion” is different to existing music services such as Spotify and Napster. He argues piracy remains because current services penalize consumers by letting them subsidize those who download for free; also, royalties from the licenses given back to publishers remain low.

Adam’s idea is to embed licenses in the devices we play such media on: mobile phones, TVs, tablets. Music is licensed every time we play a particular song, and the manufacturer pays royalties up to 92% of what they charge end-users for the playable device.

Beyond Oblivion certainly face challenges in disrupting the key players in the current ecosystem, but with millions of dollars in funding from investors including Newscorp, Adam suggests that his team (spread across London, New York and San Francisco) has at least a 50% chance to make it.

We believe the chances of revolutionizing the industry are much higher than that, and are very excited to take part in this journey!

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Brad Fitchew is Sandbox’s London Based Community Manager, passionate about ideas, innovation, social and tech entrepreneurship. He is helping develop Sandbox communities around the world.

At the most recent Sandbox dinner in Singapore, it was humbling to discover how much prominence social enterprise takes in the lives of our Sandboxers.

Social enterprise projects being led by both new and potential Sandbox members encompassed solutions at the forefront of thinking in this field:

- John Roberts introduced Heal the World, which has plans to establish a University of West Africa, an online university that uses sources of open educational resources and courseware to bring higher education to that region.

- Sayanee Basu enthusiastically spoke about ChallengeFuture, a global youth Think Tank behind a competition entitled “Fun + Meaning² = 2030”. The competition seeks to find solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges through the creation of new products, services, platforms, organizations, networks, regulations, educational programs – whilst making it fun!

- Sandbox Singapore Ambassador Zhihan Lee described how only 3 out of every 100 college graduates in the Philippines pass the selection exams to work in a call center. Zhihan’s startup, BagoSphere, aims to empower youth through training to succeed in this growing industry.

SGEntreprenuers, Futuregen International, Optiras, McAfee, and Medboxs were also represented at dinner. Hearing everybody’s stories inspired us all to focus our discussion on how social enterprise start-ups can have an even greater impact in Singapore and the region. Everyone is looking forward to the next dinner!

Sandboxer Clayton Miller is a former Fulbright Scholar in Singapore and Co-Founder of Optiras, a startup company focused on building energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality.

At a recent Sandbox-event in London, a number of Sandboxers had the opportunity to idea-storm with John Elkington, the founder of “SustainAbility” who coined the term “Triple Bottom Line”.

The dinner, organised by Sandbox’ Social Enterprise ambassador Kyra Choucroun, allowed us the opportunity to address the following questions:

(1) Why has it taken us this long to grasp sustainability?

(2) What will drive us (as individuals, organisations, and governments) to turn these words into action?

All present recognized that there were intergenerational differences in behaviour between Gen-Y (as consumers and producers) from that of previous generations – a factor largely shaped by our cultural and historical contexts. Consequently, what we identify demographically as Gen-Y in developing economies may appear to us as aspirations belonging to previous boomer or X-generations. Thus, the greatest challenge, the participants argued, was finding solutions that match our behavioural differences, rather than by imposing a one size fits all solution.

John, perhaps the most well-recognised individual in this field, suggested that we are in the latter third of a 60-70 year cycle that will see a huge paradigm change in the way we think and act on sustainability, individually and collectively. Thereby, many of the participants foresaw that the main drivers of this change will stem from natural disasters, economic depression, and even war. Alternatively, great political and individual leadership in the form of “personal social responsibility” may be what is required to turn the words we say into positive action.

Sandbox is currently looking into establishing a “thought leadership platform” with Sandboxers and seniors such as John writing on social enterprise and sustainability; do join our “Sandbox” group on facebook to keep yourself updated!

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Brad Fitchew is Sandbox Community Manager based in London. He enjoys bouncing around ideas for impactful projects, with great people!

Sandboxers, you humble crowd of grains united inside (but thinking outside) the box! First, why are we here?

We are the Camel Cheese Team (http://www.whattookyousolong.org) heading into the desert; one of many we have filmed in on our current documentary project. Sebastian Lindstrom says: ‘Drink Camel milk and live your dreams’. We have seen a lot of sand and we have met a lot of Sandboxers along the way.

During October and November, 2010 we dedicated 38 days out of our filming schedule to screen our 2009 documentary about aid effectiveness and grassroots non-profits in Africa through the Sandbox platform. The concept originated organically with Sandbox, always a supportive proponent of WTYSL projects, and flourished after Fabian Pfortmuller beautifully concurred with our idea to launch this tour.

Despite frowns from sensible Philippa Young we gave ourselves a just-manageable single day to transport ourselves between each hub. Manageable became almost impossible after Yale-based Sandboxer Manouchehr Shamsrizi added locations to our Europe schedule semi-forcing us to borrow a car to transport ourselves from Zurich to Vienna, Prague, Hamburg and finally to meet Manouchehr and Christian Busch at the Muhammed Yunus Global Social Business Summit in Wolfsburg, Germany. Apparently nothing is impossible – even zigzagging across Europe to attend conferences we had no tickets to….

Thousands of people have joined us from all walks of life during the 20+ events and Open Space Technology-based discussions in 8 countries. Development students, activists, Africans, non-Africans, business-men, artists and curious-minded people who want to meet with fresh ideas on how they can take action.

We decided to collect all the energy from the Open Space conversations as much as we could. These discussions from around the world are now online; please learn from the people at: www.whattookyousolong.org/open-space

Next step: figuring out what the next step is! Screenings and Open Space dialogues are one step in the right direction – but what comes next to drive action to another level?

One thing is certain; we have met a lot of Sandbox members around the world face-to-face. They have set up events and invited their networks. They have provided floor space and beds for the night. We have met their friends. We have cooked with them. We have connected with these dynamic little grains, great alone, even greater together.

On top of our screenings and events we filmed our host Sandboxer, asking them the five WTYSL questions. Three are already out online (here, here and here) and we are in the process of editing another 8 profile videos, released weekly. Below is the list of Sandbox members with profiles:

Fabian Pfortmuller, NYC

Jaap Ruoff, Providence

Danielle Tomson, New Haven

Dalumuzi Happy Mhlanga, Harvard,

Artur Majsterek, London

Hannes Kloepper, Berlin

Lilly Bussmann, St.Gallen

Michel Bachmann, Zurich

Sarah Stamatiou, Vienna

J. Amadeus Waltz, Hamburg

Christian Busch at the Global Social Business Summit in Wolfsburg

Sandboxers from all over Europe convened in Oxford last weekend for the Skoll Emerge Conference. Hosted at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School (SBS), the event brought together some of the world’s leading industry experts, academics and social entrepreneurs to discuss the topic of social entrepreneurship.

Delegates were in the extremely enviable position, having the chance to listening to some truly inspirational keynote speakers in the form of Bunker Roy (one of TIME’s 100 most influential personalities 2010, he founded Barefoot College – a social enterprise addressing problems of water, sanitation, education and rural unemployment in the developing world) and Tim Smit CBE (Founder of the Eden Project in Cornwall which has turned-over £1.1 billion since it’s launch in 2001 ). As usual the organisers behind the event, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, offered a great program of events aimed at those delegates interested in learning, doing and building social enterprises.

At such a high profile event there is no surprise that many Sandboxers made the trip to Oxford for the excellent networking opportunities, the constant spew of simply fascinating ideas on the topic and not least to mention the joint Skoll/Sandbox Dinner, which came fittingly at the end of this engaging yet intense weekend of conferencing.

The dinner was organised by Sandbox’s very own Ambassador for Social Enterprise  Kyra Choucroun, herself a writer for the Guardian on all issues that concern the environment, sustainability and social enterprise. Indeed many Sandboxers  found themselves dining with some of the major influencers, innovators and key decision makers across these fields. Geoff Lye, Executive Chairman of SustainAbility, was in attendance and no doubt left an impression on the 33 people that ate at the dinner (around half were Sandboxers). Geoff’s company has been a pioneer in sustainable consulting for over two decades – they pride themselves on tackling the root causes of what un-sustainability brings as opposed to just it’s symptoms. Geoff brought along many of his expert colleagues, many thought-leaders in their own right. This was similarly true of Alexis Ettinger (Head of Marketing Strategy & Marketing at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship) who invited her senior colleagues and several Skoll “Skollars” including Xavier Helgesen a social entrepreneur who has contributed $8 million to libraries and literacy organisations through his social venture Better World Books. It was a dinner packed with a diverse and exuberant audience at the bleeding edge of social enterprise in the UK especially, we even had the pleasure to sit among many seniors from Volans, the organisation which first coined the term “triple bottom line”…WOW!

From the feedback we have received there is no doubt that everyone who attended enjoyed the discussions that took place over the entire weekend and some very valuable connections were made. All felt it was a hugely valuable and worthwhile experience, despite the pain of having an underground tube strike, whilst most people ventured their way home to London. I would like to thank everyone who helped organise the event and all made so great, including those at Skoll, Volans, SustainAbility and Sandbox.

Brad is a Sandbox Community Manager based in London, he’s working alongside Christian to grow the impact of Sandbox and its members around the globe.

While preparing our latest internal ambassador-overview, it amazed me to see the creative diversity of approaches our ambassadors take when organizing local Sandbox-events allover the globe.

While we will properly document these cases in a nice print-format soon, let me briefly share some of the highlights with you:

- Andreas Brenner organized a huge conference and workshops in Singapore with backing by the Minister of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

- Fabian Pfortmueller and Niamh Hughes organized a “retreat” in a residence outside New York to enable un-disturbed idea-sparring and fast-prototyping over three days, and regularly invite high-profile partners such as Seedcamp.

- Katharina Beck and Nico Koellner do regular wine-tastings in Cologne to enhance creativity.

- Joana Ungureanu organizes exciting theatre-evenings in Munich, and soon an Alpine-session.

- Paolo Rigutto and me organize large-scale dinners (recently featured in Wired) all 6 weeks, and inbetween smaller “content dinners” with people interested in certain topics or welcoming traveling Sandboxers.

- Bjoern Lasse Herrman and Christian Shelton are organizing large-scale dinners (using creative invitation formats) in San Francisco (30-40 talents joining), and have developed an amazing capability of “matching” the right people.

- The Guptara twins transfer their authoring-creativity to host Sandbox dinners at fancy private residences in New Delhi.

- Rainer Scherer in Berlin starts to merge online and offline, in doing “interviews” with our members on podcast while organizing the already legendary “Scheerer & Scheerer” dinners with Susanne Scheerer.

- Yuxin Hou teamed up with Asia’s major talent organization to organize a conference around leadership with Sandboxers from around the globe joining.

There are numerous other Sandbox ambassadors organizing local events in 30 cities allover the globe, and while I could only pick some examples here, we are proud to have all of them on board to build a unique  self-sustaining community of amazing young people on a global scale!

Here at Sandbox, we love Twitter and use it regularly to interact with people all over the world. So do a lot of our members, whose Twitter updates we love to read and re-tweet. And now, thanks to Twitters newly added list feature, so can you: We’ve created a continually updated list with all tweeting Sandbox members. You can subscribe to it here or just read the updates in the widget on the right-hand side of this page.

Nico is a co-founder of Sandbox. His personal Twitter account is here.