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Welcome all present and future So Acters. My name is Greg Halpern. For many years, my family and I have been working on a life mission to get the planet on track by helping solve problems. Our goal is to leave Earth in better shape so future generations will have a planet that is still here and worth inheriting. So Act is the realization of this work. Below is some history of how I got to this point in time. |
In 1977, I was a Gold medalist for the United States in International Judo Competition. In 1978 I wrote a self help book on awareness. |
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In 1979, I was turning 21 and began to develop my first real taste for small business. The economy was a mess under the direction of Jimmy Carter and this led me to a natural interest and ultimate involvement in political action. Ronald Reagan intrigued me with his flair for speaking and American optimism. And so I committed to helping him become elected. There were many detractors and the public opinion at the time was that he was just a second rate movie actor not suited to be our nation's leader. Happily for me he won and then President Reagan motivated us and made us proud once again to be Americans. Throughout those years and since, I have been involved on many levels with both small business innovation and bi-partisan political initiatives, at a regulatory level - locally, regionally and nationally. I have experienced numerous ups and downs in personal and professional economics as well as dramatic shifts in technology and governmental process along the way. To me, the one constant that has remained throughout and still is self-evident today is the American Spirit to dream, innovate and achieve. |
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Al Gore, Steve Forbes, General Clark, GOP House Oversight Chairwoman Rep Sue Kelly |
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In 1989, I met the woman of my dreams, got married and began a family. As new parents bringing children into the world, we both became much more concerned about the planet, envisioning that someday our kids would grow up and have to face the mistakes of our generation. This led to a keen awareness that our world was having very serious problems and we wanted to do something about it to insure a better future Earth. We wondered what future inhabitants might say about how our generation handled things decades or centuries later. |
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We had to do something meaningful so we started “People for Ultimate Kindness” |
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The purpose was to identify the major challenges on earth and then network problem solvers and solution makers to bring about positive change. Our hope was that someday, the major problems would be solved and the world could get on with the really good living that would come after earth no longer faced those challenges. The problems and categories we came up with were - |
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Throughout the 1990's and first part of the current decade we networked globally with people everywhere who were trying to develop solutions. We felt certain there was a rising tide of consciousness between 1998-2000 to bring the solutions to the problems and build the better world we envisioned however 9-11 and the things that occurred thereafter seemed to destroy both that interest and any productive thinking that was prevalent at the time. My career until mid 2007 consisted of helping small businesses gain traction with new ideas. I patented, transferred, funded, built and commercialized U.S. government environmental technologies into the small business sector, including grain based technologies developed at the U.S.D.A. Peoria Lab and defense technologies with the Department Of Energy - Brookhaven National Lab. Below are those projects - |
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Along the way I lobbied in Congress for better conditions for Small Business. "Today’s bearish market underscores how important it is that Congress and regulators do everything in their power to promote capital formation. The SEC has a critical mission to protect investors, but also to minimize obstacles to capital formation for small businesses and large businesses alike." Chairman of the Financial Services Committee Michael G. Oxley said this at my Congressional Testimony Hearing |
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Congressional Testimony for Oversight on Small Business June 25, 2001 June 26, 2001 June 26, 2001 June 27, 2001 July 9, 2001 February 16, 2004 April 5, 2004 |
Hearings
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Here is a link to a Position Paper I submitted to Congress on "Naked Short Selling and Stock Manipulation" http://www.advancedsmallbusiness.org/positionpaper.htm I founded a 501c6 organization to go lobby congress on behalf of small business by myself. I realized that 22 million small business professionals can't take time out of their work day to go lobby Washington because, for them, every day is a work day. They generate the majority of new jobs every year, contribute a majority of the taxable revenue to the treasury and come up with nearly all the innovation that improves our lives. That seems pretty important to me. Many politicians talk about how important small business is. Then after they are elected, not much gets done to improve conditions. That's most probably because when they get into the business of politics they discover it is more of a big corporation mentality so it is tough to build a bridge in Washington between helpful ideas and small business. Here is my organization - |
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During the past 10 years, I worked with and supported various public figures on a variety of important topics such as small business, obesity, heart health, human rights, child abuse and many others. Here are a few of them - |
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Muhammad Yunnus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 and the planets began to line up for us. It was a major example of turning philanthropy into legitimate new economies of scale, proving that doing good for others would work better if it were combined with business economics and joined harmoniously to create a sustainable solution to a problem. In the past decade, trillions of dollars went into philanthropy, yet not one major problem became much closer to being solved. I believe this is because most organizations are supported by special interests that are working to preserve the status quo rather than bring solutions to problems. |
When our inspirational journey collided with our desire for a better planet, our personal beliefs and life work became congruent and So Act Network was born. |
The world has the immediate potential to become everyone's backyard thanks to the Internet and Information Technology. There is a convergence today between a rising consciousness about the problems on earth and the feeling that there is an urgent need to fix them. Socially aware innovators, inventors, scientists, explorers, philosophers, investors, helpful dreamers of all shapes and sizes, in essence, creative thinkers around the world are working on developing legitimate world-improving solutions. It is believed by many that beyond basic material wealth, helping others is one of the most rewarding things humans can engage in and individuals who are working now on the world’s problems are in the front of the line leading the charge to help the most people and do the most good for all of our futures. This where So Act can bring us together. Life on Earth in 2010 could be summarized as a series of problems to be solved. The better we solve problems the more success and positive feedback we could experience in our lives. To make the world better and more productive we must all solve problems effectively. This requires creativity at a high level but it also takes a lot of resources. So Act Network is an outgrowth of the belief that there is a social and professional demand for its platform as one of the key resources to influence positive change because solution makers face big challenges when trying to create major solutions to critical world problems. Essentially, solution makers do not know what they do not know often because it hasn’t been figured out yet, but also because everyone does not presently know what everyone else is working on. It usually takes many years to figure out the unknown during journeys of this magnitude. A lot of mistakes are made along the way in a process that is highly stressful and full of personal and financial failure. Developing solutions to major problems is a lonely process with many obstacles, conflicts and enormous barriers to entry. So Act was born to provide a place everyone could meet to build highly effective communities of purpose that could develop breakthrough solutions to major problems. Our hope is that So Act will ultimately have a direct and indirect positive effect on millions of people globally leading to a better safer world with improved economies of scale, peace and prosperity. |