“It has the visionaries, the teachers, the technologies, the makers and the capital. It has millions of people from every corner eager to devote their hearts and minds to catalyzing change. When these ingredients come together, their capacity for impact becomes exponential.”
Salim Ismail, Executive Director, Singularity University
The world is incredible. Mankind as a species is incredible. We have achieved so much, created and overcome so much. But we’ve become so busy, so distracted by the amazing things we have created.
Things have changed and are happening so fast. We need to pause for a moment, to take stock, to think deeply about where we are going, where we want to go and how we are going to get there. We need to re-learn how to talk together and to walk together. We’ve all benefited greatly from the industrial era, but how we approach the future has to change.
Pointing fingers and blaming others is a waste of energy and time; time that we do not have. At times like these, Kennedy’s words are more important than ever: “The world’s problems cannot be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by obvious realities. We need people who can dream of things that never were and ask – why not?”
Welcome to our journey. We are starting a global conversation. The global protests have paved the way. It’s time to help design a better framework for what needs to come next and help to get the world involved. That is the mission of The Global Transformation Foundation.
Kim Guillemard, Founder
The Global Transformation Foundation is focused upon what is perhaps the most complicated challenge of all, the challenge facing humanity itself today. How are we going to bring about the transformation needed in our societies, our economies and our relationship with the biosphere – in a peaceful way?
We are living in the most exciting time in history. What happens in the next decade will decide the future of humanity.
Together we have the brains, the technology, the tools and the capital to secure our future, PROVIDED THAT we can reach agreement on the direction to take and unite in action.
History has shown us that transforming ideas, plans and actions can work with extraordinary power and speed in times of war or crisis. That time has come and there is no more exciting project and motivating challenge for us and our children than engineering our futures.
That’s why The Global Transformation Foundation has engineered The Transformation Games to be an instrument of change, a catalyst to accelerate a global wake-up call, driving awareness, education and action.
The Games will support and create pathways to action on the important issues covered by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs). This includes the need for more work on updating and improving the economic and political systems that underpin global society.
The Transformation Games is positioned as the Olympics of Thought, Debate and Action. Think of them as an Olympics FOR Humanity, if you will.
The Transformation Games (TTG) are both part of a social movement and a recurring global Games event. Its objective is to be a major instrument of inspiration, transformation and sustainability.
The Transformation Games will be held every two years in a different host city and will advance and give a global stage to the 17 SDGs, by hosting competitions and other exciting events.
These will help to drive the search for innovative, scalable and transferable solutions.
We are inviting national teams from different countries to use their intellect, passion, knowledge and creativity to compete for incentive cash prizes, medals and recognition, as well as impact investment. And we invite you to be involved.
In this new world of accelerated and exponential change – the way we have solved most challenges in the past is no longer working. What we are doing is not working fast enough or effectively. We need a new updated approach. Everywhere you look we have too many people working in our systems and not enough working ON our systems. We need more innovative approaches that involve the people of the planet and engage the younger generations.
The global climate conference, COPAS 25 in Madrid, was a graphic illustration that new initiatives are needed to bring people together to find solutions and change mindsets. Some of the old toolkit of Declarations, Protocols and Treaties and deals made in the corridors of power are no longer sufficient or trusted as representing all parties involved in an even-handed way.
Each of us are more empowered than ever before to help solve grand challenges. And the world’s biggest problems may also be our biggest opportunities. It is time to come together to face the challenges and use our collective wisdom, our business acumen and our individual and collective creativity to design and engineer our futures.
“It may seem odd, twisted even, to have individuals and teams compete over a cash prize to see who’s best at teaching kids in developing nations how to read or do math or solve global problems, like hunger, or water scarcity.
“The beauty of competition is that it focuses innovation by really bright people. The problem with innovation is that you need to find the innovator. It’s much harder than finding a needle in a haystack. Competitions turn the tables. If you do it right, you attract the needles to come to you. It also brings out the best in each of us.
“In sports, why do you have an Olympics? Why don’t you just have people collaborate? In the thrill of competition, in the heat of competition, we push ourselves as far and as fast as we can. A little spectacle never hurts either.
“If you put one horse round a track people don’t notice. If you put a bunch of horses, you have a horse race and people start noticing. It’s just how we’re bred.”
Peter Diamandis
Of all the speeches about our global situation, why the SDGs really matter and how every one of us has so much to gain and nothing to fear from adapting our lives and organisations, this speech opposite in late 2019 by Paul Polman, one of the co-founders of the SDGs, may be the most realistic and powerful call to action to become part of a partnership for humanity. Please find time to listen to him.
The next chapters of civilization cannot be based upon aggressive competition to win and take advantage of other countries, but to find global collaboration and better balance; a fairer, safer, inclusive society in which the good of all countries and citizens becomes the common aim and protection of the planet a universal trust.
We need you – wherever you live, whatever you do, however young or old you are – to help TTG grow the movement for positive change. Big challenges need Big Solutions and over recent decades, despite hard work by many organisations and individuals and positive work by some governments, corporate leaders and politicians – the challenges are outpacing our progress.
The Transformation Games takes a fresh approach to creating change, quite literally. We believe in changing the way we change the world. We can all see that BAU – business as usual – is just not working effectively or fast enough. Turning a supertanker at sea is no easy task. It takes time and effort, a few degrees at a time. Changing some of our habits, practices and thinking – and changing our economic landscape – will be even harder. But it is do-able and it has become a must.
And today, more than ever before, we have the consciousness, the technology and billions of educated citizens of the planet, many of whom are seeking change. The type of change which makes life fairer, happier, greener and safer for all is clearly within our reach, provided we start to collaborate, to co-operate and to really show we care – and play our parts.
That is why we hope you will explore our website, understand our vision and plan, get to know more about the 17 Sustainable Goals and the exciting elements of The Transformation Games. And then imagine. Imagine how, with your engagement and the support of millions of others like you, we can make things happen. So don’t be a passenger. Become part of the crew or a friend or a donor. Let’s work together. Shaping a brighter future is the most exciting and important challenge and opportunity we’ve ever had.
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ
