Katie Made It! The End of the Conference

Right on time (and just after I finished the last blog entry) Katie got to the Marriott in Prague! It was a brief but awesome reunion, as we more or less scarfed down lunch before I had to return for the conference photo. The conference photo, by the way, included all of us (200 or so) without any real regard for height differences. We were all sitting, so it may have worked out, but I'll be interested to see that photo.

After the pictures, we had one last chance to meet with our group before presenting our project proposal. We did a 90 degree turn, and instead of doing a survey, we've decided to propose a pilot workshop for 5-8 businesses in Central Europe. We'll do one in Bulgaria and then see how it's received. The businesses will be exposed to environmental/triple-bottom-line concepts, and will have the opportunity to develop a sustainability action plan for their companies, along with sustainability-related goals, objectives, etc. It's still in the works, but it seems reasonably feasible on a $10,000 budget, especially if we can video in some of the speakers from America Trans-Atlantic flights just aren't all that cheap :(

So we presented our idea to the state department representatives, and they seemed to feel okay about it. One of the guys from the team is working out the actual grant proposal (we have a few months for that) so who knows? After going to California over Christmas, my next big trip might be to Bulgaria. It's okay. I'm mostly kidding.

The last speaker of the conference was Judith McHale, Under Secretary of Diplomacy and Public Relations for the US State Department. She was well-spoken, but I guess that if diplomacy were my job, I would have memorized my lines ahead of time too. It was very P.R. She threw in plugs for Hillary Clinton several times per response, and didn't do much by way of straight answers to questions. Still nice that she came out to the conference though.

Following the Q&A session, we got to watch the conference video that people have been filming all week. Considering that there was footage from the last day of the conference in there, I'm very impressed with both the quality and the speedy turn around time. I'm actually in the video. I don't say anything. But I nod. And you know what? I nod with purpose. Of course, while I'm nodding, I'm working out the military-geoengineering thing in my head, but still. On my way to stardom.

There was a brief reception, and then Coree, Laura, Michelle, Katie, and I went to the Communism Museum. It was pretty sweet. I got a postcard. It talks about all the happy shiny people who lived under communism (with most of them working in the uranium mines in the Ukraine). I giggled. We walked around the city for a while after the museum (i.e. we stopped and ate several different times, and occasionally had to walk between food vendors). It was a pretty awesome end to the day, and to the conference.

Plan for tomorrow? Waking up at 6:30 to go watch the sunrise from the Charles Bridge. Oooh la la.