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Contest winners announced! >> Read the press release What is Access?Access is the ability to connect. Access empowers people and businesses with more choices and greater confidence. It is about making new opportunities possible by simplifying the ability to reach new markets and accelerating global connections — physically, economically, and in the realm of information.Efficient Access to new markets levels the playing field — it allows companies of all sizes to compete on a global scale, connect seamlessly, and grow their business. Access is an invisible but vital ingredient of our every day lives:
When Access to ideas, places, materials, and technology increases, the result is greater opportunities for all involved. Jobs are created, productivity and prosperity rise, growth and innovation are spurred. These benefits start a virtuous cycle: Access produces a "network effect" in which new connections and opportunities lead to more connections and opportunities. The network gains strength as it expands and the cycle begins again, spurring further opportunity and empowerment. For more information on Access, check out the following resources: Where will Access take us next?Net Impact and FedEx invited you, as part of the next generation of leaders, to voice your opinion on the future direction and "net impact" of Access. Learn more about how FedEx contributes to expanding Access around the globe by visiting access.fedex.com. Here you'll find published articles, podcasts, and research reports that will enhance your understanding of Access. You can also get inspired by visiting the new Access Generation page and watching a video where students from The University of Mississippi talk about what Access means to them, or by listening to a Net Impact Issues in Depth call on "The Importance of Access and How It Drives Economic Growth Around the Globe," with John Mathieson, Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Economic Development (CSTED) at SRI International. >> Read Rules, Terms, and Conditions (.pdf) Winners
Excerpts from the winning essays will appear in the third volume of Access Review, scheduled to be published in May 2009. To receive your free copy, visit http://access.fedex.com. Judges Andrea Bennett is the Editorial Director at Unboundary in Atlanta, the strategy and design firm that produces the thought leadership publication Access Review for FedEx. She is a contributing editor and the consumer columnist for Travel + Leisure magazine, a frequent contributor to Town & Country, and writes a weekly airfare strategy column for airfarewatchdog.com. A former staff writer at Money magazine and Takeoffs and Landings columnist for The Wall Street Journal, her work has also appeared in Fortune, T:Travel (The New York Times), Islands, Forbes and The New York Post, among others. William G. Margaritis is the Vice President, Global Communications and Investor Relations at FedEx. He oversees all reputation management, investor relations, public relations, employee communications and community relations activities for FedEx Corp. and its subsidiaries: $38 billion in annual revenues and over 290,000 employees and contractors worldwide. During his tenure, FedEx has been ranked in the top 10 on the FORTUNE magazine "World's Most Admired Companies Best Places to Work" and the Harris Interactive Wall Street Journal Most Reputable Companies list. The FedEx communications program has been recently recognized in various books and industry magazines as "best-of-class" for its leadership in reputation management. Before joining FedEx, Margaritis was vice president of Bechtel International, based in London, England. He also worked in Washington, D.C., and Athens, Greece, for separate divisions of the company. Margaritis serves on various boards, including the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, the Arthur Page Society, and the Reputation Institute. A native of Greece, Margaritis earned his bachelor's degree in business from Michigan State University. Dr. Kellie McElhaney is the John C. Whitehead Adjunct Professor and the founding Faculty Director of the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. The Wall Street Journal ranked Haas as the number two business school in the country for CSR in 2006 and 2007. Kellie was named a Faculty Pioneer by the Aspen Institute in 2005. Kellie serves on the Board for Foundation Île à Vache, which she helped to found with a group of Irish CEOs in June of 2007. It supports infrastructural and economic development on this island in southern Haiti. She is also on the management team of the Encircle Foundation, which fosters corporate sector support of the Millennium Development Goals by launching enterprise solutions to poverty, and serves on the boards of Net Impact and VolunteerMatch. She lives in the Oakland Hills in California and has two elementary school-aged daughters. She enjoys photography, yoga, good wine, running and has even tried surfing. Ben Powell is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Agora Partnerships, a social enterprise dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship in developing countries with offices in Managua and Washington DC. Ben is also a Director of the Agora Venture Fund, a micro venture capital fund that provides growth capital to Central American enterprises capable of generating positive social, economic, and environmental returns. He became convinced of the power of small business to transform poor communities as an entrepreneur in Mexico, where he co-founded CityGolf: Puebla, an ongoing family entertainment park. Ben has been an examiner in the International Affairs Division of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and has worked at Ashoka and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MS in Foreign Service with distinction from Georgetown University, and a BA with high honors from Haverford College. Ben received the I-Qube award for innovation, inspiration and impact from Dalberg Global Advisors and is a fellow of the Draper Richards Foundation. He lives in Washington DC with his wife and two sons. Aisha I. Saad is a current Rhodes Scholar and native of Cairo, Egypt who grew up in Greenville, NC. She is double-majoring in Environmental Health Science and Spanish at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Aisha has spent time researching and interning with community NGOs in India, at Cairo University's Teaching Hospitals and with the Peruvian Ministry of Health. She is fluent in Arabic and Spanish and is working to further her proficiency in French and Hindi. Most recently, Aisha spent a summer interning with the brownfield-developer Cherokee Investment Partners; an experience which inspired a trip to India where she explored Cherokee's philanthropic cleanup offer of the historic Union Carbide disaster site, in light of the controversy raised by grassroots activist groups in Bhopal. Aisha has initiated difficult dialogues on campus while bridging communities through tenure on the Student Advisory Committee to the Chancellor, as President of the Interfaith Alliance, as Outreach Coordinator for the Muslim Students Association and as Opinion Editor of the Daily Tar Heel. Thank you for sharing your perspectives on this topic--you could be the next voice of Access! |
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