Necker Island, located in the tropical paradise of the British Virgin Islands is not only home to Sir Richard Branson and his family, but the perfect place for our Talent U
nleashed Award winners to reflect, learn and be challenged, as they attended the Igniting Change Leadership Gathering hosted by Virgin Unite.
Following on from our previous Necker blog post, On day 3 our winners set sail from Necker to Moskito Island where they enjoyed presentations from Wade Davis (a leading anthropologist) who discussed ‘Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World’ as well as Louie Psihoyos, a leading documentary maker and photographer who directed ‘The Cove’ winner for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2010.
Talent APAC CEO Mark Nielsen commented “The main aim of the sessions was to work through different views on sustainability including climate change and culture.”
Day 4 started with three inspirational talks including an interview with Palmer Luckey the 23 year old founder of Oculus and the inventor of Oculus Rift, who sold the virtual reality company for $2.3 billion to Facebook.
Audette Exel, social entrepreneur and business woman who was recently named Australia’s 2016 ‘Leading Philanthropist’ gave a fantastic talk on how she built her corporate finance business to fund her not for profit which touches 50,000 people in living poverty per annum.
This was followed by a Q&A with all of the gathering’s presenters facilitated by Holly Branson covering “what are the global challenges facing us”. Talent’s Mark Nielsen said “The overwhelming view was climate change and sustainability. The positives were the way we have dealt with social change over the past 50 years and impact technology is having on sustainability.”
Jon Butterfield Talent UK CEO said “The feeling (amongst the group) was that technology can change the world for the better if channelled properly.”
After taking inspiration from the group sessions, music was another way the Necker visitors enjoyed their experience. From an evening a camp fire singing experience, to exceptional performances by music pioneer Michael Franti and rising San Francisco musician J Bowman “the musicians were amazing” said Jon Butterfield.
An action packed few days concluded with a swim in the pool and a sushi lunch with Sir Richard Branson and then an afternoon of scuba diving on the invisibles reef.
After four days of an intoxicating mix of learning, being challenged and fun. It was then time to head home.
Talent and the winners of the 2015 Talent Unleashed Awards, Troy Westley from CareMonkey and Samiya Parvez from Andiamo had a truly memorable stay and wish to thank Sir Richard Branson, Jean Oelwang, Jane Tewson and the entire team at Virgin Unite, Igniting Change and Necker for sharing with us this amazing experience.
For more information about:
Igniting Change: http://www.ignitingchange.org.au/
Virgin Unite: https://www.virgin.com/unite/
Necker Island: http://www.virginlimitededition.com/en/necker-island/about-us
The five Global Grand Final Talent Unleashed Award Winners are all set to receive an equally as incredible Prize – Click Here to find out more.