Hey all,

This morning marks the official beginning of the Clinton Global Initiative conference. Former president Bill Clinton moderated the opening session, accompanied by Melinda Gates, President of Finland Tarja Halonen, CEO of Procter & Gamble Bob McDonald and Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt. An ambitious range of issues is being addressed this week, from education in Haiti and the floods in Pakistan to women’s empowerment and market-based sustainable initiatives. Clinton featured several commitment makers during the opening session, including a group called Bell Bajao, which will be globalizing their campaign against domestic violence. It’s a great example of the kinds of small-scale innovations the conference promotes. You can watch some of their short videos and see for yourself.

The themes of change and hope give the conference a very feel-good atmosphere. For better or worse, there is very little critical dialogue about the causes of world poverty, the environmental crisis, and gender inequality—issues that CGI commitment makers are trying to tackle through their initiatives. CGI is all about tangible solutions and grassroots pragmatism.

Honorary guests at the opening session include the Presidents of Rwanda, Vietnam, Israel and more, including Charly’s personal idol, NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. According to Clinton, 67 current and former heads of state are present at this year’s conference. We also spied Maggie Gyllenhaal in the crowd and stumbled upon Avril Lavigne’s tweet about attending the conference (Canada represent!).

This afternoon we attended the Education Keynote lunch with presenter Geoffrey Canada, Meg’s personal idol, the Plenary Session on empowering women with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and a special session on peace in the Middle East moderated by former president Clinton with participants Salam Fayyad, Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, and Shimon Peres, President of the State of Israel. Stay tuned for our video coverage later this week, and remember: TVMcgill has a mandate to represent you at this conference, so if you have any questions or want us to know what issues matter to you, please let us know by sending an email to news@tvmcgill.com, and we’ll look for answers.

-Charly & Meg

Setting up the equipment before the start of the Opening Plenary Session

Strategizing in Columbus Circle

TVMcGill tweets during former president Bill Clinton’s opening remarks