Deepseachallenge.com
In this special series, we’ll take a brief look at various different fearless inspirations from the past week or so. Whether it’s a fearless young change maker who is taking risks, a new publication that expresses bold and innovative ideas, or an organization that is promoting change and that is not afraid to fail forward—we want to shine a spotlight on them and their work in the hope that it will spark a new movement to Be Fearless.
As Jean Case, CEO of the Case Foundation says, “The old way of doing things is simply no longer effective in this new world. It’s time for us all to take risks on new ideas, approaches, and initiatives. It’s time for us to be bold, to act with urgency, and to resist the tendency to let caution be our guide. It’s time for us to Be Fearless.” Will you join us?
Yesterday, some of the Case Foundation team had the opportunity to join the National Geographic Society’s Explorers Symposium, where we heard impressive stories from archaeologists, scientists, and anthropologists on how technology is helping us to break barriers in exploration.
We learned how satellite imagery is unearthing Egypt’s hidden past, how various types of camera lenses are capturing nighttime movements of our planet’s creatures, and how iPhone apps are empowering connectivity. These explorers are doing fascinating and fearless work with technology to help us preserve our past and protect our future, as well as make it easy for us to absorb and understand information about our biology, psychology, and geography.
As a special treat, we got to see a clip from Deepsea Challenge, the new NatGeo documentary of James Cameron’s recent descent of 35,576 feet to the bottom of the ocean, and chat with Cameron, who calls himself an "explorer and sometimes filmmaker." Cameron, known for such blockbuster films as Avatar and Titanic, made the trip nearly seven miles below the ocean’s surface (just to put that in perspective, that is more than a mile deeper than Mt. Everest is high) to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench back in March of this year. Alone in a submersible called the Deepsea Challenger, he became the first man to reach the deepest point on the ocean floor.
At the Case Foundation, our focus is on fearlessness within nonprofits, business, government, and other organizations in the social change sector. But it is not difficult to view Cameron and the National Geographic team as fearless when you catch a glimpse of Cameron’s view from the ocean floor as he overcomes what has for so long been an impossible feat.
The expedition is reminiscent of the achievements and contributions of pioneers from generations past, such as Lewis and Clark, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Amelia Earhart, just to name a few. The thought of risking one’s own life and traveling into what is ostensibly another “world” left me speechless, inspired, and intrigued all at the same time. As Cameron told the audience at the symposium, “Explorations like this are risky. But they’re worth the risk.”
In our modern-day world where technology has made geographic boundaries far less of an obstacle in many ways, this expedition comes as a welcome reminder that there are still many new frontiers of different shapes and sizes to explore—even on our own planet. As Jean Case, CEO of the Case Foundation notes, “the world needs us to be fearless” and my hope is that this spirit of dreaming big, taking risks, acting boldly, and failing forward we will continue to drive innovation, experimentation…and in this case exploration.
Cameron’s accomplishment offers a single illustration of what one team of people working together can achieve. Indeed, there is still much more to be done–whether it’s ensuring that everyone in the world has access to clean water; finding solutions to our nation’s childhood obesity epidemic; or helping to create jobs in America…it is clear that more individuals, more organizations, and more communities must declare that they too will be fearless and take on our world’s most pressing challenges.
The idea that together, we can accomplish the seemingly impossible—like Cameron—is ultimately what inspires me to be fearless. What inspires you?
Jenna Sauber contributed to this blog post.