Aug. 31 - Sept. 3, 2007
Westin St. Francis
Union Square
San Francisco, CA
Conference Venue: “Westin St. Francis”
Other accommodations close by:
Sir Francis Drake
Hyatt San Francisco
Hilton San Francisco
Flight options from $88 round-trip (prices subject to change)
INSPIRE OVERVIEW
Leadership.
Inspire provides our attendees with workshops, panels, and real opportunities to build leadership skills, such as public speaking, networking and fundraising.
Active leadership does not necessarily require a career change. You can support the independent arts, vote for APA political candidates, or donate bone marrow. Each one of our breakout sessions will be sponsored by a different APA community organization, so our attendees can familiarize themselves with the many nonprofits in the Bay Area and beyond.
Every attendee is required to make a personal pledge to give back to our community, as part of our “Inspire Initiative”. As we progress over the years, APA | FIVE will follow up with conference participants to see their progress and share success stories.
Mentorship.
INSPIRE / 07 organizes our participants into pre-assigned clusters of leaders based on similar interests that serve as a home base for workshops, luncheons and icebreakers. Every family will have "big siblings" who have volunteered to serve as mentors and ensure progress towards your aspirations. Additional opportunities to connect with established leaders will also be available throughout the three day conference.
During Registration, each attendee will submit a detailed description of their interests and reasons for joining INSPIRE / 07. The attendee will then be placed in a group with others who share similar interests, whether it’s eating at new restaurants, working abroad in Asia, or getting involved in local politics.
Friendship.
It is the collective obligation of each individual participant to open up and realize that everyone else at the conference is attending for the same reasons. However, we will offer plenty of opportunities to get to know each other better with Icebreakers, Interactive Workshops, Special Receptions and Evening Activities such as our Monte Carlo Night and Charity Poker Tournament or our Late-Night Film Screenings.
Also, the environment of INSPIRE is conducive to open exchanges, so we encourage participants to go ahead and leave during a panel to check out another session or to chat with people outside. There may be special workshops to develop leadership skills where all attendees will be expected to stay throughout the session, but we generally expect you to take advantage of every opportunity to meet your fellow leaders!
INSPIRE can only facilitate your interactions with active leaders that are outside your immediate social circles, but it is, of course, the responsibility of our attendees to build truly close friendships with one another.
Our Attendees:
INSPIRE '07 targets all members of the APA community, but with a particular focus on young potential leaders: recent college graduates to early/mid- career level professionals. We hope to help student leaders who emerged from college and are suddenly thrust into the real world without any mentors or guides as to how to navigate their careers and personal growth. We also seek to reach those leaders who have already met success in their professional sectors and are looking for a way to contribute to the Asian Pacific American community. Finally, we wish to bring in our more established leaders and role models to serve as group mentors or speakers on various issues.
Our Substance:
The topics covered at INSPIRE are relevant, cutting-edge, and beneficial to all, regardless of professional background. We all need to learn better marketing, we all need to think about giving back to our community, we all need to work harder to ensure that the next generation has it easier than we did. Our conference sessions are separated into four tracks: Culture, Career, Community and Skills Workshops. We also have dedicated time periods for our attendees to organically set up their own group sessions to discuss other issues that we could not cover during the limited timeframe.
Our real focus is on networking and mentorship, while building a structure for the APA community to come together. By providing our attendees with a 3-day conference, packed with enlightening panels, workshops, social events and other opportunities to interact, we make it easier to meet all the other APA leaders who will be future business partners, investors, volunteers, co-founders or friends.
Our History:
INSPIRE is based on the ASPIRE conferences of ’96 and ’99, whose speakers included such distinguished leaders as Jerry Yang, John Chen, David Chu, Fred Korematsu, Iris Chang, Angela Oh, Ming-Na Wen, George Takei, Kelly Hu, Norm Mineta, Mike Honda and Mayor Willie Brown. We are working closely with the organizers of these landmark gatherings to revive their vision.
The organizers of INSPIRE have over 15 years of event planning experience and include many leaders who have rallied together to combine our resources and intellect. We are all young professionals with expertise in marketing, legal, accounting, consulting, IT, graphic design, nonprofit, politics and small business.
INSPIRE is organized by a team of dedicated, unpaid volunteers who care very passionately about the need for more structured leadership and mentorship opportunities in the APA community. If you wish to help out, please email Brian at bwang@apafive.org
Our Funding:
Our conference is funded by donations from corporate sponsors or individuals like yourself. The conference registration fees are discounted as much as possible to ensure that access is not limited to those with money. With more sponsorships, we can keep the rates from increasing.
If you cannot attend but wish to support our mission to inspire the next generation of leaders, please consider making a contribution, to allow a young emerging leader to attend the conference for free. We will send you their scholarship application so you can learn more about the college student you are sponsoring and their personal aspirations.
