The Poverty Action Conference convened at UMW with three world-class speakers, 14 global poverty experts, 17 student presenters, and a dozen exhibits by such graduate schools as Georgetown and Johns Hopkins universities. The October conference, organized by Shawn Humphrey, associate professor of economics, and his students, was part of an ongoing effort to end global poverty. Humphrey also initiated the student-run microfinance group La Ceiba and conference host Two Dollar Challenge. Speaker Jonathan Lewis, founder and host of iOnPoverty, energized listeners with his words and left feeling energized by the conference. The lecturer at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, University of California, Berkeley, is known for his blogs at The Huffington Post and the Skoll Foundation’s Social Edge. Lewis wrote: The Poverty Action Conference is extremely valuable in three respects: One, students with powerful learnings from overseas projects can and do share them with peers. … [Read more...]