 There are a lot of great ideas to make Maine a better place to live and work. The Institute for Civic Leadership is bringing together 16 innovators who will share their ideas on how to make an impact in Maine and around the globe. Arthur Nichols spoke with the group's executive director, Jan Kiers, about the event. Hi Jan, thanks for coming. Well hi Arthur, I'm very delighted to be here. Great, so we're here to talk about a big event that ICL is putting on for the Maine community. Yes we are. Go ahead, tell us about that. Tell you about the event. Yeah, tell us about ICL first. First, okay, we're glad to. Well ICL has been around for almost 20 years in our community. And that ICL stands for? The Institute for Civic Leadership. Right, okay, yeah. But we were formed with the idea that there is so much untapped leadership potential in our community. And so for the last 20 years we have been meeting that challenge essentially of identifying that untapped leadership and really empowering them to do even more as leaders. So individually with organizations we run programs that are all about strengthening leadership. So we have a nine month long leadership intensive, that's 14, 15 days over that nine months. And in that time people learn a lot about themselves as leaders as well as how to collaborate across sectors in service to solving some of our community issues or strengthening their organizations. Okay, and is that focused primarily toward nonprofits or to the profit world as well, for profit world as well? Our leadership intensive, our consulting services and our work with the Hanley Center are all cross sector work. We think that the answers in our communities don't lie in just one sector. It takes nonprofits, businesses, public sector, all of us to not only seize the opportunities we have in this great state but also to solve some of the challenges. Great. And so you have a program coming up that you're here to tell us about. The TEDxDirigo Exchange, I think it's called, right? It's TEDxDirigo Engage. Engage is the theme. TEDxDirigo is the name of the organization. TED, there's a big TED organization that has events around the world that highlights leaders and thought leaders and innovation. TEDxDirigo is the local version of that. And ICL, as I mentioned, focuses on leadership. We really believe that there are so many people in our state that are engaged in such innovative and creative ways in not only benefiting their communities but the economy, helping in social issues. So there are many ways in which people are stepping up. And so we are partnering with TEDxDirigo for an event on May 19th, 2012, which is all about highlighting those leaders and bringing them to the stage. We are working also in collaboration with USM. They're the host site for the event at the University of Southern Maine. And over at Haniford Hall, we'll be bringing 16 people to the stage who will be sharing with us what they're doing in individual ways or large-scale cross-sector ways to help improve or meet a challenge. I should say, that's going on in our state. We have such innovative people. It's been a lot of fun interviewing many of them. And then having the task of narrowing it down and choosing the 16 that come to the stage has been both my honor and my challenge, my difficulty. Are there clear topics that you're going to try to address or discuss? Well, sure. We're sticking with the theme of engage. And what that's all about is asking or answering, asking and answering the question, how can people engage in their communities to create the biggest difference? Every TED event that you go to usually have some type of focus on multiple topic areas. So engage is the theme, but we have people talking about technology, people talking about fisheries, farms, food, community service. So it runs that whole gamut with the theme being engage. Okay, so once again, it's coming up pretty soon, right? It is. On May 19th. May 19th. And where is it? It's at the Hanifurt Hall at the USM campus. Great. Here in Portland. Great. And what is the timing of it? It runs from 10 o'clock in the morning until 6 o'clock in the evening. There are three sessions of speakers. Lots of break time because one of the magic, one of the magical parts of the whole event is what happens in between the speaking sessions. So the audience comes together to talk about what they've heard. Typically they leave inspired and they also have an opportunity to ask the question, what can I do? How can I make a difference? So are people, will people need to reserve a space for this event? They do. They have to apply to attend at the tedexdirago.com website. And so they can find out more information there and also at your website, STLs. They can, at civicleadership.org. Okay. Those are the two ways to find out more, both about the conference on the 19th and of course about 20 years of work that we've been doing in our community to strengthen leadership. Great. Thanks very much. Have a successful event. You're welcome. Thank you. I appreciate it, Arthur. Good to be here.