George Lucas to Speak at
salesforce.com Dreamforce 2007 Conference
San Francisco, CA -- Salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference -- (September 18, 2007) -- Renowned filmmaker and educational visionary George Lucas spoke at today's salesforce.com Dreamforce 2007 conference as part of the keynote session (Watch Video). The Salesforce.com Foundation, the global leader in integrating philanthropy and business, invited Lucas as part of its increased focus on innovation in education and the critical need for businesses to better support educational programs.
Lucas shared his personal passion and commitment to education and the mission of The George Lucas Educational Foundation, an organization dedicated to creating a country where innovation in education is the rule, not the exception. Since its inception in 1991, the Foundation has continued to provide leading-edge interactive tools and resources for educators. Lucas encouraged conference attendees to more actively support education reform.
The George Lucas Educational Foundation's robust Edutopia.org Web site, award-winning Edutopia magazine, and Edutopia video focus on utilizing the latest technology tools to improve the learning process and document success stories in five key areas:
- Through project-based learning, students learn core subject matter and basic skills through rigorous assignments that examine real-world issues.
- Cooperative learning supports emotional intelligence as students collaborate to resolve conflicts to prepare themselves for the modern workplace.
- Integrated studies, in which academic subjects are presented in an interdisciplinary fashion, reflect modern knowledge and work.
- Comprehensive assessment measures the full range of student ability through multiple measures, including portfolios, presentations, and tests.
- Most important is the role of educators who coach and guide students through the learning process.
"Having Mr. Lucas speak about the need for positive change in all areas of education inspired the Salesforce.com Foundation to do the same with our corporate social responsibility programs," said Suzanne DiBianca, executive director of the Salesforce.com Foundation. "Salesforce.com is committed to helping leverage our ecosystem of partners and customers to get more involved in supporting education reform and The George Lucas Educational Foundation."
The Salesforce.com Foundation is dedicated to providing next-generation technology to fuel innovation at nonprofit organizations and educational institutions around the world. The George Lucas Educational Foundation and the Salesforce.com Foundation are partnering in their efforts to provide multimedia tools and technology to further the work of outstanding educators, administrators, and policy makers.
"There is no more important national priority than to bring our schools into the twenty-first century," said Milton Chen, PhD, executive director of The George Lucas Educational Foundation. "But first we all need to modernize our thinking about how powerful teaching and learning happens. Our two foundations share a vision of providing students and teachers with the technology tools they need and encouraging collaboration between businesses, nonprofit organizations, and schools. We look forward to sharing this vision at Dreamforce."
Dreamforce 2007 is being held September 16-19, 2007 at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center.
About The George Lucas Educational Foundation:
The George Lucas Educational Foundation, founded in 1991, is a nonprofit operating foundation that publishes media to document and disseminate the most innovative practices in K-12 education, including how technology offers many new opportunities for teaching and learning. Through its Edutopia.org Web site, the award-winning Edutopia magazine, and Edutopia video, the Foundation spreads the word about ideal learning environments and demonstrates how educators can build their own schools for the twenty-first century. To get involved, go to www.edutopia.org/support.
About the Salesforce.com Foundation:
The Salesforce.com Foundation is the leader in pioneering, evangelizing, and implementing the 1% Model, and using this model as a means to improve the lives of people around the world. The Salesforce.com Foundation harnesses the power of product and people to improve the lives of those in need. Using the unique 1/1/1 Model -- 1% Time, 1% Equity, 1% Product, and "one" with the earth -- the foundation reaches out to the community and increases the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations so they can better achieve their goals, which the Salesforce.com Foundation calls the Power of Us. The Salesforce.com Foundation concentrates on the use of technology, specifically as it relates to organizations with youth-development programs. The Salesforce.com Foundation has supported technology projects around the world that help kids in technology -- bereft urban and rural areas create a better future for themselves. Since July 2000, salesforce.com employees have given over 60,000 hours of their time and expertise, feeding the homeless, tutoring kids, improving nonprofit spaces, and offering hundreds of helping hands when the world is faced with devastating natural disasters. For more information on the Salesforce.com Foundation and its product-donation program, please visit www.salesforcefoundation.org.
About salesforce.com:
Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in on-demand business services. The company's Salesforce suite of on-demand CRM applications allows customers to manage and share all of their sales, support, marketing and partner information on demand. Force.com, the world's first on-demand platform, enables customers, developers, and partners to build powerful new on-demand applications that extend beyond CRM to deliver the benefits of multitenancy and the Business Web across the enterprise. Force.com allows applications to be easily shared, exchanged, and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange marketplace, available at www.salesforce.com/appexchange. Customers can also take advantage of Successforce, salesforce.com's world-class training, support, consulting, and best-practices offerings.
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