Intervention of Mr. Thomas McDevitt in session 9 at ILC2020

Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, Excellencies and Dr. Atanga, thank you for that kind introduction. I’m sorry I can’t join you live in Zoom and had to come to you through a video message.

I’m here in the Founders Room of The Washington Times where I serve as Chairman. I’ve been here for 28 years now. And I also serve as the Chairman of HJ Magnolia Global, as well as helping to coordinate IAED around the world. It is a pleasure to be with all of you. Especially I am honored to be on a panel with Joseph Busha who has become a hero of mine, Busha 54 and the races that you run all over Africa and the beautiful vision I saw, “To see and have a peaceful, prosperous and united people of Africa and the world.”

I actually took the pledge on your website. We are completely one in heart with that, in soul, spirit and action.

IAED is a new effort that is under the umbrella of the Universal Peace Federation. It was founded in February of 2020 in Seoul Korea at the behest of Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon. It was a brilliant strategic move that many of us were waiting for, to bring together the best brightest minds and practitioners in business, economy, investment and entreprenerism.

The summit gathered over 5,000 delegates and it convened under those basic themes of interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values.

We did a resolution at that time with the 500 people that were there for the business conference that included people like Jim Rodgers, Neil Bush who’s the son of George H. W. Bush, former President of the United States. He’s the chairman of Points of Light foundation that helps encourage corporate volunteerism.

We had people like Prof. Bill Eineke, a famous author from Columbia University, who’s one of leading experts on value-oriented investments, or “social value investing.”

It was a great conference. But from there we built networks all over the world, in every region of the world. And that is what this conference is coming to here.

One point in our resolution that we came up with is that “we affirm our belief that business leaders have opportunity and the responsibility to work in collaboration with other sectors of society to make the world a better place, addressing its most significant challenges and promoting world peace, long term mutual prosperity and truly sustainable development.”

What we do is important. We are just building this network around the world. We envision it to be thousands of people in the near future. Rooted in these principles we seek to build a network of business, government and economic thought leaders committed to driving economic development toward establishing a global environment of interdependence and mutual prosperity.

We do this in three ways…

Number one is professional development and thought leadership. We want to provide the best content that can inspire and motivate young entrepreneurs and seasoned veterans like many of you to take hold of the role of business and the question of purpose of economy, the purpose of wealth and that our businesses can make a difference in society.

And especially working between the public and private sectors and with those other areas of society that UPF is working in such as elected officials, religious leaders, academics, women and youth.

We think that it is time of international synergy like a grand strategy with global awakening of how we all fit together.

So, leadership development is number one.

Number two, building a community and network. We bring each other together, we can cross fertilize, we can learn from one another, do business with each other.

And most important create a community, a network that is not only in Africa, not only in Europe, Asia, the U.S., Canada, all the way through the world, every country, of people like yourselves who ascribe to that value perspective that life is more than what just what you see in the physical realm and we really are responsible for the future generations. And that we must break through at this time.

I love the way that Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon puts it when she spoke before a gathering of groups of Congressmen and parliamentarians from around the world.

Problems in the world are so complex that human efforts alone have not succeeded in solving them, and that’s especially true with the Covid-19 crisis and the political and security crises and the economic issues we all face.

She called for people to think differently; we cannot solve these issues with human efforts alone. We need to realize that there is a Creator. It’s a different shift of mindset. And you know how important mindset is in business. And that is why I like working with her and this organization.

So, leadership development, building a network that can be vibrant and then eventually turning our face to society to tackle the toughest problems. And doing it a way that only business people understand, with innovation, accountability, imagination and working across sectors.

For that reason, we want to invite you to work together with our great leadership in Africa, my good friend Rev. Kathy Rigney, the Chairperson of UPF, and Rev. Bakary Camara, I know you are going to be hearing from him soon. Dr. Michael Balcomb who is based up in London working together between Europe and Africa. It is a fabulous team of people. Jacques Marion, Dr. Otsuka and everyone else that is involved with this organization

We really believe the world is changing and we are going through a phenomenon that is greater in impact compared to the time when Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity or electricity emerged later on or when we built the internet.

Greater than all that technology in the physical realm of change, there is a great revolution of the human spirit that is taking place beyond race, beyond religious boundaries, beyond national ethnic boundaries.

It’s not just in the faith arena or the mental consciousness arena. It also involves business, it involves politics, culture, media, youth, women, academics. We have to transform culture, which is upstream from politics. And we have to do it together. We are truly a global family under one Creator.

It is a pleasure to address you today. I encourage you, lets work together, we need your leadership. Let’s band together and change the world. We can do it.

God bless you, God bless Africa, Europe, Eurasia and the Middle East.

Thank you very much.