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Startracker

Yesterday was the first Startracker event in Mozambique. Startracker is a global talent network for Portuguese people. It is kind of like asmallworld but you have to be Portuguese and you have to have some kind of international experience. Cooler than facebook because it requires invitations, cooler than asmallworld because there is actually a sense of community. It is a place to show that Portugal is not that small and Portuguese people are doing great things around the world. A series of events have been happening in different cities and yesterday, Maputo was the place to be as a “Startracker”. João, an expat who seems to love organizing events (and is pretty good at it too) got Tiago, one of the founders, to stop by on his way to a family trip and gathered 90 of the 150 people Portuguese in Maputo that are Startrackers. He wants to make it to 500 by December, I think he can.
But better than that, he wants to help me out! Well, not me maybe, but the NGO. He proposed Um Pequeno Gesto to be the supported charity of the Mozambique branch and invited me to present to them. Luckily enough João (this time another one, the one that has been hanging out with us a lot) prepared an awesome (and I must use the American word here because it was really awesome) movie showing all that we do. It still amazes me to see all we can accomplish. After a movie like that, even shaking-Sara could do a speech, no-one would remember my words anyway, after the power of the pictures and the music he put together. And I did, and I even said a lot of what I thought I would say… that was a first! We got 21 sponsors for the children and closed the sponsorships for the year and we got furniture donations for the Nursery to see if we are able to get it going soon. And we got tons of supportive people offering their services, their knowledge, their network and their help. Even coming from Harvard, the power of this network still amazes me. Thank you Startracker!

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