Q&A: Regent Square Woman Attends One Young World Summit

Sara Bates, 28, of Regent Square recently attended the One Young World Summit in Zurich, Switzerland.

She will now lend feedback to the next conference, which will be held in Pittsburgh in 2012. An associate attorney at K&L Gates downtown, Bates recently shared some of her experiences on the trip, which was held Sept. 1 to 4.

How did you get involved?

There were a few different ways to get involved. I was sponsored by K&L Gates. The Allegheny Conference on Economic Development formed the One Young World Summit partnership in an effort to bring it to Pittsburgh in 2012. They were asked to show their support by sending employees from Pittsburgh to the summit. My firm is a part of the Allegheny Conference and they sent me to show support. I practice primarily in the tax exempt organizations practice group.

What did you enjoy most?

The connections I made with the people there were what was important. One night, we had an event following the conference and I started talking with a person from Colombia, who is working on providing clean water to areas of his country that don’t have it. Just having a conversation with him about his struggles to get his feet off the ground, I was able to give him some insight on charitable giving and how he could reach out for funds from the United States. I was able to share some of my professional experience so he could help his own enterprise.

That was invaluable. I also met a few people working in similar fields and other areas abroad and have been in contact with them since I came back. One person who inspired me was another lawyer who works at a global law firm and I have been talking to him. These connections I have made with people who are very energetic and trying to do some good—it was incredible. Now, being able to reach out to someone in another country about what we are doing here is great.

What did you take away from the experience?

The summit was really incredible. It brought together 1,200 people from 170 different countries, so just meeting people from all over the world was an incredible experience and it’s an opportunity not offered by any conference I have ever attended before.

It was a great opportunity to meet people and see what they are doing in their country. While the purpose was to sensitize the attendees to global issues, the thing that made it real was working with people who deal with issues like clean water every day. It really brought it to light that these are things real people are dealing with every day. That was the most valuable thing I got out of the conference.

How did you feel when you were chosen to attend?

I was very excited. It was a great honor for the firm to select me and I think they did so because of the tax exempt work that I do and it was really a great honor. The firm doesn’t make those types of decisions lightly. The fact that they selected me was certainly very exciting and it was excellent.

The conference is coming to Pittsburgh next year and the plan is for the 2011 delegation to get together to talk about goals for next year, what we liked and disliked, and hopefully have our feedback shape the conference for next year.

The last day of the conference, they announced that the bid from Pittsburgh was unmatched and it was really unbelievable to be able to show Pittsburgh pride on an international stage.