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Open Forum is an independent collaborative think-tank built around an interactive discussion website hosted and moderated by Global Access Partners (GAP). It provides a platform for focused dialogue on social, political, economic, ecological and cultural issues and challenges.

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1st National Pain Summit launched


In Canberra on 10 March 2010 The Hon. Nicola Roxon MP declared the first National Pain Summit open, remarking that "Given the breadth and importance of the topic it may be odd to outsiders that such a conference on such a topic has not been held before – but you are breaking new ground, as indeed we are by showing the leadership needed to stabilise and secure health investments for the future". 


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Congratulations Refugee Buddy


Last weekend 5-7 March 2010 was the innaugral OZ SI Camp.  Congratulations to all the teams, with a special mention to the prize winners. In third place Emergent Reality's initiative ISIS, or Interlocked Social Information Systems, from the collaboration that began as Citizen Driven Stats. In second place The 2 Bob's Worth crew. And taking out first place was (drumroll) Refugee Buddy, sign up to be a buddy today at www.refugeebuddy.org


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Congratulations to our bloggers on 2010 Australia Day honours


Steve Lawrence was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to the community through leadership roles in the development and implementation of not-for-profit ventures to create social change, particularly for youth and the long-term unemployed. Warwick Watkins was made a member of the Order of Australia for service to spatial information and natural resource management through leadership roles within a range of public sector agencies. To find out more about their passions in their own words check out Steve's blog and Warwick's blog today.


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Blog of the Day

Leighton Jenkinss picture

Walmart, Carbon, and Lessons for Woolworths


posted by Leighton Jenkins, Mar 11, 2010

In the USA Walmart have found a way to leverage their buying power to make a significant impact on their carbon footprint. Could Tesco in the UK and Woolworths in Australia implement the same model? 

The recent announcement by Walmart to reduce its carbon footprint has thrown down the challenge to other global retailers such as the UK’s Tesco and Australia’s Woolworths. Until this announcement all three essentially had drawn an imaginary wall around their business and set targets that were, a) related to their direct property and operations, b) therefore under their direct control. A diagram from the Tesco site shows this quite clearly.

The Walmart announcement goes much further whereby they announced that they would remove 20m metric tons of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Global Supply Chain by 2015. This is new and different as they will now work with their suppliers and look at  the entire lifecycle of a product, from sourcing of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, customer use to end-of-life disposal.

 


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Featured Forum

Pain Management


One in five Australians will suffer chronic pain in their lifetime, yet up to 80% living with this debilitating condition are missing out on treatment that could improve their health and quality of life. People with acute pain (after surgery or trauma) or cancer pain are effectively treated only 50% of the time.

An MBF Foundation report conducted by Access Economics has estimated that chronic pain costs the Australian economy $34 billion per annum.

Expert and community feedback is currently being sought on the Draft National Pain Strategy. Some of the key issues up for discussion are: recognising pain as a disease,  destigmatising pain, recognising pain as the fifth vital sign and how to help people better manage their pain.

Open Forum will be featuring the ideas of some of the speakers and delegates of the upcoming National Pain Summit in Canberra, in this online discussion forum dedicated to Pain Management. To participate, simply follow the links below to read the related blogs and login to leave a comment.


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Pain Management featured forum

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National Pain Summit

Thu, 11/03/10- Lesley Brydon
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Organiser Lesley Brydon reveals how the National Pain Summit got started.

Refugee Buddy takes the OZ SI Camp Changemaker Quiz

Thu, 11/03/10- Joy Suliman
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Open Forum invited all of the Changemakers who have had their ideas selected as projects to be developed at the innaugrual Australian Social Innovation Camp, 5-7 March 2010, to join us for a quick Q&A.  Joy Suliman, creator of Refugee Buddy went first. Here's what she told us.

Harriet from Citizen Driven Stats takes the OZ SI Camp Changemaker Quiz

Thu, 11/03/10- Harriet Wakelam
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Harriet Wakelam, co-creator of Citizen Driven Stats takes Open Forum's SI Camp Changemaker Quiz.

Good News TV takes the OZ SI Camp Changemaker Quiz

Thu, 11/03/10- Sohail Dahdal
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Sohail Dahdal, creator of Good News TV takes Open Forum's SI Camp Changemaker Quiz.

Russell from Citizen Driven Stats takes the OZ SI Camp Changemaker Quiz

Thu, 11/03/10- Russell Kallaman
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The Market Fever Index – issue 3

Mon, 08/03/10- patrickcallioni
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Patrick Callioni’s hypothetical Market Fever Index is constructed by reference to a Google search for news items that mention “shares”, “stocks” and “bonds” over a period of seven days. The underlying assumptions are that the number of items would be a good proxy for the level of activity in the global financial markets.