Miami, U.S.A. — NFL Hall of Famer Nick Buoniconti and his son Marc of the The Buoniconti Fund, the fundraising arm of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, hosted an inspirational evening with more than 2,000 guests to celebrate Destination Fashion 2012. Held at Miami’s famed Bal Harbour Shops, Saks Fifth Avenue Bal Harbour presented Emilio Pucci’s Spring 2013 Fashion Show Designed by Peter Dundas, which was followed by an interactive destination party experience and private concert by Enrique Iglesias.

Tom Brokaw hosted the evening, which was chaired by Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones and International Polo Sensation Ignacio “Nacho” Figueras and raised $31 million for The Miami Project.

The staggering amount raised at the event was the result of some especially magnanimous donors who made announcements that astounded the sold-out crowd. The surprises began when Christine E. Lynn, who was being honored with the Humanitarian Award and is a Buoniconti Fund Board Member and longtime supporter, announced a gift of $25 million that would go to build state-of-the-art spinal cord injury surgical suites, surgical intensive care units and rehabilitation center. The new tower, to be called the Christine E. Lynn Tower for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, will house surgical suites, an in-patient rehabilitation hospital and rehabilitation research entities that will enhance the Miami Project’s research efforts toward finding a cure for paralysis.

Buoniconti Fund Board Member Paul DiMare and his wife Swanee, who were also honored during the evening with The Buoniconti Fund Award, and Tim Gannon, Buoniconti Fund Board Member and one of the founders of Outback Steakhouse, each gave an additional$1 million to the cause.

“This collective effort from globally known celebrities and philanthropists is a remarkable testament to their commitment to The Buoniconti Fund’s efforts and the research conducted at The Miami Project,” saidNick Buoniconti, founder of The Buoniconti Fund. “Destination Fashion is an event without compare that helps promote awareness and raises funds for a cause that affects millions of people worldwide and has an economic impact in the billions of dollars. That is why it is imperative that we succeed in our mission of finding a cure for paralysis, and tonight goes a long way to helping us get there.”

The November 10 affair included the presentation of the Inspiration Award to Micky and Madeleine Arison, the Champion for a Cure Award went to Edie Laquer and the Laquer Foundation, the Humanitarian Award to Christine E. Lynn, The Buoniconti Fund Award to Paul and Swanee DiMare , and the Philanthropist Award to Beatrice and Dr. Sanford Ziff.

Following the Emilio Pucci Fashion show and dinner, tribute was paid to The Buoniconti Fund’s notable 2012 Women of Substance and Style, who walked down the runway accompanied by Celebrity Presenters. The evening culminated with guests dancing to the musical stylings of DJ Irie and traveled their way through the shops, which were transformed into “The Destinations” of locations from around the world such as Asia, Africa and the Americas. Bal Harbour Shops donated one-of-a-kind silent auction items including a Harry Winston diamond timepiece valued at more than $34,000, Tiffany & Co. platinum and diamond earrings valued at $11,000 and Warren Henry Auto donated a year lease for the new Range Rover Evoque, to name a few.

Notable celebrities and presenters included: Steve Alaimo, Moises Alou, Stanley Bahnsen, Rick Barry,Bob Beamon, Woody Bennett, Bruce Bowen, Miguel Cabrera, Helio Castronoves, Jeff Conine, Channing Crowder, Christopher Cuomo, Gil de Ferran, Colin Egglesfield, Todd English, Scott Erickson, Mike Eruzione, Emilio Estefan, Gloria Estefan, Rod Gilbert, Tim Hardaway, Randall Hill, Marvin Jones, James Lafferty, Brad Leland, Danell Levya, Rex Linn, Joe Manganiello, Mercury Morris, Alonzo Mourning, Tony Nathan, Wayne Newton, John Offerdahl, Louis Oliver, Tony Perez, Mike Piazza, Errict Rhett, Brett Romberg, Mark Rypien, Matthew Settle, Dwight Stephenson, Tico Torres, Aiden Turner, EJ Viso and Jed Weaver.

Destination Fashion 2012 was presented by Micky and Madeleine Arison. Destination Fashion Champion for a Cure: Edie Laquer and The Laquer Foundation join Event, Continent and Ocean Sponsors including Bal Harbour Shops, Bal Harbour Village, Barton G., Carnival Corporation & plc., Coastal Construction Group, Susan and Mark Dalton, Wayne Gaunce, Kim and James Pallota. Scene Sponsors Anthony R. Abraham Foundation, Bunny Bastian, Trish and Dan Bell, Chanin and Adam Carlin, Roberta and Harvey Chaplin, City National Bank, Swanee and Paul DiMare, The Fairholme Foundation, Mary and Howard Frank, Richard Gray, Gretchen and Jay Jordan, Kandy and Jeffrey Kramer, Krupnick Campbell Malone Buser Slama Hancock et al, Lauren’s Kids, Christine E. Lynn, Robert and Judi Prokop Newman, Victoria Ranger Nunez and Mike Nunez, Simkins Rubell Family, Stamps Family Charitable Foundation, Laura and Irwin Tauber and Beatrice and Dr. Sanford Ziff.

Sponsors including American Airlines, Atlantico Rum, Aventura Worldwide Transportation Service, Chateau Group – Chateau Beach Residences, Comcast, Departures, FranklinDodd Communications, Ocean Drive Magazine, One Bal Harbour Resort and Spa, and Quarzo Bal Harbour Boutique Hotel, Saks Fifth Avenue Bal Harbour, Selecta Magazine, Southern Wine and Spirits, The St. Regis Bal Harbour Resort and Tiffany & Co., Warren Henry Auto Group.

For more information about The Buoniconti Fund, please visit: www.thebuonicontifund.com, Facebook, orTwitter.

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Chicago, U.S.A. – Chicago Ideas Week (CIW), the annual seven-day celebration of ideas, innovation, and community geared towards turning provocative ideas into action, announced its speakers for this year’s program, taking place October 8-14, 2012. Tickets are currently on sale and details can be found at www.chicagoideas.com.

“Chicago Ideas Week is once again bringing together some of the world’s top innovators and thinkers to share their ideas and engage with our vibrant Chicago community,” said Brad Keywell, founder and co-chairman of Chicago Ideas Week. “By doubling the size of the event this year, we are continuing to build a platform for provocative ideas, bold thinkers, and active members of our community, creating an ecosystem that will spark new initiatives and ventures.”

CIW will host over 130 thought-provoking Talks, Labs, and other events throughout the week with the goal of inspiring new perspectives and activating new relationships and initiatives. Events and speakers vary from a discussion on sustainable design by jewelry designer Monique Péan to a demonstration of the first humanoid robot by Dennis Hong. Other confirmed speakers include:

• David Gregory, moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press”
• Eva Paterson, president of Equal Justice Society
• Kohl Crecelius, CEO & Co-Founder of Krochet Kids International
• Chris Hughes, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, The New Republic
• Tim Ferriss, Best-Selling Author of  “4-Hour Work Week”
• Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Academy Award-Winning Journalist and Filmmaker
• Brandon Boyd, Artist and Lead Singer of Incubus

These speakers are some of the 200 innovators, creators and leaders presenting on themes such as social entrepreneurship, the future of food, military, explorers, the latest personal technology, philanthropy and giving, scientific breakthroughs, and more.

Chicago Ideas Week is generously supported by several integral partners, including: TIME, JPMorgan Chase, Starcom MediaVest Group, Leo Burnett Worldwide, MSLGROUP, Illinois Office of Tourism,University of Illinois, United Airlines, Hyatt, Microsoft, McCormick Foundation, Walgreens, The Joyce Foundation, Cars.com, Ernst & Young, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, Crain’s Chicago Business, NBC 5 Chicago, WBEZ91.5, Lefkofsky Family Foundation, Grosvenor Capital Management, The Pritzker Group, Accenture, Turnstone, Boeing, CBRE, DLA Piper, and Harrington College of Design.

For more information on the CIW Member Program, interested parties may contact us at membership@chicagoideas.com.

About Chicago Ideas Week

Chicago Ideas Week is a premier annual gathering of global thought leaders created to provoke new ideas and inspire actionable results. CIW is a platform of events and interactive experiences, created for innovators, thinkers, doers and interested citizens from across Chicago, the greater Midwest, and the world. CIW’s goal is to stimulate new initiatives and ventures, create new connections and collaborations, and establish a community of people who have the desire to achieve great things. For more information, please visit www.chicagoideas.com or visit us on Twitter at @ChicagoIdeas for updates.

Image Courtesy of    TechCocktail

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‘Big Miracle’ is set to open in cinemas around the US on February 3. Playing out in 1988, with the absence of smart phones, online social networks and instant wireless, three California gray whales were trapped off the coast of Barrow, Alaska, during their annual migration in October of that year, but still managed to find their way to the news.

One onlooker of the unfolding rescue was journalist Thomas Rose, whose book “Freeing the Whales” was published in 1989. Rose’s story, originally released as an article in the now defunct Spy magazine and later lengthened into book form, chronicled the events surrounding the tremendous rescue effort on behalf of the three ice-locked gray whales off the shores of Barrow.

When a local news photographer sent video coverage of the animals breaching in a small breathing hole hewn from thick ice, footage found its way from the bureau desk in Anchorage all the way to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw’s national evening newscast.

Soon, the plight of the whales captured international interest and resulted in a media frenzy that overtook the small city. The residents of the northernmost — and perhaps coldest — town in America were inundated with press. For a sleepy whaling town coming to grips with a changing way of life, this would be one of the biggest mixed blessings to present itself all century.

But it wasn’t just the Fourth Estate that had a vested interest in this human-interest tale. The story caught the attention of the Reagan White House, then focused upon the upcoming November election campaign of Vice President George H.W. Bush. Looking to position Bush as a pro-environment candidate and engage the federal government in the humanitarian effort, the Reagan team enlisted the aid of staffer Bonnie Mersinger, the executive assistant for cabinet affairs, in its efforts.

“President Reagan stopped by my office in the West Wing that night,” recalls Bonnie Mersinger Carroll, technical advisor for ‘Big Miracle’. “He had seen that the National Guard was involved, and he wondered what the White House could do to help. Since I was also a Guardsman, he asked that I extend his offer of help to the Alaska National Guard. And that’s how I met Tom Carroll.”

Col. Tom Carroll was serving as commander of one of the major battalions of the Alaska National Guard when he received a barrage of phone calls from Mersinger. Although initially put in charge of moving a behemoth hover barge across the ice, Carroll soon found his mission to be impossible and suggested the use of a Soviet icebreaker for the rescue of the pod of whales.

“This was before the Berlin Wall came down,” says Mersinger Carroll, “so this contact between America and the Soviet Union would prove extraordinary. It was a step toward world peace at the time.” It wasn’t until 1992 that Rose’s story of sensationalism, camaraderie and humanity caught the attention of fledgling television writers Jack Amiel and Michael Begler.

Though curious about the story in ’88, their attentions were then elsewhere. “My sister, Andrea, was working for Dan Rather at CBS News,” recalls Amiel. “She thought the story would spark our interest as the basis for a film, although Michael and I were focused on writing for television at the time.” The screenwriters kept Rose’s story on the back burner and revisited it in 2001, when they were establishing themselves as feature-film writers.

They purchased the rights to his book and renewed them for nearly a decade as they wrote drafts of the script. “Our source material was Rose’s book and the news footage of the time,” adds Begler. “But a lot of what we wrote was very real. We had to embellish and create new characters to form the story, but we wanted to stay consistent with what really happened for two long weeks out on the ice in 1988.”

The fact that two of the whales were eventually freed and returned to the open ocean made the story an overwhelming media favorite. Topping it off was the fact that — in an unprecedented thaw in the Cold War above the Arctic Circle — two superpowers put aside their differences and worked together for the good of the mission.

“The American icebreakers had all been waylaid or placed in dry dock by October,” explains Begler, “so the Soviet ship was the only one available. The use of the Soviet ship was a big gesture from the Reagan administration and the Gorbachev government. Cooperation also made them both look good to a watching and waiting world.”

The writers took the screenplay to the principals of their management company Anonymous Content, Steve Golin and Michael Sugar, who helped to shape it. Eventually, both came onto the project as producers, alongside Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, co-chairmen of the feature’s production company, Working Title Films.

“Michael brought the script to my attention,” recalls Golin. “I felt like this could be a movie about people working for common goals, even if they did not agree philosophically. Ken (Kwapis, director) understood that tone of the film. He brought a sense of humor and an everyman touch, while also seeing it as a moving, emotional and inspirational story.”

Although Rose’s book dates back to the late ’80s, Sugar believed that Amiel and Begler’s script could have been drawn from today’s headlines. “We thought that given what was happening in the world at the time, this story would resonate well in the present,” says Sugar. “Even though it is several years old, it is relevant as a story of modern humanity and shows the spirit of change.

In 1988, information was not as free-flowing; except for CNN, we didn’t have 24-hour newscasts like we do today. This story was like a rumor spread around the world and helped by the emerging use of satellite transmission.”

Image Courtesy of   https://www.facebook.com/bigmiraclemovie

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