by Lawrence Faulkner
After some years, I return to New York, the morning of 2nd December starts at 3am (it’s 9am in Italy, from where I arrived the night before). The day is devoted to visiting possible venues for Cure2Children in New York City. We are looking for an economic solution, providing an address and a phone number. Manhattan offers many solutions for virtual office’s with the possibility of renting a meeting room on a need only basis, I am quite satisfied with the solution offered by Manhattan Virtuals, 11th Floor, 115 East 57th Street ($150 per month).
In the evening I had dinner with Ira Dunkel and his lawyer (and brother-in-law) Robert Romano, who will request his partners to take on pro-bono legal assistance to Cure2Children USA. Ira agrees to act as Treasurer, I’m very happy, he’s a dear friend and a person of whom I have great esteem. As head of service for pediatric brain tumors at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (where we specialized together) he brings much credence and authority to Cure2Children.
The next morning I have an appointment at Funaro & Co., a large tax advisory office on the 41st floor of the Empire State Building. Asit Sarkar, a friend of Giorgio Righetti, devoted a lot of time to me, we had a long conversation about our project in India and on more general questions. A man full of humanity, he has two children who are doctors, one works in a very prestigious hospital in Boston affiliated with Harvard, and, as a student, did volunteer work for 3 months in Calcutta with Mother Teresa. This really took me aback, as according to the father, his daughter’s decision to become a doctor (and how to do it) was totally influenced by this. Asit has many contacts throughout the world and has committed to help Cure2Children in it’s projects. It was an extremely interesting meeting, thanks Giorgio.
At 12pm, in Grand Central Station to meet with Karl Weber, a member of Editros Alliance Consulting and editor of Muhammad Yunus’s book which came out in 2007: Creating a World Without Poverty. Eugene met him in Germany last November at the first international meeting of Grameen. At lunch we discussed for over an hour Cure2Children’s project on thalassemia in Bangladesh and of social business applicable to health. It was another meeting which was extremely interesting, and I believe it will bring important developments, thanks Eugenio.
The next morning at 6am a flight from New York, La Guardia to New Orleans, home to the annual congress of the American Society of Hematology, the most important annual meeting in bone marrow transplant, therapeutic applications of stem cells, thalassemia, leukemia, biotechnology etc. …