Hello, everyone. My name is Devi and I am a software developer. My talk is based on what I have learned in my service efforts which are part of a worldwide framework for action for um to build vibrant communities inspired by the Baha teachings.This is an educational process that seeks to raise capacity within a population to take charge of its own social spiritual and intellectual development. As a software developer, I have learned to be systematic and in my service efforts, I have had the opportunity to take the same approach today.

I want to invite you all to become agents of change in society before I start, let me, let me clarify what I, when I talk about spirituality, I refer to the process of developing our spiritual qualities which are universal to all human beings. Some of these are generosity, compassion, resilience. The other thing I want to clarify is that by service, I mean the action of helping others doing volunteer work. Some of you are volunteers at this conference. Well, that is service. We all want a better world, right? Well, we can reach it if we all put an effort to walk on a path of service together, contributing to the betterment of society is the most noble action we can engage ourselves on um as society experienced advancement only through the service, the service of its individuals. And I know there are a lot of aspects in our lives that we need to take care of like work, education, family, life, health, et cetera. And we're already busy enough, right? But I know it can seem hard to incorporate the service aspect. But did you know that if service becomes the center of our lives and we infuse everything with a spirit of service? It gives meaning and purpose to everything I know. Service requires self sacrifice, but we should not put it off until we have more time because through service, we left to live a coherent and integrated life, we live behind the fragmented approach that for example, gives us past choices such as should I dedicate to education or to service?

Actually, we can see our education as a way to promote the well being of humanity or use our profession as a way to transform society because service is an arena in which knowledge can be gained applied and tested. For example, when we serve, we develop capacities such as patience, consultation, creativity, a humble posture of learning, technical skills and many more. And in our professional lives, we get soft skills, we get um to learn stuff like training others, coordinations, cooper, operation, time management, leadership.

Empathy and many more. Well, all of these are needed in every aspect of our lives. In other words, each aspect reinforces and is reinforced by the others. And let's look at this quote. In fact, we should direct our efforts efforts to a twofold moral purpose. This means to simultaneously take charge of our own personal development and to contribute to the transformation of society. Individuals affect society and society affects the individuals. It's a reciprocal relationship. And also this transformation needs to be a material and spiritual one.

But sadly, we can see in the world that uh it's infused with a lot of self-interest everywhere. We look usually at the expense of the common good. But we can see that there are destructive and constructive forces operating in society and we want to be part of the constructive ones, right? So we need to learn to analyze and understand them and recognize how they influence us and how we can counteract them. Can you think about some of these um forces? But let's not see ourselves as victims. Uh We are all a source of intellectual and social potential that can be channeled towards constructive ends. We can all become social actors working towards the transformation of civilization and we should be the cause of the education, the development, the prosperity and honor of others. Self, the service to others is fundamental to our own improvement. See each one of us has talents, but we need to work to find and develop them so that we can dedicate them to the betterment of the world. Um Can you imagine what would happen if everyone would use their talent for the benefit of the, of the me sorry for the betterment of society, for true development to happen. We need to benefit from the aggregation of everyone's talents.

And luckily, we can discover these and develop them in the field of service. We could, for example, do some volunteer work that involves talents such as art, sports, leadership, logistics, technical skills, et cetera. You could even end up mentoring and discover that teaching is one of your talents.

And I know we all dream of a prosperous and just world, but the world is so big and we can feel our efforts are insignificant. That is why it's important to start at the local community level at the grassroots. Um That way we can identify our immediate reality and address local needs. And this will, this will help us empower others and actually empower the local people so that they take charge of their own progress, see themselves as protagonists who act for a positive charge change.

Sorry, I'm nervous with unity of vision and purpose in an environment of um encouragement and mutual support which uh promote universal participation besides locality. Um A community could be, could be formed based on other things such as common interest, professional or social.

Like we can form a stem community that dedicates to the development of society or immediate society or immediate community. Speaking about needs, the un sustainable Development Goals can help us identify some of them. Um We could address with our, with our service efforts. Let's go back to that one. And then one cool thing about service is that we will find other people who also want to serve and we will spend time and have meaningful conversations with them and this will most likely form um true and lasting friendships. Isn't that cool? Another thing is that we need to realize the oneness of humanity to be motivated to work for it. Like we are a single human family like the human body. If one part is ill, the whole body is affected. And then let's look at another quote. Mhm See service to all mentoring. Remember we are all protagonists of this not passive receivers. We can transform our world materially and spiritually one community at a time. Let's say we are builders of a new and prosperous civilization, but we can't wait. Our time is limited and it is our duty to generate apply and diffuse knowledge as it is the moving forces of our civilization. And it is key for our efforts to be sustainable and bring lasting change and we might not see immediate results but rest assured that we are sowing the seeds for the future. Also, the service is not an item to be checked off our to do list.

The idea is to have a life dedicated to service. And I want you to always remember that every effort carried at the grassroots, no matter how little it is, is a building block to humanity's prosperity. Well, thank you everyone for joining and feel free to ask me any question in the chat and I will try to answer it in the minute we have, we have left. Um Also you can reach me on Twitter or linkedin. And thanks again.