interviewer: aditi naik
photographs courtesy: think MTV
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Ian V. Rowe is the Vice President of Public Affairs at MTV.
photo | Thomas Lee |
I was born in London, England, raised in Jamaica,
West Indies and New York City. My parents focused my
energy and attention around education and injustice.
Unfortunately in our own lives, we had [experienced] a lot
of [injustice since my parents are] a black couple [who]
emigrated to Europe and then to the United States. They
always felt that it was important to somehow be a part of
the struggle to fight injustice, so throughout most of my
life I've tried to make decisions that honor that.
[After college] I worked in a management/consulting
role to help companies figure out how to use technology
to improve their businesses and bottom line. During
those six years I was doing a lot of mentoring work in
the New York City public schools. [However, as] I got
more frustrated with the state of schools, I [realized] that
becoming partner at this consulting firm was not how I
wanted to leave my mark on the world. I wanted to figure
out how to take what I had learned in the private sector
and apply [it to] the public sector - particularly in public
education. So I went to Harvard Business School. .
I started writing about issues that mattered to me for the
school newspaper. It was amazing that some of the issues
I wrote about on campus for the newspaper suddenly
became issues that students, the administration and
alumni responded to. It was interesting that the role our
newspaper played on campus was a microcosm for the role
that media can play in a much larger society.
I decided that I could fight injustice in some way by be[ing]
involved in the creation of either news or entertainment
content that touched on social issues. [This came to fruition
when] I met Wendy Kopp who founded Teach For America.
Teach For America's mission is specifically to put good
teachers in schools that many teachers abandon. I found
[their mission] to be inspiring, so when I graduated from
Harvard, I went to work at Teach For America for two years.
I learned a lot about how our education system works and
does not work for a lot of kids in this country who [are]
born into communities that just don't have access to the same
resources [that more privileged communities have]. I also
learned how Wendy Kopp used media. She was always able
to get coverage on issues of educational inequities on the
television, radio and news. She was incredibly instrumental in
raising money and building awareness around something that
was very emotional.
[After those two years,] my business partner [and I] created a
company together called Third Millennium Media where we
advise both for-profit and non-profit organizations on how
to raise awareness and money around the issue that they care
about [through] media in all of its forms - television, music
and now of course the Internet. . But then a few years
transpired and 9/11 hit. I wanted to in some way step it up,
[especially since] President Bush asked in his 2002 State of
the Union Address for all Americans to commit two years of
service to others.
Post 9/11 there was a huge outpouring on the part of
Americans who wanted not just a military response, but
[a response of ] real compassion. Through a series of events,
I was recommended to work at the White House [as] the
strategy director for USA Freedom Corps. For 18 months
[my job was to] come up with strategies to engage
individuals, non-profits and businesses on how to make
volunteer opportunities more easily accessible. .While I was
at the White House, an opportunity with "Choose or Lose"
emerged at MTV to help lead their efforts. It sounded like a
phenomenal opportunity to motivate more than 20 million
young Americans to vote for the next presidential election.
I left the White House and came to MTV in late 2003 to
lead that effort. |
It's actually a continuation of the story. Because "Choose or
Lose" was extraordinary, there was an overwhelming amount
of interest from young people. We set a goal of getting 20
million [of them] to vote. When the election happened and
they tallied the vote, more than 22 million 18-30 -year-olds
had voted - an extraordinary turnout. What we heard from
the audience immediately after the election was, "Hey thank
you MTV for helping us to engage in some of these issues!"
[However,] the same issues that had us really concerned are
still concerning us today, so we realized that we needed to
continue our engagement with the audience, not just on one
issue but all the issues that are relevant to them. We decided
that think is a great name to represent action [because it]
is the first step [in understanding] the "why" behind an
action. If we have a sexual health campaign and we ask young
people to get tested, we are not just asking them to get tested
because it's the cool thing to do, but [for them to] think
about their future, what it means to be in a relationship with
someone and to be honest and communicative. So we created
think MTV and think.mtv.com as an umbrella destination for
all of our activities. |
While visiting Luanda, Angola to experience firsthand the world water crisis, Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter spent the day with Bela, a
young school girl who walks half a mile twice daily to fill a 20 liter jug with water for herself and her family of six. Each
person should have 20 liters a day, Bela splits the 40 liters among five other family members. |
Typically, images of polar ice caps or polar bears that are
losing their hunting area are shown for [environmental
awareness]. And while that's terrible, many young people
didn't see how that was relevant to their everyday life.
Then Hurricane Katrina [hit and the] war in Iraq continued,
[which] really highlighted our addiction to foreign oil and
what that means in terms of our national security. So we
launched "Break the Addiction" [which is] a 12 step, 12
month campaign [giving] pragmatic steps every day that our
audience can take to reduce their impact on the environment.
Historically, MTV has decided the top down content. |
Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter visited a village in Durban, South
Africa to see the benefit of Playpumps as a sustainable
solution for the world water crisis. Instead of venturing
down steep terrains for clean water, these students can
access it right outside their school. |
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