SINGAPORE - Software engineer, world peace champion and Google's official Jolly Good Fellow Tan Chade-Meng is part of a team at a non-profit organisation that has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015.
The Singaporean, who co-chairs a campaign titled One Billion Acts of Peace and received a letter signed by six Nobel Laureates on the nomination earlier this week, shared the news on his blog Mengstupiditis (http://www.mengstupiditis.com/2015/01/were-nominated-for-nobel-peace-pr…) on Thursday.
"At first, I was a little shell-shocked (in a good way). Then I was over the moon. After that, the weight of the responsibility sunk in. Wow," he wrote in his posting.
Mr Tan, affectionately known as Meng, is best remembered as the Google employee who joined the company as an engineer but went on to become its spiritual guru running a highly popular in-house motivation course that has had over two thousand participants. Over the years, Meng, who is also the author of a New York Times self-help book, has also become a celebrity in his own right.
"I work with a wonderful team of more than 100 committed individuals doing amazing, Nobel-Prize-worthy work, and I get to pretend to be their leader. I'm immensely humbled by the team. I will try my best not to mess this one up (more than usual, I mean)," he says, sharing his excitement at the nomination.
The letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee has been signed by Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Oscar Arias, Leymah Gbowee, Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Betty Williams.
The six world leaders nominated PeaceJam Foundation co-founders Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff and their "One Billion Acts of Peace" campaign for one of the world's most-respected awards.
Pakistani teen and champion of girls education Malala Yousafzai and Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi were recipients of the coveted award last year. Other prominent recipients include Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and US President Barack Obama.
PeaceJam Foundation, a US-based non-profit group, mentors youth on programmes to change the world. It has been nominated eight times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
PeaceJam was started in 1993 by Ms Eagle, an economist and a former Washington politico, and Mr Suvanjieff, an artist and a musician.
PeaceJam launched its One Billion Acts of Peace campaign in May last year to inspire citizens movement. Mr Tan and supermodel Jessica Stam are co-founders of the project that aims to create one billion high-quality projects that address the most important issues facing humanity by 2018.
Thirteen Nobel Peace laureates have already committed themselves to this campaign and millions of young people are already involved.
Some of the areas the group is focusing on include access to water and natural resources, education and community development, global health, conflict resolution, ending racism and hate and alleviating extreme poverty among others.
"They have worked with leaders in the technology industry to create a cutting edge campaign that will empower average people all over the world to become effective agents of change," the Nobel laureates note in their letter.
"People will be able to use the latest in technology to collaborate together to solve the world's toughest problems, under the leadership and guidance of Nobel Peace laureates," they said.
Even as he shares news about the nomination, Mr Tan also makes an appeal for corporate partners.
"One Billion Acts of Peace needs you, my friends," he writes.
"At this time, our biggest need is for corporate partners. If you would like to consider being one of our corporate partners, we'll so love to hear from you."
More information about the campaign can be found here: http://www.1billionacts.org.
