jennifer corriero - traveller and artist

With an open mind and open heart, I truly appreciate experiencing learning different ways of knowing and living through travel, art and conversations with diverse communities of peoples and nations. Over the past 20 years, through my work with TakingITGlobal, I have been fortunate to travel to over 40 countries and to every Province and Territory across Canada.

My thirst for travel began the age of 14 when I was encouraged by my soccer coach to join a track and field team because I was a fast runner. This led me on my first international trip to Italy to compete in hurdles and on the relay team where we won a silver medal. Training and participating in this experience was eye opening as I had the opportunity to interact with people from around the world.

At the age of 19, I was selected to attend an international conference in Malaysia with the Global Knowledge Partnership after submitting an essay on how I would overcome the Digital Divide. The concept of TakingITGlobal that I co-founded with Michael Furdyk was the basis of what I proposed and this trip marked the beginning of many additional invitations to speak, facilitate and participate in different gatherings with community organizations around the world.

Throughout high school I enjoyed expressing my ideas, thoughts and emotions through art, especially acrylic paint. I was interested in attending different youth leadership conferences and decided to sell both originals and prints of my artwork as a way to raise funds. At the age of 30, I had my first dedicated art show in Toronto and then in New York with an exhibit I created featuring 30 Acrylic paintings based on a poem I wrote called "How Does Change Happen?".