MEDP began as a solely not-for-profit organization in April, 2002. It was based on the ideals of helping as many people as possible, mainly through the improvement of democracy and various projects to help strengthen civil society and bring the public sphere back into politics. However, it became very apparent that trying to do these things simply on a donations basis was rather unrealistic.

Over the next few years, a rethinking of our practices led to some exciting changes. We decided to begin hosting national summits, but to ease confusion, we labeled them conferences. Yet, our methodology therein was still too exclusive as our requisite for written papers made the conferences very academic and as such did not attract the everyday people we desired to have. Thus, we scrapped the idea of writing papers and now simply ask for people to answer three simple questions in order to be a delegate in one of our conferences: what is your idea, why is it important, and how can it be done? Among a variety of other changes and lots of legal restructuring we were finally ready to present our new selves.

Thus, in 2007, MEDP diverged from a more community based initiative to an international non-governmental organization, which is still very much based on the basic premises mentioned above. We have, however, added several new dimensions to MEDP and are beaming with excitement about this international direction. Our conferences are powerful tools that can improve the human condition simply by organizing and promoting people’s practical ideas. We have also begun developing our annual journal, The IADI, which will go into print January 1st, 2010. Behind these two new arms, MEDP has also started The New Sophist’s Society (an intellectual group) as well as plans for scholarships and the College of Masters (our research center). Furthermore, the work we used to do concerning community strengthening is still ongoing and ever more likely to succeed.

MEDP would like to thank all those who have helped us get this far, and who are also working to bring us forward on our journey to help humanity and the environment we so direly depend on.