The Millennium Campus Network held a three-day conference to teach students how to combat poverty through five tracks, education, economics, public policy, health and technology during the weekend of April 18, said Cofounder and Director of Strategic Development Seth Werfel.The MCN is a network of student organizations across Boston and across the nation that focuses on global poverty, said Sam Vaghar, the MCN's executive director.

Vaghar and Werfel co-founded the group last August. Both Vaghar and Werfel were involved in Positive Foundations, a group that "has successfully advocated for the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty through fundraising initiatives and collaboration with [other groups]," according to its Web site.

They founded the MCN because "Sam and I wanted to take what we are doing at Brandeis to the national level," said Werfel. In 2000, 191 countries agreed on eight goals to tackle extreme poverty, said Vaghar, and one of the MCN's objectives is to force the government to make those goals a priority.

There were so many groups fighting poverty, Seth said, that they would run into coordination problems, like all trying to book the same speaker at the same time. But, "a unified effort is stronger than a fragmented one," he said, and the MCN helps coordinate the different groups.

The conference had three purposes: to raise awareness, to educate the attendees and to provide an opportunity for networking, said Werfel. The event also helped the groups gain attention, increase funding and more leverage by demonstrating their large support base, said Vaghar.

The event opened with a keynote address from John Edwards, a former presidential candidate and senator, and Henrietta Fore, director of the United States Agency for International Development, a branch of the United States government that, according to its Web site, administers foreign aid, dating back to the Marshall Plan, said Werfel. Fore discussed the United States' strategy for economic growth abroad while Edwards issued a call to action for the United States to support the Millennium Development Goals.

The event that drew the largest crowd was the closing remarks delivered by Jeffrey Sachs, a noted economist and author, and R&B singer John Legend, said Werfel. It was great to see that you don't have to be an economist to get involved, he said. "A millionaire Grammy award-winning singer was up there saying, "this is what you have to do," he said.

"It's great to hear Jeffrey Sachs encourage student activism," said Allyson Goldsmith '10, the executive director of Positive Foundations. She said that Sachs and Legend worked together to create an inspiring performance. Because they are so different, they can reach different audiences, she said.

During his speech, Sachs announced that he agreed to serve on the MCN's board of directors.

The conference further included a concert at the Roxy, with music by Braddigan, of the band Dispatch, and Adam Ezra Group, to raise money for Grassroots Soccer, a group combating the spread of HIV in African children, as well as speaker Paul Farmer, a noted anthropologist and physician, said Vaghar.

Also included at the event was a job expo, in which nonprofits and NGOs presented possible career opportunities to the attendees, as well as a student expo in which the students demonstrated their work to fight poverty.

Although the MCN was originally based in Boston, the conference drew students from across the country in preparation for the group's jump to the national level, said Vaghar. In addition, the MCN sponsored 10 students from developing countries to attend the event, said Werfel.

The first annual Millennium Campus Conference was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, courtesy of MIT's Global Poverty Initiative and drew close to 1,200 students from across the world, said Werfel.

"It's great to see how far we've come in these 10 months," said Vaghar. "It started with an idea and now it's starting to link people across the country," he said.