In General

A friend of mine is organizing a Guinness World Record event for the ‘Longest Continuous Handshake’ at Times Square, New York City.  Jason Soll, who I got to meet at TEDGlobal at Oxford, UK, is the brain behind the event.

The current world record stands at 19 hours and 35 minutes. The new record is projected to be 24 to 48 hours, or longer. International competitors include Nepal’s Rohit Timilsina, that country’s greatest world record breaker, and New Zealand’s Alastair Galpin, the second-greatest Guinness World Record record breaker of the last decade.

During the event, you’ll be able to watch the teams via live stream video feed on the website, http://www.ShakingHistory.com .

Each team will be aiming to raise money for the charities they support. Right now, the teams are looking at raising $1 for each hour they handshake.  The option is to donate as little as as much as you can.  Donations will also be collected through the website. During the event, a live ticker on the website will display the total funds raised and the length of the competition.

All the teams will start shaking hands at the same time on January 14th, 2011, in Times Square, New York City.  It’s  a pity that I’ll be leaving the US just two days prior to the competition. If I had known of this a bit earlier I would have postponed by return date. Besides, NYC is my favorite city.

Help Jason with the event. Money would be nice but a greater help would be to help spread the word about the competition on your Facebook, Twitter or blog.