2) She spoke about the youth bulge in the Arab world, and the importance of seeing those young people as assets who can contribute energy and new ideas to the region and the world, rather than viewing them as liabilities or ‘problems to be solved’.

3) She spoke of the importance of young people forming identities that are open to the rest of the world, and suggested a massive expansion of cross-cultural encounter programs to accomplish that.

I followed Queen Rania in the speaking order and basically said, “I agree with everything Her Majesty just said. In fact, I started an organization to those principles precisely - the Interfaith Youth Core.”

During the break between sessions, somebody whispered in my ear, “Her Majesty would like to see you.” I was whisked through a set of dark hallways into a little room and brought before the Queen.

She said, “Tell me more about your organization.” After listening to the details of our program about bringing young people from different faiths together to do service projects, she said, “I want you to come work with some of our remarkable young people in Jordan.”

A week later I got a letter with her Royal Seal, stating that she enjoyed our conversation and was working on the follow-up. Three months later, I was on a Royal Jordanian flight to Amman. A year after that, a group of about twenty religiously diverse young Americans went to Jordan to do interfaith service projects with a similar interfaith youth organization in Jordan called Interfaith in Action, led by the visionary Jordanian youth leader Anas Abadi. The Jordanians came to Chicago the following summer.

Queen Rania was right: this experience changed the lives of the participants, and as young leaders they will go on to change the lives of many more. A case in point is Shawn, a young African-American Christian from the South Side of Chicago who started the experience believing that “all Muslims are Osama bin Laden” and ended by counting some of the Jordanian Muslims he met as his best friends.

Queen Rania encouraged us to tell these stories far and wide, to counter the negative dominant narrative about young people being violent and intolerant. So we a created a set of videos about the experiences of the young people in the InterAction Exchange Program - check out the piece about Shawn here.

Now Her Majesty is embarking on an even more ambitious project: to create a set of YouTube videos that address negative stereotypes, directed at young people all over the world who have the opportunity to create the story of pluralism rather than accept a bit part in the narrative of conflict.

If these pieces don't inspire you, check your pulse:

Here's the introductory video on the danger of stereotypes:

Here is a video on women in the Arab world.

And an excellent segment on Islam and Muslims.