Recipients of Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship (F-Q)

Social Entrepreneur: Michael Jenkins
Award Year: 2010

As a forester in Haiti and Brazil, Michael Jenkins saw the effects of extreme degradation of natural ecosystems on poor people and understood that traditional philanthropy alone was insufficient to solve the problem. At the MacArthur Foundation, he reoriented the sustainable forestry program to take a whole-systems approach that outlined the forest “value chain” and identified strategies to build financial and community sustainability within the system. He founded Forest Trends in 1998 to highlight the market value of natural ecosystems to promote their conservation. Forest Trends is widely credited for advancing the concept and practical application of “payments for ecosystem services,” an innovation that is gaining widespread momentum as a powerful conservation tool for forests and ecosystems.

www.freethechildren.com

Social Entrepreneurs: Craig and Marc Kielburger
Award Year: 2007

Shocked by a newspaper article about the murder of a child laborer-turned-activist that he read when he was 12, Craig Kielburger started Free the Children with his brother Marc to fight poverty, exploitation and powerlessness among their peers. Their early classroom fund raisers have evolved into an international organization where more than 500,000 students have joined Youth in Action groups, serving 2,000 schools across the U.S. and Canada. Youth in Action groups sponsor community service events and activities that support overseas development projects. With Skoll funding, the organization plans to establish 800 more groups in the U.S. that will raise an additional $1.5 million per year by 2009.

www.friends-international.org

Social Entrepreneur: Sébastien Marot
Award Year: 2007

While traveling through Cambodia, Sébastien Marot realized that handouts to child beggars only served to keep them on the streets. He started Friends-International to offer holistic services to street children that allow them to reintegrate into society and become productive citizens. He also established the ChildSafe campaign to encourage the wider community and businesses to be directly involved in protecting children. Sébastien and his team now devote their energy to developing an international network of organizations that now reaches over 330,000 youth in seven countries. With Skoll funding, they plan to involve 50 more partners in eight countries within five years, ultimately serving 500,000 children each year.

www.fundacionparaguaya.org.py

Social Entrepreneur: Martin Burt
Award Year: 2005

Martin Burt founded Fundación Paraguaya and brought an innovative microcredit program to Paraguay in 1985, while the country was under dictatorial rule that made citizen initiatives a particularly challenging and even dangerous undertaking. Over the years, Fundación Paraguaya has supported 68,000 microentrepreneurs who have created tens of thousands of new jobs, and it has taken on innovative and entrepreneurial challenges through a Junior Achievement program that builds the skills of young entrepreneurs. Its agricultural school is breaking new ground by demonstrating that well-managed, sustainable agriculture can be profitable and by helping young people learn to think of themselves as rural entrepreneurs.

www.gaiaamazonas.org/

Social Entrepreneur: Martin von Hildebrand
Award Year: 2009

Martin von Hildebrand founded Fundación Gaia Amazonas in 1990 to encourage the Amazon’s indigenous peoples to manage their territories sustainably and conserve the cultural and biological diversity of the northwest Amazon region. After living with indigenous communities in the 1970s, Martin worked within the Colombian government to guide an unprecedented move in 1987 of handing back 50 million acres of Amazon rainforest to indigenous inhabitants. In Colombia today, largely due to Martin’s vision and leadership, nearly 62 million acres of Amazon rainforest are in the hands of indigenous peoples, who hold the rights to their lands, manage their own education and health programs, and design and implement environmental management plans.

www.footprintnetwork.org

Social Entrepreneurs: Susan Burns and Mathis Wackernagel
Award Year: 2007

Mathis Wackernagel grew up with a vivid awareness of the potential for global ecological collapse and co-created the Ecological Footprint as part of his Ph.D. in regional planning. Susan Burns, an engineer, founded one of the first sustainability consultancies for businesses. The couple launched Global Footprint Network in 2003 to advance the Ecological Footprint, which tracks how much the human demand on nature exceeds what the planet can regenerate. This measure, applied by several countries, hundreds of cities and organizations across the world, has become a leading sustainability indicator. Global Footprint Network’s goal is to institutionalize the Ecological Footprint in at least 10 key nations by 2015.

www.goodweave.org

Social Entrepreneur: Nina Smith
Award Year: 2005

Rugmark International was founded in 1994 to eliminate child labor in carpet manufacturing. In Nepal, Pakistan and India, the organization monitors factories, certifies carpets are made without child labor and rescues and educates child laborers. In consumer countries, it seeks to create market preference for certified rugs. Since Rugmark’s inception, imports of certified rugs have helped reduce the number of bonded child laborers from 1 million to 250,000. In 1999, Nina Smith brought this vision to the United States as Rugmark Foundation USA. Certified rug imports to the U.S. reached $12 million in 2008. Nina’s goal is to bring U.S. market share for certified rugs to 15 percent, which would result in the rescue of thousands of children from forced labor and the preservation of jobs for adults. In 2009 Rugmark Foundation was renamed GoodWeave.

www.gramvikas.org

Social Entrepreneur: Joe Madiath
Award Year: 2007

Joe Madiath went to the state of Orissa, India, in 1971 to help communities ravaged by a cyclone and stayed on to help some of the poorest villages there. He founded Gram Vikas in 1979 to provide renewable energy and has transitioned its focus to encompass a holistic, community-based model of development. He believes every home must have running water and sanitation before villagers will collectively seek a better quality of life through education, job training, women’s rights and healthy practices. This model has been implemented in 361 villages, reaching nearly 27,000 households. With Skoll support, Gram Vikas plans to bring water and sanitation to 100,000 families by 2010.

www.halfthesky.org

Social Entrepreneur: Jenny Bowen
Award Year: 2008

Jenny Bowen learned first-hand the devastating effects of institutionalization of children when she and husband, Richard, adopted a toddler from a Chinese orphanage. Almost two, the child could not walk or talk and was emotionally vacant. In time, her new family’s loving attention enabled their daughter to blossom, and the idea for Half the Sky was born. Half the Sky provides family-like nurturing care for thousands of orphaned children in state-run orphanages across China, and in 2007, was invited by the Chinese government to expand its model to 300 institutions and beyond. Half the Sky’s long-term strategy is for local governments in China to operate the life-changing programs themselves.

www.noharm.org

Social Entrepreneur: Gary Cohen
Award Year: 2006

While writing a book on toxic chemicals, Gary Cohen felt compassion for families who were living near waste sites and were struggling to protect their children. He cofounded Health Care Without Harm in 1996 to inspire health care providers to adopt healthier products and practices. The organization has built a collaborative network of 450 groups in 52 countries. It has helped close more than 90 percent of medical waste incinerators in the U.S. and has virtually eliminated mercury medical products in U.S. and European hospitals. Plans call for a coordinated global effort to educate medical providers, change harmful practices and compel manufacturers to sell healthier products by demonstrating the efficacy and affordability of alternatives.

Social Entrepreneur: Adalberto Veríssimo and Carlos Souza Jr.
Award Year: 2010

Adalberto (Beto) Veríssimo and Carlos Souza, Jr., are recognized leaders in rainforest conservation, developing, in Imazon, the first independent deforestation monitoring system for the Brazilian Amazon. Beto co-founded Imazon in 1990, and Carlos joined shortly thereafter to head efforts in technical mapping and satellite imagery. In 2008, the Brazilian government launched a new policy to control illegal deforestation, focusing on “hot spot” deforestation municipalities identified by Imazon.

www.injazalarab.org

Social Entrepreneur: Soraya Salti
Award Year: 2009

In 2001, Soraya Salti decided to leave her business consulting job to lead INJAZ Jordan, predecessor organization to INJAZ al-Arab, a regional movement operating in 12 MENA countries. INJAZ is the only education program in the Arab world that teaches students business, entrepreneurship, and life skills as part of a regular school curriculum. INJAZ instills Arab youth with a sense of self-motivation, confidence and empowerment while fostering among business leaders a responsibility for investing their resources in the future of the region’s youth. More than 300,000 students have been reached and 10,000 volunteers engaged in INJAZ programs.

www.idsp.org.pk

Social Entrepreneur: Quratul Ain Bakhteari
Award Year: 2006

Quratul Ain Bakhteari grew up in a refugee camp outside of Karachi, where she helped new refugees arriving in Pakistan gain access to basic health care and education. Frustrated by a lack of efficacy in internationally sponsored development projects, she created Institute for Development Studies and Practices (IDSP) in 1999 to train and inspire students to become involved in Pakistan’s social and economic development. IDSP has touched the lives of more than 1 million Pakistanis through its education programs around grassroots activism, civic engagement, conflict prevention and community development. It plans to launch 55 new learning centers in 2009.

www.oneworldhealth.org

Social Entrepreneur: Victoria Hale
Award Year: 2005

In 2000, Victoria Hale used her own money to launch the Institute for OneWorld Health, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company that produces drugs and treatments for diseases that primarily affect people who live in developing countries. OneWorld uses existing drug research left untested due to lack of financial incentive and conducts clinical trials overseas. By partnering with manufacturers in the developing world, it brings drugs to market for a fraction of the usual cost. OneWorld is scaling up rapidly. With permission from the Indian government, it has begun production of its first drug, which will treat leishmaniasis, an often-fatal tropical parasitic disease transmitted by insect bites that afflicts more than 1.5 million people.

www.ibj.org

Social Entrepreneur: Karen Tse
Award Year: 2006

A former public defender and ordained minister, Karen Tse moved to Cambodia in 1994 to train public defenders. After witnessing countless violations of the rights of citizens, she founded International Bridges to Justice to promote systemic global change in the administration of criminal justice. The organization has dramatically improved and even saved the lives of everyday citizens by training and supporting criminal defense lawyers and establishing a network of Defender Resource Centers throughout China. IBJ has expanded in China, Vietnam and Cambodia, where programs are expected to reach critical mass due to public awareness and the creation of professional associations of trained advocates and judges. IBJ is also expanding to Rwanda, Burundi and India.

www.ictj.org

Social Entrepreneurs: Juan Méndez and Paul van Zyl
Award Year: 2009

Juan Méndez and Paul van Zyl have dedicated their lives to protecting human rights. Paul’s experience with South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission inspired him to co-found ICTJ in 2001 to help post-conflict societies pursue accountability for mass atrocities and repair social fractures. Juan’s interest in transitional justice grew out of his legal and advocacy work in 1970s Latin America, and his subsequent experience as a leading global human rights activist. He joined ICTJ in 2004. Today, ICTJ is recognized for pioneering integrated, comprehensive, and localized approaches to transitional justice with tools, expertise and comparative knowledge necessary to help countries heal.

www.ide-india.org

Social Entrepreneur: Amitabha Sadangi
Award Year: 2005

Amitabha Sadangi’s vision is to empower the rural poor with affordable, sustainable agricultural technologies. He has been a leader in creating an Indian strategy and organization to disseminate technologies developed by the International Development Enterprises (IDE) network and others. Through its affordable technologies and market linkages, IDE India has enabled 962,000 small holder families to earn net additional annual incomes of $400, resulting in accumulated wealth of $1 billion for these farmers. Its technology has also contributed to reduction of nearly 2 million tons of carbon emissions. IDE India is expanding its work to additional countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

www.kashf.org

Social Entrepreneur: Roshaneh Zafar
Award Year: 2007

A chance meeting with Muhammad Yunus inspired Roshaneh Zafar to quit her job and establish the Kashf Foundation in 1996. Ignoring warnings that a microfinance program focusing on women would not work in Pakistan, she enlisted the help of five women and used her own family’s funds to start microfinance centers. Kashf delivers collateral-free microloans, savings and life insurance products to poor women through branches that generally become sustainable within 18 months. Thirty-five percent of its clients move out of poverty within three years. Kashf had 319,000 active clients at the end of 2008, with an outstanding portfolio of $47 million and a recovery rate of 99 percent. It has ambitious expansion plans across its portfolio of lending, health and life insurance products.

www.kickstart.org

Social Entrepreneurs: Martin Fisher and Nick Moon
Award Year: 2005

Nick Moon and Martin Fisher founded ApproTEC (now KickStart) in 1991 to promote sustainable economic growth and employment by offering people technology to run profitable small-scale enterprises. Working in developing countries in Africa, KickStart introduced low-cost, human-powered irrigation pumps that enable farmers to grow more crops and sell produce in the dry season. Since its inception, the organization has helped 77,000 families in Africa to create profitable businesses, generating $85 million per year in new profits and wages. These revenues are equivalent to 0.6 percent and 0.25 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of Kenya and Tanzania, respectively.

www.kiva.org

Social Entrepreneurs: Matt Flannery and Premal Shah
Award Year: 2008

After seeing first-hand in East Africa how a small loan could change the life of an entrepreneur in the developing world, Matt and Jessica Flannery co-founded Kiva.org in 2005 to enable individuals to loan as little as $25 to emerging businesses. Matt quit his job at TiVo to work full time as Kiva’s CEO, and Premal Shah, a product manager at PayPal, joined Kiva as its President to help scale the idea. Since then, over 440,000 Internet lenders have made $60 million in loans to 120,000 entrepreneurs in 40 developing countries, with a repayment rate of 97 percent. Kiva aims to scale to one million Internet lenders and over $100 million in loans by 2010.

www.manchesterbidwell.org

Social Entrepreneur: William Strickland
Award Year: 2007

Bill Strickland was a struggling high school student in Pittsburgh when he met Frank Ross, who taught him about clay and introduced him to jazz and architecture. Bill founded Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and later added Bidwell Training Center to introduce youth in poor urban environments to arts and career education in beautiful surroundings with state-of-the-art equipment. The programs connect arts knowledge and skills with academic standards, citizenship and life disciplines. Under the aegis of the Manchester Craftsmen's Corporation, facilities in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Cincinnati and Michigan serve nearly 5,000 youth and adults annually. With help from Skoll, these programs will serve individuals in five additional communities by the year 2010.

www.msc.org

Social Entrepreneur: Rupert Howes
Award Year: 2007

Influenced by conservationists like David Attenborough, Rupert Howes was determined to make the world more sustainable. His financial training and experience with nonprofit organizations convinced him “we must work with the grain of the market to shift our economic system to a more sustainable footing” to create a world that operates within ecological limits. As CEO of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), he focuses on reversing the decline in global fish stocks through MSC’s marine certification and eco-labeling programs. Today, 2,000 MSC-labeled products from 38 certified fisheries are sold in 40 countries and 88 fisheries are seeking certification. Skoll funding will help MSC strengthen U.S. and European operations and expand into the Asia-Pacific region.

www.m2m.org

Social Entrepreneurs: Dr. Mitch Besser and Gene Falk
Award Year: 2008

While pediatric AIDS has virtually been eliminated in the developed world, in Sub-Saharan Africa, hundreds of thousands of babies are needlessly infected with HIV each year. To confront this tragedy, long-time friends Mitch Besser, a doctor and medical researcher, and Gene Falk, a media executive and AIDS activist, developed mothers2mothers. A grass-roots program for under-resourced health care systems, mothers2mothers trains and employs new mothers with HIV to provide education and support to their peers, empowering them to access lifesaving treatment for their babies and themselves. Currently operating in 462 locations in seven countries, by 2011, mothers2mothers aims to support over 3.6 million women and children in 11 nations.

Social Entrepreneur: Andrew Youn
Award Year: 2010

After serving as a strategic consultant to Fortune 500 companies and spending time in Africa learning about the root causes of rural poverty, Andrew Youn launched One Acre Fund during his MBA studies at Northwestern Kellogg. One Acre Fund takes an integrated value-chain approach to empowering rural farmers in Kenya and Rwanda, providing them with farming inputs, training and capacity building, and access to markets. In less than 4 years, One Acre Fund has helped triple the harvests and double the income per acre for subsistence farm families representing more than 100,000 of the world’s poorest, with the goal of reaching millions more in the next 10 years in sub-Saharan Africa.

www.pih.org

Social Entrepreneur: Dr. Paul Farmer
Award Year: 2008

When Paul Farmer founded Partners in Health in 1987, he wanted to prove that cost-effective, high-quality health care could be delivered in hopeless contexts. Focused on health care as a fundamental human right and believing in the power and potential of community-based healthcare systems, Paul and his team developed a highly effective model, first in Haiti with its “accompagnateur” model, that has gone on to change World Health Organization (WHO) policy. The global program has grown from 60,000 patient visits in 2001 to 2.15 million in 2008. Partners in Health now operates in seven countries worldwide, with plans for additional expansion. It also has an active public health policy advocacy program through its Institute for Health and Social Justice.

Social Entrepreneur: Scott Gilmore
Award Year: 2010

In 2001, Scott Gilmore was working for the UN peacekeeping mission in Timor-Leste, on leave from the Canadian diplomatic service. He grew frustrated at how management and operational problems hampered the peacekeepers' ability to achieve the strategic goals of the mission. Staffing practices, for example, prevented the UN mission from hiring local staff, despite high unemployment. Scott started an informal group of development and peacekeeping professionals to share lessons learned in the hope of improving operational efficiency. In 2003, he launched Peace Dividend Trust (PDT). PDT focuses on the nuts and bolts of how peace missions operate to help those in charge learn from past failures, disperse benefits as widely as possible, and implement innovative, yet practical approaches to economic development. PDT has grown to over 100 people, has offices in 5 countries and has operated in over 12 peace and humanitarian missions.

www.peaceworks.net

Social Entrepreneur: Daniel Lubetzky
Award Year: 2008

The son of Jewish immigrants, including a Holocaust survivor, Daniel Lubetzky began advocating and fostering entrepreneurial joint ventures between Arabs and Israelis in 1989 to promote stability in the Middle East through economic cooperation. He founded the PeaceWorks Foundation in 2002 to encourage political moderates to build a new movement to unite for peace. The foundation’s OneVoice Movement reframes the debate into one that positions the vast majority – composed of moderates from both sides – against violent extremism. OneVoice has trained 4,000 Palestinian and Israeli youth leaders and recruited more than 650,000 signatories to demand negotiations toward the conclusion of a peace agreement.

www.pda.or.th

Social Entrepreneur: Mechai Viravaidya
Award Year: 2008

As a young economist working for the government in Thailand, Mechai Viravaidya saw a link between rapid population growth and poverty. He launched the Population and Community Development Association (PDA) in 1974 to distribute contraceptives and introduce sex education in rural communities and schools. By 2005, the population growth rate dropped from 3.2 percent to 0.5 percent. The World Bank estimated 7.7 million lives had been saved by PDA’s national HIV/AIDS prevention campaign. The organization has enlisted private partners in over 500 Village Development Partnership programs that enable the poor to generate income without having to migrate to cities. By 2011, PDA plans to expand the Partnership program to at least 100 more villages.