Geneva, 30 March 2015 – Thirty-one social entrepreneurs have been recognized by the Schwab Foundation as awardees of 2015 Social Entrepreneur of the Year. The winners were selected by Schwab Foundation board members, including Muhammad Yunus, in recognition of their innovative approaches and potential for global impact. The 2015 awardees are:
Africa: Katherine Lucey of Solar Sister (USA); Christie Peacock of Sidai Africa (Kenya); John Sargent and Ernest Darkoh of BroadReach Healthcare (South Africa); Sharanjeet Shan of Maths Centre (South Africa).
Asia/Asia Pacific: Ian Carson and Simone Carson of SecondBite (Australia); Kim Jung-Hyeon of Delight (S. Korea); Kamal Quadir of bKash (Bangladesh); Mushtaq Chhapra of The Citizens Foundation (Pakistan); Mark Arnoldy and Duncan Maru of Possible (Nepal); Helianti Hilman of JAVARA (Indonesia); Hanumappa Sudarshan of Karuna Trust (India).
Europe: Marc Koska of The SafePoint Trust (UK); Jen Hyatt of Big White Wall (UK); Sylvain Couthier of ATF Gaia (France).
MENA: Elaine Montegriffo, Amina Slaoui of Groupe AMH (Morocco); Maysoun Odeh Gangat of NISAA Radio Broadcasting Company (Palestine); Pierre Issa of Arc en Ciel (Lebanon).
Americas/Canada: Rosanne Haggerty and Becky Kanis Margiotta of Community Solutions (USA); John Mighton of JUMP Math (Canada); Kristin Groos Richmond and Kirsten Saenz Tobey of Revolution Foods (USA); Michael B. Jenkins of Forest Trends (USA); Catalina Escobar Restrepo of Juan Felipe Gomez Escobar Foundation (Colombia); Carlos Orellana Aguilar and Javier Okhuysen Urrutia of salaUno (Mexico); Gonzalo Muñoz of Triciclos (Chile); Claudio Sassaki and Eduardo Bontempo of Geekie (Brazil);
“Social entrepreneurs are visionaries but are also realists, and are ultimately concerned with the practical implementation of scalable solutions,” said Hilde Schwab, Co-Founder and Chairperson of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. “The 31 outstanding social entrepreneurs we have selected into the Schwab Foundation community this year are designing transformative models in collaboration with government and business partners to generate truly inclusive growth. As such, social entrepreneurs represent an integral and dynamic community of the World Economic Forum.”
“We are seeing greater appetite among other stakeholder groups of the Forum to learn from social innovation models and collaborate with social entrepreneurs in innovative ways,” said David Aikman, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum. “I am confident this trend will only continue to grow in the future, and the World Economic Forum is proud to be at the forefront of catalysing partnerships among these stakeholder groups for social and environmental change.”
The awardees will become part of the broader Schwab Foundation community of Social Entrepreneurs, which includes more than 300 outstanding social entrepreneurs from 60 countries. Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurs are fully integrated into the events and initiatives of the Forum. They contribute actively to and benefit from peer-to-peer exchanges with other social entrepreneurs, as well as interactions with top leaders in business, government, civil society and the media.
