Awards Ceremony

Session leaders

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  Salman Khan Speaker

  Founder and Executive Director, Khan Academy

  Salman Khan is Founder and Executive Director of Khan Academy, a non-profit organisation providing free, high-quality education worldwide. With an MBA from Harvard Business School, he began tutoring his cousin by phone and using an interactive notepad, then he posted videos of his tutorials on YouTube. In 2009 he committed fully to Khan Academy. Salman has been recognised in Fortune’s '40 Under 40', Fast Company’s '100 Most Creative People in Business' and TIME’s '100 Most Influential People in the World'. In 2012 he released his book 'The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined'.

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  Sally Osberg Speaker

  President and CEO, Skoll Foundation

  Sally Osberg has been an entrepreneurial leader and catalyst for social change throughout her career. She propels those around her with her life philosophy and mantra, captured in one word: "Onward!" As President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, she partners with Founder and Chairman Jeff Skoll and guides the organization in its search and support of innovators pioneering scalable solutions to pressing global problems. Under Sally’s leadership, the Foundation has invested in more than 100 ventures led by social entrepreneurs worldwide; established the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School of Oxford University; created the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship; and brokered cutting-edge partnerships with organizations including TED, the Sundance Institute, and the Social Progress Imperative. In 2015, she co-authored Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works with Roger Martin. Together, she and Roger received the Thinkers50 Social Enterprise Award. Sally’s work has appeared in CNN, Financial Times, Bloomberg TV, Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, the MIT Technology Review, Rotman Magazine, and others. She has been recognized as one of Silicon Valley’s Millennium 100 by the San Jose Mercury News and among the social sector’s 50 most influential leaders by The NonProfit Times.

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  Jeff Skoll Speaker

  Founder & Chairman, Jeff Skoll Group

  Jeff Skoll is an entrepreneur devoted to creating a sustainable world of peace and prosperity. Over the last 17 years, he has crafted an innovative portfolio of philanthropic and commercial enterprises, each a distinctive catalyst for changing the trajectory of issues that most affect the survival and thriving of humanity. This portfolio includes the Skoll Foundation, Skoll Global Threats Fund, Participant Media, and Capricorn Investment Group—all coordinated under the Jeff Skoll Group umbrella. The Skoll entrepreneurial approach is unique: driving large-scale, permanent social impact by investing in a range of efforts that integrate powerful stories, data, capital markets, technology, partnerships, and organized learning networks. Operating independently from one another yet deeply connected through a shared vision, Skoll organizations galvanize public will, influence policy, and mobilize resources to accelerate the pace and depth of change. Jeff was the first full-time employee and President of eBay, where he experienced firsthand the power of combining entrepreneurship, technology, and trust in people. His work today embodies those fundamental lessons. All of Jeff’s organizations rely on the premise that people are fundamentally good, and that given the opportunity to do the right thing, they will.

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  Annie Lennox Performer

  Founder, SING

  Named as one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine, internationally acclaimed singer songwriter and human rights activist Annie Lennox rose to fame with Dave Stewart as Eurythmics in the early 1980’s with the classic album "Sweet Dreams are Made of This.” In the decade to follow, Eurythmics went on to achieve more than 20 international hits, selling more than 80 million albums. In 1992, Lennox released her debut album, “Diva"…selling over 6 million copies worldwide and establishing her career as a solo artist. Lennox has received numerous accolades, including 8 BRIT Awards (including Lifetime Achievement), 10 Grammy nominations and 4 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe and an Academy Award. In 2003, Lennox performed at the inaugural concert for Nelson Mandela's HIV/AIDS Foundation, 46664. Her experience in South Africa inspired her to found the SING campaign, supporting women and children affected by HIV/AIDS. A goodwill ambassador for UNAIDS, Oxfam, Amnesty International and The British Red Cross, she is also Special Envoy for Scottish Parliament and the City of London. She received the Woman of Peace Award at the 2009 World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates and in 2011 was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of her humanitarian work. Last year, she was awarded a Fellowship at the 60th Ivor Novello Awards - the first woman to receive it - and earlier this year Elle magazine awarded her the "Outstanding Achievement Award" for activism and campaigning. The Royal Scottish Geographic Society awarded Annie the prestigious "Livingstone Medal” in March 2016.

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  Muhammad Yunus Speaker

  Founder, Grameen Bank

  Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is the father of microcredit and social business, Founder of Grameen Bank and of more than 50 other companies. Fortune Magazine named him 'one of 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time'. Professor Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Grameen Bank Project and is one of seven people to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom and the US Congressional Gold Medal. He received his BA and PhD in Economics and is the recipient of more than 50 honorary degrees.

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  Festival in Exile Performer

  Performers,

  This part of West Africa is the cradle of music, and Mali in particular, which became the blues, which became rock n’roll... It’s really the big bang of all the music we love. —BonoJoin the Skoll World Forum community as we stand in solidarity with Mali’s leading musicians in their debut of the awareness campaign, Festival in Exile. Barred from performing in their own land and at their acclaimed Festival au Desert outside of Timbuktu by radical extremists, the campaign promotes an international dialogue of peace and plurality through cultural exchange. Performers include: Mama Wallet Amoumine – Malian singer from the Tuareg band Tartit, Habib Koité – Malian guitarist, singer & band leader, Bassekou Kouyaté – Malian Ngoni player, Vieux Farka Touré – Malian guitarist, singer & band leader, Mama Toumani Koné – Malian percussionist, and Valess Assouan – Côte d'Ivoire bass player.

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  Monica Yunus Performer

  Soprano and Co-Executive Director, Sing for Hope

  Monica Yunus is the Co-Founding Director of Sing for Hope, a leading non-profit that brings arts outreach programs to communities in need and presents initiatives -- such NYC's summertime street pianos -- that make the arts accessible to all. An internationally renowned soprano, Ms. Yunus has performed with the world's leading companies, including The Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, The Zouk Festival, and in recitals in Spain, France, and her native Bangladesh. She has been honored with a 21st Century Leaders Award and, in 2013, received a Congressional Citation, was honored as "New Yorker of the Week" by NY1, and was named one of the "Top 50 Americans in Philanthropy" by Town&Country. A leading voice in the "artist as citizen" discussion, she has performed and spoken at the Fortune Most Powerful Women’s Summit, Nexus Global Summit, and The United Nations. The daughter of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Ms. Yunus is a graduate of The Juilliard School.

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  Carne Ross Speaker

  Executive Director, Independent Diplomat

  Carne Ross is a writer and commentator on world affairs, and an award-winning innovator in transforming diplomacy. Carne was a high-flying British diplomat for 15 years who resigned from the foreign service in 2004 after giving secret evidence on Iraq’s WMD to an official inquiry into the Iraq war. He then founded and now runs Independent Diplomat, a unique non-profit which advises marginalized democratic governments and political groups on diplomatic strategy, helping those most affected by diplomatic decisions have a say in international negotiations, for instance helping the Marshall Islands secure dramatic and positive outcomes at the recent UN climate talks and today advising the democratic opposition in Syria. He has written two books on diplomacy and anarchism and multiple articles for publications across the world, including the New York Times and Financial Times, and regularly comments on international affairs on MSNBC, NPR, the BBC and others. Carne’s work has been profiled in the New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Time magazine, Buzzfeed, Asahi Shimbun, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit the LA Review of Books and others. In 2005, Carne was honoured as a Visionary for a Just and Peaceful World by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. In 2013, Carne was awarded the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

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  Gemma Mortensen Speaker

  Co-Founder, More in Common

  Gemma is Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Platforms and Systems Leadership and serves on the Board of the Jo Cox Foundation. She was appointed Change.org’s Chief Global Officer in January 2016, responsible for the company's global general management, and was previously Executive Director of Crisis Action where she received the 2012 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions and the 2013 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2011, the World Economic Forum selected her as one of their Young Global Leaders. CNN named her as one of their inspirational women for 2014 and she became a Yale World Fellow in 2015. She was Chair of the Helen Bamber Foundation and on the founding board of 38 Degrees.

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  Gopi Gopalakrishnan Speaker

  President and Founder, World Health Partners

  Gopi Gopalakrishnan has over 25 years of experience in implementing large-scale service-delivery programs in low-resource settings in India and Africa. He founded and administered two large organizations—World Health Partners in 2008 and Janani in 1995 and implemented programs for Population Services International and DKT International, two global organizations. He also worked as Director of International Programs of DKT- I based in Washington DC. WHP and Janani have won national and international acclaim for their innovative and creative management that pays particular attention to cost efficiencies and self-sustainability. In 2013, Gopi won Skoll’s Global Award for Social Entrepreneurship and the World Economic Forum-linked Schwab Foundation award. In 2015, he won the Asian Award for Entrepreneurship and was selected a Fellow of the Ashoka Foundation. He received a prestigious civilian honor from the Government of Vietnam in 2006 for his work as the Country Director of DKT International. While all the organizations Gopi has been associated with specialize in using private sector resources to supplement public sector delivery of services, WHP is increasingly moving toward integrating the range of technologies it has developed for private sector engagement into public sector programming and finding common avenues of collaboration. The approach of creating an ecosystem of delivery that will accommodate all available resources to address critical health needs of the community is finding increasing resonance among policy makers. Gopi has been a member of India’s Population Commission and has advised the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and numerous national and international organizations. He served on the global technical advisory board of the International Finance Corporation, and is currently on the Advisory Group on Community Action (AGCA) of India’s National Rural Health Mission. He is on the expert panel advising Global Coalition against TB.

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  Chris Underhill Speaker

  Founder, BasicNeeds

  Chris is a leading exponent on global mental health practice, a social entrepreneur, a mentor, a trainer in community-based facilitation technique, and regularly speaks at conferences worldwide. His current mentees work in organisational management, models of change in childhood deprivation, human trafficking, the psychology of gangs, Fair Trade, prisons and prisoners, leadership and executive search. Together with colleagues from the Global Development Incubator he is currently founding mhNOW: Cities for Mental Health. He is the founder of BasicNeeds and previously founded Action on Disability and Development (ADD) and Thrive. Chris is the Chair of the International Centre on Social Franchising, a Global Director of Leaders Quest and the Chair of Carers Worldwide. He is a Senior Fellow with the Ashoka Fellowship, a recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and was selected as a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur for 2014. In 2000 Chris received an MBE from the Queen for his services to disability and development.

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  Mushtaq Chhapra Speaker

  Co-Founder and Chairman, The Citizens Foundation

  Mushtaq Chhapra is a businessman and philanthropist, also serving as the honorary counsel general for the Nepalese Embassy in Karachi. Chhapra hails from the Memon community (immigrants to Pakistan from Gujarat, India after the Pakistan-India partition). In 1966 he joined his well-established family business of textiles after completing high school, getting involved in community welfare organizations from a young age. In 1985 Chhapra was part of the ground of founders of the healthcare nonprofit The Kidney Centre, which provides free or subsidized high quality kidney related treatment for the poor, and serves as a teaching, and research institution for nephrology, urology and associated fields. Chhapra also headed the Jinnah Patients Aid Foundation and is currently serving as the Chairman of its executive committee. The watchdog committee provides funding and management oversight to the patient servicing department of the Government run Jinnah University Hospital, reconstructing unmaintained buildings, and providing equipment and resources where the Government funding is restricted. In 1995, Chhapra cofounded The Citizens Foundation (TCF), a civil society nonprofit with the mission to provide formal primary and secondary education to the poor. With the belief that education was the solution to many problems prevalent in Pakistan, TCF started with 5 schools in Karachi, and has now grown to the nonprofit is privately owned low cost formal schooling in the world. He is currently serving as chairman of the board at TCF.

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