Opening Plenary

Speakers

• Ingoma Nshya

  Performer

  Performers,

  Rwanda’s first-ever women's drumming group brings a new and important female voice to the cultural development of Rwanda. Aspiring to twin goals of healing and empowering through positive methods - these Rwandan women, from all walks of life, play and perform to reconcile with the violent past of their country and personal tragedies.

  Read Full Bio
• William Strickland

  Speaker

  Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Manchester-Bidwell Corporation

  Bill Strickland is the founder and Executive Chairman of Manchester Bidwell Corporation (MBC), an educational model designed to create empowering educational environments for adults-in-transition as well as a diverse population of youth in the Pittsburgh, PA region. A past Skoll awardee, Strickland's model has been replicated in 14 cities in the US and Internationally. Bill founded Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in 1968 to help combat economic and social devastation experienced by residents of his Northside Pittsburgh neighborhood. Later in 1972 he assumed leadership of Bidwell Training Center to guide its transition to providing skills relevant to Pittsburgh's economy. Grammy winning MCG Jazz was founded in 1987, which is one of the longest jazz subscription series in America. What started as an informal art program and exhibition space has been transformed into a 62,000 sf arts and career training center, which today includes a 40,000 sf production and educational greenhouse.

  Read Full Bio
• Gro Harlem Brundtland

  Speaker

  Former Prime Minister of Norway and Deputy Chair, The Elders

  Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway, served as Director General of the World Health Organization from July 1998-2003. From 2007-2009, she was the UN Secretary-General`s Special Envoy for Climate Change. Dr. Brundtland has served on the UN Secretary-General`s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability since its launch in August 2010. As Deputy Chair of The Elders, she contributes her wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackling the world’s toughest problems, with the aim of making the world a better place.

  Read Full Bio
• Paul Farmer

  Speaker

  Co-founder and Chief Strategist, Partners In Health

  Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to improving health care for the world's poorest people. He is Co-founder and Chief Strategist of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that since 1987 has provided direct health care services and undertaken research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Dr. Farmer and his colleagues in the U.S. and abroad have pioneered novel community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings. Dr. Farmer holds an M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he is the Kolokotrones University Professor and the Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School; he is also Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston. Additionally, Dr. Farmer serves as the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Community Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti. Dr. Farmer has written extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan Davis) Award from the American Medical Association, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and, with his PIH colleagues, the Hilton Humanitarian Prize. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

  Read Full Bio
• Ken Brecher

  Speaker

  President, Library Foundation of Los Angeles

  Kenneth S. Brecher is president of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. He was formerly executive director of the Sundance Institute, president of the William Penn Foundation, director of the Boston Children’s Museum, and associate artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum. An anthropologist by training, Brecher was an honors graduate of Cornell and a Rhodes Scholar. He has received numerous fellowships, including a research grant from the Getty Center for Education in the Arts and a Ford Foundation Fellowship for his study of Amazonian tribesmen. He has lectured and published widely and served as an international consultant on challenges facing arts leadership. He has been a keynote speaker at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship and played a central role in organizing the closing plenary on the importance of activist artists in social change. He is the author of Too Sad to Sing: A Memoir with Postcards and editor of the classic Xingu: The Indians and Their Myths, by Orlando and Claudio Villas Boas. His installation “The Little Room of Epiphanies” was at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

  Read Full Bio
• Stephan Chambers

  Speaker

  Director, The Marshall Institute, London School of Economics

  Stephan Chambers is the inaugural director of the Marshall Institute at LSE and Director of the 100x Impact Accelerator. He serves on the steering groups for the Just Transition Finance Lab and the LSE Grantham Research Institute. At LSE he also sits on the governing board for the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and is Professor in Practice at the Department of Management and Course Director for the Executive Masters in Social Business and Entrepreneurship. Before joining the Marshall Institute Stephan Chambers was the Co-Founder of the Skoll World Forum. From 2000 to 2014 he directed the University of Oxford’s MBA and was the founding Director of Oxford University's Executive MBA programme.

  Read Full Bio
• Michael Porter

  Speaker

  University Professor, Harvard Business School

  BSE (Hons) in Aerospace and Mech. Eng., Princeton Univ.; MBA (Hons), Harvard Bus. School; PhD in Business Economics, Harvard Univ. Bishop William Lawrence Univ. Prof., Harvard Bus. School. Authority on company strategy, the competitiveness of nations and regions, and strategic approaches to societal problems. Chairs Harvard Bus. School's progr. for newly appointed CEOs of multibillion dollar corporations. Adviser to business, government and the social sector. Active role in US economic policy. Founder: The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City; Center for Effective Philanthropy; FSG. Author of 19 books and numerous articles. Awards and honours.

  Read Full Bio
• Mabel van Oranje

  Moderator

  Founder, Girls Not Brides

  Mabel van Oranje is a global advocate for equality, justice and freedom and serial entrepreneur for social change. During the last decade, she played a catalytic role in the creation and growth of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, the Girls First Fund and VOW for Girls. Mabel is currently a board member of Fondation Chanel, the Lego Foundation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust and VOW for Girls (chair). She is also an advisor to Apolitical Academy Global, Co-Impact’s Gender Fund, Global Witness, the Graca Machel Trust and The Elders. Mabel is a champion of Girls Not Brides, and a co-founder and chair emeritus of the European Council on Foreign Relations. You can follow her tweets @MabelvanOranje

  Read Full Bio
• Jeff Skoll

  Speaker

  Founder & Chairman, Jeff Skoll Group

  Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Skoll Foundation Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Participant Media Founder of Capricorn Investment Group Co-founder and GP of the RISE Fund First fulltime employee and President of eBay

  Read Full Bio