Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship: Awards Ceremony

Speakers

• Playing For Change

  Performer

  , Playing For Change

  The PFC Band is a group of musicians united through the Playing For Change Songs Around The World videos. They come together from five different continents, and each musician brings a different culture, experience and sound to the group. From the streets to the stage to the hearts of the people, the PFC Band plays music that transcends our differences and inspires a world where we are going to make it as a human race, one heart and one song at a time.

  Read Full Bio
• Simon Taylor

  Speaker

  Board Member, Global Witness

  I am a co-founder and board member of Global Witness, and together with colleagues, Charmian Gooch and Patrick Alley, we were Skoll awardees in 2014. I remain on the board of Global Witness. But since concluding our succession process, I have set up a new organisation called Hawkmoth. We conduct targetted campaigns, aimed at taking on some of the underlying factors driving the Polycrisis. We conduct investigations, litigation, and broader campaign/advocacy, and thro' creating designed-for-purpose coalitions, we aim to target the perpetrators of crimes and predatory behaviours that drive the polycrisis. Our first campaign (for which we need urgent support) is to prevent the International Oil companies from leaving the Niger Delta, as they are currently seeking to do (just prior to the 2025 Forum), without first cleaning up their vast pollution legacy, which has laid waste to the Delta for decades, poisoning hundreds of thousands of Delta citizens.

  Read Full Bio
• Jockin Arputham

  Speaker

  President, Shack/Slum Dwellers International

  Jockin Arputham worked for more than 40 years in slums and shanty towns, building representative organizations into powerful partners with governments and international agencies for the betterment of urban living. Arputham was the president of the National Slum Dwellers Federation which he founded in the 70s and of Slum Dwellers International which networks slum and shack dweller organizations and federations from over twenty countries across the world. The National Slum Dwellers Federation works closely with Mahila Milan, a collective of savings groups formed by homeless women and women living in slums across India, and with SPARC, a Mumbai-based NGO, and together they have been instrumental is supporting tens of thousands of the urban poor access housing and sanitation. Jockin realized that slum dweller organizations had to change their strategy. They had to make governments see them as legitimate citizens with knowledge and capacities to implement solutions. So they sought to work in partnership with government to address their housing problems – and other problems. He often said that how can you reduce urban poverty if you do not listen to and work with the urban poor. In this way, he built more than 20,000 toilet seats in Mumbai alone. He insisted on new standards on redeveloped housing. Over the years, Arputham built 30,000 houses in India, and 1,000,000 houses abroad. Funding for his work came from many sources. He visited many other countries to encourage and support slum or shack dwellers to organize and to encourage them to take their own initiatives to show government what they are capable of. He was the winner of the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding and an honorary Ph.D. from KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, in 2009. In 2011, the Government of India bestowed on him its fourth highest civilian honor, the Padma Shri award. The Skoll Foundation deeply mourns the loss of Jockin Arputham who passed away in 2018.

  Read Full Bio
• Yves Moury

  Speaker

  Founder, President & CEO, Fundación Capital

  Yves Moury is the Founder and CEO of Fundación Capital, a global organization aiming at asset-building for the poor and climate action. He has been honored as a Schwab Foundation (the sister organization of the World Economic Forum) Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 Awardee, in recognition of his outstanding entrepreneurial social activities that massively benefit vulnerable populations, worldwide. In 2017 he was also named an Ashoka Senior Fellow, and in 2014 received the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship, a global recognition for his work in education and economic opportunities. Fundación Capital is a pioneer in systems change for economic citizenship and inclusive finance, working to help the poor access formal finance and save; grow and invest their assets; insure their families, build resilient mechanisms against climate change; and chart a permanent path out of poverty. Systems change and scale are at the heart of Fundación Capital’s work.

  Read Full Bio
• Jay Coen Gilbert

  Speaker

  Co-Founder, B Lab

  Jay Coen Gilbert is strategic advisor to Imperative 21, a global network shaping economic narratives and reimagining systems so that everyone, everywhere can thrive. Imperative 21 catalyzes breakthrough storytelling, like the podcast season “Capitalism” from Scene on Radio, that can accelerate the movement to redesign an economic system that cares about people more than profit. I21 builds on Jay’s experience as cofounder of B Lab, the nonprofit behind the B Corporation movement, with nearly 9,300 companies across 105 countries. Along with his B Lab cofounders, Jay received the UMKC Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the McNulty Prize at the Aspen Institute. Jay recently co-founded an antiracist community of practice called White Men for Racial Justice. Prior, Jay co-founded AND 1, a global basketball company and subject of a Netflix documentary. Jay grew up in NYC and graduated from Stanford University.

  Read Full Bio
• Malala Yousafzai

  Speaker

  Co-Founder, Malala Fund

  Malala Yousafzai is co-founder and Executive Chair of Malala Fund. Malala began her campaign for education at age 11 when she anonymously blogged for the BBC about life under the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. Over the next few years, Malala continued her advocacy for girls’ education publicly — attracting international media attention and awards. At age 15, she was attacked by the Taliban for speaking out. After months of surgery and rehabilitation in the United Kingdom, she co-founded Malala Fund with her father Ziauddin to continue her campaign to see every girl complete 12 years of free, safe, quality education. A year later, Malala received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her efforts. Malala graduated from Oxford University in 2020 with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. She is also the best-selling author of three books and president of Extracurricular Productions.

  Read Full Bio
• Sam Parker

  Speaker

  Founder, FIGURE80

  Graduating from Oxford University in 1983, Sam worked for 17 years in the agrochemicals and commodity trading businesses, with responsibilities across Latin America, Africa and Asia. During this time, Sam took a two-year break to work as a volunteer with street children in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2002, he moved into the development sector with the International Save the Children Alliance, leading the organisational development of its 30 national members. 2006, Sam joined Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), as its first CEO, and became a Skoll Awardee in 2014. In 2015, Sam was appointed Director of the Shell Foundation, which funds the expansion of renewable energy to low-income consumers who have no access to electricity. Recognizing the crucial importance of business in achieving the SDGs, in 2021, Sam co-founded Agile Governance Inc., a B-Corp that helps social enterprises to transform business performance and raise more capital through smart, agile governance.

  Read Full Bio
• Charmian Gooch

  Speaker

  Co-Founder & Director, Global Witness

  Charmian Gooch jointly led Global Witness's first campaign, exposing the trade in timber between the Khmer Rouge and Thai logging companies and their political and military backers. Subsequently, Charmian developed and launched Global Witness’s ground-breaking campaign to combat ‘blood diamonds’; Global Witness was nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize as a result of this work. In 2014 Charmian was awarded the TED Prize, given to an ‘extraordinary individual with a creative and bold vision to spark global change’. In the same year, Charmian along with Global Witness co-founders Patrick Alley and Simon Taylor, received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, awarded to ‘transformative leaders who are disrupting the status quo’. She was also named one of Fast Company’s 100 most creative people in business and is a Young Global Leader Alumni.

  Read Full Bio
• Sally Osberg

  Speaker

  Vice Chair and Senior Advisor, Skoll Foundation

  As the first President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, Sally Osberg partnered with Jeff Skoll to build it into the leading philanthropy in the field of social entrepreneurship. During her tenure, the Foundation supported more than 100 entrepreneurial organizations driving equilibrium change on many of the world’s most pressing problems and developed innovative platforms for connecting civil society, government and private sector leaders with societal problem solvers. Among these platforms are the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, the Skoll Centre at Oxford University’s Said Business School, and the Sundance Institute’s “Stories of Change” initiative. In 2015, Sally and Roger Martin published Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works, which articulates a theoretical framework for social entrepreneurship and distills lessons for practitioners, academics and impact investors. Her thought pieces have appeared in leading social impact and business journals and books; in 2015, she and Roger Martin were honored by Thinkers 50 for their intellectual leadership in the field of social enterprise. Prior to joining Jeff Skoll and the Skoll Foundation, Sally served as the founding Executive Director for Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, a pioneering institution in the field. Sally currently serves as the Chair of the Camfed (the Campaign for Female Education in Africa) USA Foundation, on the Philanthropy Advisory Council of the Royal Bank of Canada, on the Advisory Council of the Elders, as Vice Chair of the Social Progress Imperative and as a board director for New America and the Palestine-based Partners for Sustainable Development. She is also an Associate Fellow of the Said Business School of Oxford University. She received her M.A. in English and American Literature from the Claremont Graduate School and her B.A. in English from Scripps College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

  Read Full Bio
• Patrick Alley

  Speaker

  Co-Founder & Board Member, Global Witness

  In 1993 Patrick and two friends decided to take down the genocidal Khmer Rouge rebel group in Cambodia. Forming Global Witness and embarking on a series of ill-advised undercover investigations they succeeded, surprising themselves as much as anyone else. Nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for exposing the role of Blood Diamonds in numerous African wars, Global Witness has become a globally influential rooter out of bad guys and corruption, and been dubbed ‘the football hooligans of the NGO world’. Patrick has published two books - Very Bad People, a casebook of the most dramatic issues Global Witness has worked on, and Terrible Humans, drawing on similar stories from other investigators Patrick admires. Together they are a collection of Machiavellian scams and heists that bring together dictators, corporations and other crooks in a collection of stories reminiscent of a Le Carre plot, except more complicated and not quite as well told.

  Read Full Bio
• Mabel van Oranje

  Speaker

  Serial Entrepreneur for Social Change, Girls Not Brides

  Mabel van Oranje is a serial entrepreneur for social change, committed to advancing equality, freedom and justice. She has founded, led and advised numerous network organisations, campaigns and initiatives promoting international human rights and development. She has played a catalytic role in the global movement to end child marriage, including the creation and growth of the Girls First Fund, Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, and VOW for Girls. An experienced movement-builder, Mabel has worked on a wide range of issues – including the 1990s Balkan wars, international criminal justice, independent media, HIV/AIDS prevention, natural resource transparency, European enlargement and foreign policy, drug policy reform, girls’ education, and democracy innovation. Mabel is a board member of Crisis Management Initiative, Fondation Chanel, More in Common, and VOW for Girls (Chair), and a co-founder and Chair Emeritus of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

  Read Full Bio
• Josh Nesbit

  Speaker

  Former Chief Executive Officer, Medic

  Josh Nesbit is the co-founder and former CEO of Medic, a nonprofit organization founded to improve health with and in the hardest-to-reach communities. The open-source software helps over 35,000 community health workers provide care for more than 20 million people in Africa and Asia. These health workers deliver care and services, door-to-door, through more than 1.5 million home visits each month. Together with our partners, we envision a more just world in which health workers are supported as they provide care for their neighbors, universal health coverage is a reality, and health is secured as a human right. Before co-founding Medic, Josh studied global health and bioethics at Stanford University, where his qualitative research focused on pediatric HIV/AIDS in Malawi. Josh is an Ashoka Fellow, PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, Echoing Green Fellow, and Rainer Arnhold Fellow. He has served on the Board of Directors for Developing Radio Partners and IntraHealth International. Josh was selected by Devex as one of 40 Under 40 Leaders in International Development, received the Truman Award for Innovation from the Society for International Development, and was named by Forbes as one of the world’s 30 top social entrepreneurs. In 2014, Medic received a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2016, Josh accepted a Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award. Josh is continually inspired by health workers around the world.

  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
• Bart Houlahan

  Speaker

  Co-Founder, B Lab

  Bart Houlahan co-founded B Lab in 2006, the non-profit organization behind the B Corp movement. There are now more than 10,000 Certified B Corporations in 102 countries and 162 industries. More than 350,000 businesses have used B Lab’s B Impact Assessment to manage their social and environmental performance, and the organization has passed legislation in 56 jurisdictions creating a new legally-recognized corporate form, the Benefit Corporation. Prior to B Lab, Bart was President of AND 1, a $250 MM basketball footwear and apparel company. He currently sits on the Board of B Lab and is a Senior Partner at Irrational Capital, an investment research firm that has proven that companies that treat their people well outperform in the equity markets.

  Read Full Bio
• Andrew Kassoy

  Speaker

  Co-Founder & CEO, B Lab

  Andrew was co-founder and board co-chair of B Lab, the nonprofit organization behind the B Corp movement. B Lab’s vision is stakeholder capitalism - an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economic system for all. B Lab drives systemic change by changing the culture, behavior, and structure of business and the capital markets. The movement is led by the example of nearly 8,000 Certified B Corporations in 80 countries. Before leaving the private sector to co-found B Lab, Andrew spent 16 years as a partner in private equity funds at DLJ, Credit Suisse, and MSD Capital. He and his co-founders have won numerous awards and recognition, including a New York Times Visionary, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the McNulty Prize. He was a lecturer at Princeton University, where he taught a course on stakeholder capitalism with his wife, Margot Brandenburg, and he has served on numerous for profit and non-profit boards. Andrew lived in Brooklyn with his wife and four children. The Skoll Foundation deeply mourns the loss of Andrew who passed away June 22, 2025.

  Read Full Bio