2008 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship
Video Description
The 2008 Skoll Awards ceremony. Winners were Bill Strickland, Manchester Bidwell; Amazon Conservation Team, Michael Eckhart of ACORE, Connie Duckworth of Arzu, Jeremy Hockenstein and Mai Siriphongphanh of Digital Divide Data; Jenny Bowen of Half the Sky; Matt Flannery and Premal Shah of Kiva; Mitch Besser and Gene Falk, Mothers2Mothers; Paul Farmer of Partners in Health; Daniel Lubetsky of PeaceWorks; Mechai Viravaidya of Population and Community Development Agency; Cecelia Flores-Oebanda of Visayan Forum Foundation
Speakers
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Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund
On 1 January 2011, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin became the fourth Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. Before this appointment, Dr. Osotimehin was Nigeria’s Minister of Health. Prior to that, he was Director-General of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Control of AIDS, which coordinates HIV and AIDS work in a country of more than 150 million people. Dr. Osotimehin qualified as a doctor from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1972, and went to the University of Birmingham, England, and got a doctorate in medicine in 1979. He was appointed Professor at the University of Ibadan in 1980 and headed the Department of Clinical Pathology before being elected Provost of the College of Medicine in 1990. Years later, he served in several organizations, including as Chair of the National Action Committee on AIDS, from 2002 to 2007. The Executive Director has participated in the Cairo Population Conference, Beijing Women’s Conference and United Nations special sessions on AIDS. Dr. Osotimehin received the Nigerian national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) in December 2005. His interests include youth and gender, within the context of reproductive health and rights. He is married and has five children.
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Co-Founder, Kiva / Branch International Inc.
Matt began developing Kiva in late 2004 as a side-project while working as a computer programmer at TiVo, Inc. In December 2005 Matt left his job to devote himself to Kiva full-time. As CEO for 10 years, Matt led Kiva's growth from a pilot project to an established online service with partnerships in 80 countries and over 700 million dollars lent to low income entrepreneurs.
More recently, Matt has dived back into the startup world by creating Branch International. Branch is a for profit, Android-based "branchless bank" for Africans just launched in 2015. In just six months, Branch has made tens of thousands of loans in Kenya.
Matt is Skoll Awardee and Ashoka Fellow and was selected to FORTUNE magazine's "Top 40 under 40" list in 2009. In 2011, Matt was chosen for the The Economist "No Boundaries" Innovation Award. He graduated with a BS in Symbolic Systems and a Masters in Philosophy from Stanford University.
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Dr. Besser recognized the need for a support program to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to their children. He founded mothers2mothers (m2m), in which mothers living with HIV are employed as Mentor Mothers to work in health centers and communities, educating and supporting pregnant women and new mothers with HIV; towards reducing the number of babies born with HIV and keeping mothers healthy and alive to care for their families. Since 2001, m2m has cared for 15 million mothers and children. In ten countries in Africa, m2m employs 2000 women living with HIV in programs addressing needs of HIV negative and positive women, adolescent girls and young women; and early child development. In 2014, Mitch launched AgeWell, dedicated to needs of older persons. Applying m2m’s peer model, AgeWell employs tech-enabled, independent older people to provide companionship and promote well-being among less able older people. The program has provided service in South Africa, Ireland and the U.S.
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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.
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Adjunct Professor, Columbia University
Currently an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University School for International and Public Affairs. (SIPA). Retired in 2019 from Citigroup as its global head. of environmental. finance. Previously, was the founder and President of the American Council. on Renewable Energy. (ACORE) and the SolarBank Initiative in Europe, India and Africa. Earlier, was CEO of United Power Systems, partner at. Arete Ventures, manager f strategic planning at General Electric Company, and aa Principal at. Booz. Allen & Hamilton.
Mr. Eckhart earned a BSEE from. Purdue University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, and served in the US Navy Submarine Service.
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Dr. Mark J. Plotkin has led the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) since 1996, when he co-founded the organization with Liliana Madrigal. He is a renowned ethnobotanist who has spent three decades studying traditional plant use with traditional healers of tropical America.Among his many influential writings, Dr. Plotkin may be best known for his popular work Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice (1994), which has been printed continuously and in multiple languages. His most recent book, The Amazon – What Everyone Needs to Know, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020.Dr. Plotkin has received the San Diego Zoo Gold Medal for Conservation, the Roy Chapman Andrews Distinguished Explorer Award, and, with Liliana Madrigal, the Skoll Award. In 2010, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Lewis and Clark College. Dr. Plotkin was educated at Harvard, Yale and Tufts University. His ongoing podcast Plants of the Gods is available on Apple Podcasts and other platforms.
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Cecilia is an internationally acclaimed slavery fighter. Through VF, she rescues, heals, and reintegrates survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Working together with partners they protected more than 30,000 at risk and exploited young girls.
Cecil was instrumental in the enactment of pioneering laws in the Philippines to promote decent work for domestic workers, law to eliminate the worst forms of child labor and anti-trafficking law amendments.
She was appointed by the two Philippine Presidents to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking as NGO representative and served for six years. She was also a member of the Presidential-Illegal Recruitment Task force during the Aquino Administration.
Cecilia currently serves as an Advisory Board of the Freedom United, and as part of the Advisory Council of Telos Governance Agency
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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.
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Mechai Viravaidya’s work centered on reducing births (family planning), reducing deaths (fighting the spread of HIV), reducing dependency (establishing social enterprises), eradicating poverty (community empowerment) and reducing ignorance (reinventing Thai education).
He was also appointed to key positions as Thailand’s Cabinet spokesperson, Deputy Minister of Industry, Minister of the Office of the Prime Minister, and Chairman of several of Thailand’s largest government-owned enterprises.
Mechai was presented with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service (1994), recognized as one of Asiaweek’s “20 Great Asians” (1995), the United Nations Population Award (1997), one of TIME Magazine’s “Asian Heroes” (2006), the Bill and Melinda Gates Award for Global Health (2007), the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2008). He was honoured with the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health (2009). More recently, the Global Humanitarian Award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute (2022)
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Mai Siriphongphanh received her MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship in 2002. In 2004 she participated in the Global Social Benefit Incubator Program. In 2008, she received the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship. When joining DDD, Mai took the spirit of leadership, refining its social enterprise model, focusing on human development and re-innovating it as a mechanism for training a new generation of leaders.
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Liliana Madrigal is Co-Founder and Vice-President of ACT, created in 1996 with Dr. Mark J. Plotkin. Her special mandate is providing the vision, strategic direction, and organizational leadership to advance ACT’s mission. Additionally, Liliana oversees ACT’s fundraising and programmatic activities, traveling frequently to South America to meet and work with ACT's local teams and indigenous partners. Previously she led conservation efforts with the Fundacion de Parques Nacionales de Costa Rica, Conservation International, and The Nature Conservancy. In 2006, Liliana won the Circle of Bridge-Makers Award from the Angeles Arrien Foundation. She and Dr. Plotkin were co-awardees of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2008. In 2017, she was awarded a residency fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. Liliana lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband Dr. Mark J. Plotkin.
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Jimmy Carter was born in rural Georgia in 1924 to a farmer/businessman and a registered nurse. Most of Carter’s childhood neighbors were poor African-Americans, and though his father supported segregation, many of Carter’s friends were the children of black farmhands. Early on, he learned of marginalization and unjust distribution of resources.
He attended public schools and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, rose to the rank of lieutenant, and served as senior officer of the pre-commissioning crew of the second nuclear submarine. After his father’s death, Carter returned to Georgia to run the family farm and business, and quickly became a community leader. He served in state politics and, as Georgia’s governor, advocated for civil rights. In 1977 he became the 39th president of the United States. He helmed peace treaties in the Middle East, crafted significant environmental protections, and created a new Department of Education.
He opened the Carter Center in 1982 to resolve conflict, promote democracy, protect human rights, and prevent disease. The Center spearheaded the international effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease—poised to be the second human disease eradicated in history. Every year since 1984, Carter has volunteered a week with Habitat for Humanity,
building and repairing thousands of homes in 14 countries. He has authored 31 books, ranging from personal history and fiction, to urgent polemics and poetry. As a clarion voice for the disenfranchised, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
In recent years he has turned his keen and compassionate eye to what he calls the number one human rights abuse: systematic injustice against women and girls. “Women are key agents of the change we need,” he said recently. “When half the world’s population is not consulted on important decisions and policies, it is no wonder that so many problems persist.”
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A former screenwriter and independent filmmaker, Jenny Bowen founded Half the Sky (now OneSky for all children) in 1998 in order to give something back to China, her adopted daughters’ home country, and to the many orphaned children then languishing behind institutional walls. Under her leadership, OneSky has grown into a global NGO; its mission is to train communities and caregivers to provide nurturing care and early education that unlocks the potential in our world’s most vulnerable young children. OneSky now works in Mainland China, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Hong Kong.
Among other awards, Jenny has been honored with the Skoll Award, AmCham Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Nonprofit Leader of the Year, and the Purpose Prize. In 2021, she was selected as one of Forbes inaugural 50 Women over 50 who are leading the way in Impact. She is author of the memoir, Wish You Happy Forever: What China’s Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains, published by Harper Collins.
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MBA student,
Gillian Langor is an MBA student at the Saïd Business School and an Associate Fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. She is a mechanical engineer with a background in product design and is interested in using design methodologies to create social impact.
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Gene Falk is one of the few people to lead major ventures in both Fortune 500 companies and the non-profit sector. Building on this experience, he founded and heads strategic consulting firm FalkAdvisors|DGB whose mission is to help funders and the not-for-profits they support achieve the best results from their collaborations, avoiding risks and pain points, and sidestepping obstacles that rapidly burn through money, time and other valuable resources.
Previously, Gene headed mothers2mothers (m2m) and was a recipient of a Skoll Award for this work. Prior to that, Gene was a senior executive at Showtime and HBO.
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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.
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Co-Founder & President,
KivaPremal helps lead Kiva.org —a crowdfunding website that connects people through lending to alleviate poverty. Since 2005, over $1B in philanthropic loans has been crowdfunded to millions of underserved entrepreneurs in 90 countries — with a 96% repayment rate. The site has been named as one of Oprah's Favorite Things and a Top 50 Website by TIME Magazine. Premal's inspiration came while volunteering in India while on leave from PayPal, where he had been an early employee. Premal began his career as a management consultant and graduated from Stanford University. He’s passionate about making it easier for anyone to discover their own power to make real impact. He serves on the Board of VolunteerMatch.org & Watsi.org — a crowdfunding for developing world health care site. For his work as a social entrepreneur, Premal was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and selected to FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 40 under 40″ list.
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LUIS SZARAN
Artist for PEACE of UNESCO
Orchestra conductor, composer and musicologist
As a social entrepreneur, in 2002 he founded the social and community integration program through music: Sounds of the Earth, aimed at low-income children and young people. In 2005, he received the “Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship” from the Skoll Foundation. In 2013 he was recognized as Global Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the World Economic Forum.
In 2008 he was chosen, by the American University, as one of the 12 most outstanding leaders of Paraguay. He is the author of books published in Paraguay, Germany, Italy and Spain.
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Jeremy Hockenstein is the Chair of Digital Divide Data, the Skoll award winning organization he co-founded in 2001. He is now the Co-founder and Managing Director of Livelihood Impact Fund, a foundation focused on increasing incomes in Africa.
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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
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Co-Founder & CEO, Solutions Journalism Network
David is CEO and co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN), which is leading a global movement to transform journalism, anchored by a focus on spreading knowledge through rigorous reporting about potential or demonstrated solutions to global problems. SJN has directly engaged with > 650 news organizations and 47,000 journalists and now has hundreds of training partners in 50 countries. As a journalist, David examined social innovation efforts for three decades. He created and co-authored the “Fixes” column in The New York Times, which ran for 11 years and published over 600 articles about social innovators. He is the author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, which has been published in 25 languages, The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank, and Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.
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Daniel Lubetzky is CEO of KIND Healthy Snacks, makers of award-winning healthy foods, and Chairman of PeaceWorks, pursuing both peace and profit through neighbors striving to coexist in conflict regions. He is also the Founder of the PeaceWorks Foundation's OneVoice Movement, empowering moderate Israelis and Palestinians to achieve peace, and Co-Founder of Maiyet, forging partnerships with artisans in developing economies to create a new luxury fashion venture. Lubetzky received a BA in Economics and International Relations (magna cum laude) from Trinity University, and a JD from Stanford Law School. He has received many awards, including the Peace Security and Reconciliation Award, the Peace Makers Award and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. He was also selected as Entrepreneur of the Year by Entrepreneur Magazine. Lubetzky was selected by the World Economic Forum as one of 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow in 1997 and later as a Young Global Leader.
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Connie Duckworth founded ARZU, Inc. in 2004 and serves pro bono as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. She is a retired Partner and Managing Director of Goldman, Sachs, & Co., where she was named the first woman sales and trading partner in the firm’s history during her 20-year career. The recipient of numerous awards for leadership and advocacy, Ms. Duckworth was named a 2008 Skoll Foundation Honoree for Social Entrepreneurship.
