List of social entrepreneurs

A social entrepreneur is an entrepreneur who works to increase social capital, often by founding humanitarian organizations.

Historical examples of leading social entrepreneurs

• Vinoba Bhave (India) – Founder and leader of the Land Gift Movement, he caused the redistribution of more than 7,000,000 acres (28,000 km²) of land to aid India's untouchables and landless. Mahatma Gandhi described him as his mentor.

• David Brower (U.S.) – Environmentalist and conservationist, he served as the Sierra Club's first executive director and built it into a worldwide network for environmental issues. He also founded Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters and The Earth Island Institute.

• Akhtar Hameed Khan (Pakistan) – Founder of grassroots movement for rural communities Comilla Model, and low-cost sanitation programmes (Orangi Pilot Project) for squatter settlements.

• Maria Montessori (Italy) – Developed the Montessori approach to early childhood education.

• John Muir (U.S.) – Naturalist and conservationist, he established the National Park System and helped found The Sierra Club.

• Florence Nightingale (UK) – Founder of modern nursing, she established the first school for nurses and fought to improve hospital conditions.

• Frederick Law Olmsted (U.S.) – Creator of major urban parks, including Rock Creek Park in Washington DC, Central Park in NYC, and Mount Royal Park in Montreal, he is generally considered to have developed the profession of landscape architecture in America.

• Gifford Pinchot (U.S.) – Champion of the forest as a multiple use environment, he helped found the Yale School of Forestry and created the U.S. Forest Service, serving as its first chief.

• Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (Germany) – Pioneer of the rural bond of association as a substitute for collateral in microfinance, and a principal founder of the credit union and cooperative bank sectors that now form a major segment of the European banking system.

• Margaret Sanger (U.S.) – Founder of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she led the movement for family planning efforts around the world.

• John Woolman (U.S.) – Led U.S. Quakers to voluntarily emancipate all their slaves between 1758 and 1800, his work also influenced the British Society of Friends, a major force behind the British decision to ban slaveholding. Quakers, of course, became a major force in the U.S. abolitionist movement as well as a key part of the infrastructure of the Underground Railroad.

Present day social entrepreneurs

• Ibrahim Abouleish (Egypt) – Founder of SEKEM, a biodynamic agricultural corporation, alternative medicine, and educational center located outside of Cairo.

• Nader Al-Khateeb (Palestine) - Palestinian Director of EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East

• Gennady Alferenko (Russia) – Founder of the Foundation for Social Inventions and Foundation for Social Innovations.

• Rodrigo Baggio (Brazil) - Founder, Center for Digital Inclusion, a nonprofit organization that uses technology to fight poverty and stimulate entrepreneurship.

• Ela Bhatt (India) – Founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) and the SEWA Cooperative Bank in Gujarat.À

• Jeroo Billimoria (Mumbai, India) - Founder and Managing Director of Child and Youth Finance International.

• Taddy Blecher (South Africa) - Co-founder of CIDA City Campus, South Africa's "first low-cost tertiary education institution."

• Gidon Bromberg (Israel) - Israeli Director of EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East

• Bruce Poon Tip (Canada), Founder of G Adventures

• Thinlas Chorol (India) – Founder of the Ladadakhi Women's Travel Company, which despite social norms work to bring women into, the otherwise male-dominated Ladakhi tourism industry.

• Nand Kishore Chaudhary (India) – Founder of Jaipur rugs, which promotes rural development through capacity building of rural people in carpet weaving.

• Vera Cordeiro (Brazil) - Founder of Brazil Child Health

• Blake Mycoskie (USA) - Founder of TOMS Shoes
• Ann Cotton (Canada) - Founder, Camfed

• Arunachalam Muruganantham (India) – the man who made sanitary napkins accessible for rural women in India
• Nathaniel Dunigan (Uganda) – Founder of Aidchild; Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship at the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School; the Dammeyer Fellow in Global Education Leadership at the University of San Diego; and Cordes Fellow at the Opportunity Collaboration 2012.^[1]

• Bill Drayton (U.S.) – Founded Ashoka, Youth Venture, and Get America Working!

• Marian Wright Edelman (U.S.) – Founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) and advocate for disadvantaged Americans and children.

• Jim Fruchterman (U.S.) - founder and CEO of Benetech, a Silicon Valley nonprofit technology company that develops software applications to address unmet needs of users in the social sector.

• Dr. Abraham M. George (India) – Founder of The George Foundation (TGF).

• Scott Gilmore (Canada) - Founder, Building Markets, a non-profit organization that builds markets, creates jobs and sustains peace in developing countries.

• Harish Hande (India) – Founder of Selco India, a solar electric light company in 1995, which over the years has lit up over 120,000 households, to emerge as India's leading solar technology firm. Magsaysay Award 2011.^[2]

• Pamela Hartigan (U.S.) – Founding partner of Volans Ventures and founding managing director of the Schwab Foundation

• Amir Alexander Hasson – Founder of First Mile Solutions and United Villages, Amir has built networks impacting the lives of millions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America is currently an Entrepreneur In Residence at MIT and a Mentor at the Harvard iLab.

• Alan Khazei (U.S.) – Co-Founder of City Year, a leading national service program.

• Craig and Marc Kielburger (Canada) - Co-founders, Free the Children charity and the Me to We social enterprise.

• Dr. Verghese Kurien (India) – Founder of the AMUL Dairy Project.

• Munqeth Mehyar (Jordan) - Chairman and Jordanian Director of EcoPeace/ Friends of the Earth Middle East

• Jamie Oliver (U.K.) – TV chef who campaigned to improve children's diet at school. He also trained disadvantaged young people to become chefs. He created a restaurant – a social enterprise – called Fifteen which employed these newly trained youngsters. Fifteen is now a global chain of four restaurants.

• Mark Plotkin (U.S.) - Co-founder, Amazon Conservation Team

• Paul Rice (U.S.) - President & CEO of Fair Trade USA

• Bunker Roy (India) – Founder of Barefoot College, which promotes rural development through innovative education programs.

• Albina Ruiz (Peru) - Founder and leader of Ciudad Saludable, a non-profit environmental health organization

• Grace Sai (Singapore) - Co-founder and CEO of The Hub Singapore, a leading co-working space for Singaporean social entrepreneurs

• Amitabh Shah (India) – Founder of Yuva Unstoppable, which works for 250,000 underprivileged children mobilizing 100,000 volunteers from 32 cities.

• Yashveer Singh^[3] (India) – Founder of National Social Entrepreneurship Forum, supporting youth-driven social entrepreneurship.^[4]

• Dr Willie Smits (Borneo, Indonesia) – Founder of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, Founder and Chairperson of the Masarang Foundation

• Chris Underhill (U.K.) - founder, BasicNeeds, a global mental health organisation, which works with people with mental illness or epilepsy in the developing world.

• Mabel van Oranje (Netherlands) - Founder and board chair, Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage

• Martín von Hildebrand (Colombia) - Founding Director, Fundación Gaia Amazonas

• Mathis Wackernagel (Switzerland) - President of Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think tank.

• Sakena Yacoobi (Afghanistan) – executive director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an Afghan women-led NGO she founded in 1995.

• Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh) – Founder of microcredit and the Grameen Bank. He was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

• Bill Clinton (US) – Clinton Global Initiative.

• Tse Ka Kui - Hong Kong

• Mohammed Sadiq Mamdani - founder of Sufra, Al-Mizan Charitable Trust, Muslim Youth Helpline and Ansar Youth Project.

References