Close
Founders of PLAN, a global program
that provides support for disabled
people and their families through
long-term care strategies, Vickie and
Al have now created Tyze (tyze.com),
a website that enables users to create
personalised social networks for groups
vulnerable to social isolation. Within
5 years they plan to scale beyond
Canada, the US, and Europe to support
the elderly, family caregivers and
people with disabilities worldwide.
Close
Albert Jovell is placing patients at the center of the healthcare system in Spain, giving them more decision-making power in issues concerning their health. He is equipping them with appropriate knowledge regarding their treatment and conditions, and placing patient representatives in the governing and advisory committees that steer the healthcare system. To consolidate and spread his work, he has designed and is engaged in a series of advocacy programs across Spain and Europe. Albert also works through the Patients Forum to advocate with healthcare policymakers to include patient representatives in the governing bodies of hospitals, healthcare policy boards and other institutions. The result is that both patients’ experiences and opinions are integrated into personal and institutional medical decisions. Albert’s Patients University offers “expert patient” training courses and disease-specific itineraries that take individuals through the key phases of a disease, preparing them for every situation.
Close
Cofounder of the world renowned Rocky Mountain Institute, Amory Lovins has pioneered efficient use of energy resources and policy development, creating new models and incentivizing renewable solutions for government, corporations, and the community as a whole. A thirty-year pioneer in the field, his work turned the energy challenge on its head by focusing on providing the amount, type, scale and source of energy that would provide desired services in the cheapest way, as opposed to getting the most energy from any source at any price. From personally engineering a new ultra-efficient “Hypercar” as a model for the auto industry, to conducting landmark research on light bulb energy consumption, Amory has pioneered solutions that have become catalysts for change across countless industries. By changing the incentive structures for government, corporations, and the community as a whole to implement efficient policies, RMI has been able to achieve major impact. Perhaps even more importantly, Amory has spread his work more widely than anyone else in the field. He has aggressively moved his ideas into widespread practice, primarily through an unprecedented collaboration with the private sector.
Close
With Dialogue in the Dark and Dialogue in Silence,
Andreas has created platforms to empower blind
and deaf people as guides or trainers. Having
transformed the perception of over 6 million
visitors and created employment for 6,000
disabled people, Andreas next hopes to reach
100 million participants in cities globally. He has
piloted his work in Dublin and sees an opportunity
to build a permanent exhibition space in Ireland.
Close
Founder of Ashoka, Bill Drayton is guiding a
movement to create a world where Everyone is
a Changemaker. His Youth Venture programme
creates opportunities for young people to create
their own ventures and grasp their own power to
transform the problems they see in their lives. Youth
Venture is currently active in 10 countries around
the world, and is poised to expand into Ireland.
Close
Bill Thomas is transforming long-term medical care from the current institution-oriented model into a more person-centered system. Bill's vision moves the nursing home industry away from institutions and replaces them with small, community-based care environments that offer seniors a better quality of life and better clinical care. Bill is also working to create small "households" within large facilities. Bill and a network of regional coordinators teach the Eden Alternative, an approach to care that transforms large institutions into human habitats–giving people a much better opportunity to get to know one another and changing the staffing structure to ensure that each elder receives individualized attention. His success in rehabilitating existing facilities has provided the basis for major structural change within the long-term care industry. The next step in his vision of creating humanized care is the creation of community residences for older people that serve six to eight seniors each that will ultimately replace nursing homes.
Close
Founder of Energy Action Coalition, a nationwide network of students fighting for progress on climate change, and Green for All, a national effort to build “green jobs, “ Billy Parish is now leading Solar Mosaic, a marketplace that anyone can use to create solar projects and finance them from their communities, locally and online. His goal is to flip business-as-usual energy development on its head and democratize it through clean energy. Solar Mosaic connects people who want to go solar with the buildings that have the ideal roofs and space to go solar. Billy’s goal is to bring communities together to build community solar projects.
Close
Brendan is creating a new model to preserve valuable and unique landscapes through farming. His model blends the disparate and often contrarian fields and departments of agriculture, environmental conservation, heritage, and tourism to place farmers at the center of land stewardship and create financial incentives for environmentally sound landscape management. Based on years of research and farmer input, Brendan has designed a payment scheme that pays farmers for output in terms of measures that preserve landscape, sound environmental practices, and conservation such as stone wall repair, scrub encroachment, and water quality, and positions farmers as expert custodians. His work, piloted in the Burren area of County Clare, is bringing biodiversity to market, and has implications for landscapes around the world.
Close
Carlo Petrini, a sociologist and former
food writer from rural Italy, is helping food
consumers reconnect and influence how
and where their food is produced. Carlo
is changing food consumption patterns to
reverse the negative social, economic, and
environmental impacts of the global food
industry, and forge a closer relationship
between people and their food. Carloís
Slow Food is a fast-growing social
movement spanning 132 countries, with
17 local branches to date in Ireland.
Close
Along with her team at Kanchi, Caroline Casey has
established a series of innovative programmes
highlighting the contributions the disabled make
as employees and consumers through The Ability
Awards, the Kanchi Network, and the Kanchi
Standard. Through the Ability Awards and her growing
network of over 100 Ability Businesses, Caroline has
changed the perception of disability and is opening
new avenues for the disabled in the business world.
Having reached 20% of the Irish working population
within three years, Caroline has now launched the
Ability Awards franchise in Spain and is looking to
expand her approach even further afield.
Close
Celso Grecco is the founder and president of Attitude Social Marketing, one of the first agencies in Brazil dedicated to building "social platforms" for corporations and helping civil society organizations build strategy and communication plans. Celso also createdthe Social Stock Exchange (SSE) within Bovespa, Brazil's stock exchange. The SSE was recognized by UNESCO as unique, adopted by the United Nations Global Compact Office as a case study, and replicated in South Africa and other countries. The SSE is a model recommended by the UN to other stock exchanges in the world.
Close
Daniel is building an online architecture centered on the needs of community organizations, facilitating hardware and software product donations to nonprofits, and engaging the technology community more broadly in the needs of the social sector. TechSoup provides a platform for individuals and organizations to use technology to address the needs of citizen organizations and, directly and indirectly, the world’s most entrenched social problems. TechSoup has aggregated communities of interest across the world and across sectors that want to play a role in designing and implementing creative technical solutions for social change. The largest long-term opportunity TechSoup has begun is its NGO Repository, a major channel to move social investment capital and provide a much higher level of data transparency and multi-stakeholder collaboration in the field of international philanthropy.
Close
Darell Hammond has created an effective delivery mechanism to get playgrounds built by bringing together communities and corporate volunteers in underprivileged communities in the United States. Darell is seizing the historical moment to move beyond playgrounds to institutionalize the "right to play" for every child. Darell is shifting the playground industry to focus on children's needs, seeing play as a fundamental right. His organization KaBOOM! has led to the construction of thousands of new playgrounds since it’s founding. Darell forms partnerships between local communities and corporations to build safe and fun playgrounds for children in areas with little money or parent involvement. With the success of Darell's model, KaBOOM! has become a key player in the industry, and he believes that now is the time that attitudes at the policymaking level can be tipped toward establishing the right to play.
Close
David Egan, a former exercise physiologist is the founder of redbranch. Through his
organization, RedBranch, David Egan is empowering a generation of young people
and their parents in Ireland and around the world to choose healthier lifestyles
by changing their attitudes towards food and exercise and encouraging schools
to adopt policies that support these changes.Healthy lifestyle is a major issue for
children. Childhood obesity levels in Ireland are at an all-time high, with more than
25% of children being overweight. Most Irish children have poor eating habits and
are not physically active, and this has a major impact on life-long health. RedBranch
provide a range of practical support for schools, parents, children & young people
which is changing attitudes to fitness and lifestyle and helping parents make
healthier informed choices for their children. Redbranch has built up an online
resource for parents, teachers and young people to receive nutrition tips, exercise
tips which receives over 200k visitors per month and David is working on building a
social media presence to spread the work.
Close
Eric developed PeaceFirst to teach children how to create peacemaking strategies to resolve conflicts and promote peace in ways relevant to their daily lives. Rather than policing violent behavior, PeaceFirst provides a way for children to learn and live the values of peace and empathy from an early age. Peace starts with kindness, understanding and respect. Eric’s goal is for children and adults to work together to create a culture of peace in and beyond their school. When peacemaking is part of the fabric of every child’s education, Eric believes children in every community will have the skills to resolve conflicts, work across differences, and build a world worthy of their children. His programme combines in class learning as well as external social projects guided by young people.
Close
Faisel is reducing the scope of predatory lending by encouraging and
influencing governmentís regulatory activities and by educating borrowers,
by providing counseling about money and debt management; easier financial
products; and an affordable option for borrowers that reflects their true risk
profile. He is also developing and delivering new client-centred financial
products and services to the most marginalised people. His work, based in
the UK, is expanding rapidly and has great relevance to Ireland.
Close
Faustino Zapico has reformulated the structure of the prison system to break the subculture that transforms these institutions into schools of crime. Where the “law of silence”, confrontation, and mistrust have been the prevailing attitudes, now trust and values are transmitted through micro-societies that are co-managed by the inmates along with the prison workers. With a foundation on humane treatment, this alternative model offers constant immersion in formal and non-formal education in the values and skills necessary for successful reinsertion into society.
Close
Geoff Cape is leading a movement to redesign urban spaces in a way that incorporates the natural environment more fully into public spaces and children’s learning environments. Geoff is making cities and public spaces more environmentally sustainable by bringing together stakeholders from business, nonprofit, and government to develop and operate green projects. Geoff’s organization, Evergreen, also develops educational resources, policy recommendations, landscape planning, and a variety of showcase projects to inspire healthier urban design across Canada and beyond. His approach goes beyond a coalition of environmental organizations and includes organizations from all sectors with a clear message: cities need more nature.
Close
Gregor Hackmack has created an impartial online platform that
enables direct public dialogue between individual citizens and
their elected representatives, holds politicians accountable to
the public, and gives citizens easy access to political information.
With a rigorous commitment to transparency, Gregor brings value
to politicians and voters and is overcoming the gap between them
to enable a new form of democratic participation. Gregor has
expanded Candidatewatch to cover European and Irish elections
and attracted over 250,000 visitors to the Irish site in the weeks
Gregor leading to the Irish General election.
Close
A scientist herself, Hanne Finstad is overhauling
the teaching of science in Norway, leaving behind
the rote memorization that robs the life out
of the subject. Hanne is building a culture of
experiential learning and cutting edge science
through extracurricular courses, teacher training
and policy shift. Hanne is exploring expansion in
Europe through a franchise model to create a mass
generation of critical thinkers who love science.
Close
Goldman Environmental Prize winner Ignace Schops is working with entrepreneurs
to foster business opportunities while supporting local ecological quality. After the
first European citizen-led movement to develop a national park through calibrated
investments, Ignace is now using this park to anchor an economic development
model adaptable to small and large nature spots and reserves in densely
populated regions across Europe.
Close
Jean Marc's Groupe SOS is a holding of
more than 130 French citizen ventures
that promote professional inclusion and
raise the bar for third sector innovation.
While many like Sports without Borders and
Article 23 are already international, he now
plans to bring his social innovation toolbox
to citizen organisations globally.
Close
SIEL Bleu uses unique physical exercises
to delay the onset of age-related health
problems and help seniors retain
independence and social connections.
Jean-Michel not only adds years to the
lives of 60,000 elderly people, but adds
life to their years as well as a model for the
challenges of aging societies far beyond
France. Siel Bleu has spread to a number
of countries around Europe and has
launched in Ireland currently working in a
number of nursing homes across Dublin.
Close
Having brought her first social venture
ChildLine, a hotline for street and
disenfranchised children to over 120 countries,
Jeroo is now bringing her second venture,
ChildFinance, global. ChildFinance provides
financial education and savings and other
financial instruments to children, and is poised
to create a network of financial services for one
million children by 2020.
Close
Jerry Kennelly, a successful entrepreneur in his own right, saw a disconnect between the real world and what was taught in schools He felt there was “a need to show young people that it's possible to exercise control over their own lives through the power of creation” and created the Young Entrepreneur Programme. The Young Entrepreneur Programme, a not-for-profit organisation started in 2007, is dedicated to illustrating the validity of entrepreneurship as a career choice. The six-month programme complements traditional learning by layering workshops, case studies and interaction with key business leaders on top of participants own ideas. It trains participants in business basics, and equips them with mentorship and the tools to start up new ideas. Focused on secondary school students, he is expanding it to primary schools.
Close
A Nobel Peace Prize Winner,
Jerry is leader of International
Campaign to Ban Landmines,
as well as Founder of Survivor
Corps. His organisation, a
worldwide peer-to-peer support
network, is creating a victimfree
world by transforming
passive victims into active
survivors and leaders. By
transforming survivorsí
perceptions of themselves and
enrolling them in the quest to
prevent violence, Jerry is able to
change global societal attitudes
toward the role of conflict
survivors in the prevention of
violent conflict.
Close
In an era where school breaktime is too often
shelved to focus on testing, Jill is guiding a
revolution to allow children time to play. She is
guiding a nationwide and soon global effort
through Playworks to create safe and inclusive
environments for play and physical activity
both within and beyond the school day to
build empathy, increase learning, and improve
behaviour. She is making plans to expand her
work into Ireland.
Close
Jimmy Wales invented and built Wikipedia, a free
online, multilingual, open-source encyclopedia
written and edited collaboratively by hundreds
of thousands of participants around the world.
Wikipedia has, in a few short years, radically
democratized the act of information collection,
and has generated an enormous trove of
knowledge.
Close
A five time Olympic Gold Medalist, Johann works with children, youth
and adult coaches to bring about behavioral changes and enhance
childrenís holistic development through sport and play. After expanding
his programmes to 23 countries, he is now leveraging his experience
and organisational capacity by working with the UN to include sports in
the Millennium Development Goals, and by helping national governments
include sport in their social development policies.
Close
Johannes Hengstenberg is convinced that climate protection
is not abstract and complicated but, rather, is a question of
sound communication and access to information. Johannes
developed a hands-on system that shows how easy it is to
save energy. He provides online tools that enable consumers
to track their energy consumption and to take action to reduce
it. He is changing how citizens consume, as well as build or
remodel homes, by demonstrating the additional value of
saving energy. He has expanded his work to Ireland and is in
partnership with the Tipperary Energy Institute using a number
of his tools in local households.
Close
John's method of teaching mathematics
results in measurable higher scholastic
performance, along with major
improvements in students' self-esteem
and attitude towards learning. His
organization, Junior Undiscovered
Mathematical Prodigies (JUMP), spreads
this method among public schools that
serve low-income students in Canada and
the U.S., and he is now ready to take it to
the rest of the world.
Close
Jordi is shifting the responsibility for land stewardship from the hands of big landowners and government to local community members. He has introduced new land stewardship concepts and mechanisms in order to empower local people to protect and care for their land. He is also working with the Government Administration and law-makers to promote creative interpretations of the current legal framework that allow new groups such as small scale land owners and civil society organizations to participate in land conservation. Jordi is building fiscal incentives, quality seals, tourism opportunities and other benefits to combine land stewardship with a new bottom-up approach of protecting more land and getting more citizens directly involved in caring for it.
Close
Karl-Henrik Robert has successfully nurtured a global environmental
movement by building a institutional platform that brings together
disparate strands of environmentalism to assist institutions, from
companies to governments, to create concrete sustainability strategies.
With branches in 11 countries already, he is looking to scale The Natural
Step more quickly and has established partners in Ireland including the
National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and Dublin City Council.
Close
Krystian is building a movement for accessible, preventative mental health care. He has created a new social business model of community-based mental health services, driven by a revenue-generating combination of paid and pro-bono therapists and practitioners to make mental health care available and affordable without stigma. He has removed the slow referral process and offers visits in a matter of days with three levels of fees, free for the unemployed and unable to pay and fees for paying clients still well below market. He uses web counseling and question answering as a portal to bring people in who may be too afraid or unaccustomed to therapy, and offers a multi-disciplinary team, from psycho therapists to life coaches, which limits the all-too-common dependence on drug-based solutions in the sector. Krystian’s online intervention tool serves as a gateway for tentative users and provides a shared learning platform for practitioners, making mental health care affordable without stigma, and maximizing efficiency through technology and allowing for international outreach.
Close
Lily Lapenna is fostering a generation of young people who will
become the enterprising and financially empowered citizens of
the future. Through her organisation MyBnk, Lily has created an
independent peer led youth banking programme which teaches
young people how to save, spend and lend money responsibly.
Her work, originating in the UK, is expanding rapidly and poised to
spread into Ireland.
Close
Madeleine is overhauling the field of disability by
placing the person, their quality of life and their
independence at the centre of policy decisions.
She is using grassroots best practices and a
cohesive strategy to unite a fragmented sector
and implementation funds to move from wasteful,
ineffective programmes to national best practice
adoption in Ireland, with strong implications for other
sectors and nations.
Close
Marc is shifting the role and perceptions of the aging population. His programme, Life Options, provides a space for the aging population to plan the transition to retirement and become renewed through civic engagement—from volunteering to creating new ventures. His vision is that "individuals will look forward to the third age as a time when they will make some of their most important contributions to society, and can feel confident that when they are ready to make this transition they will have a place to turn for assistance in finding their way." Life Options is expanding the contributions of aging populations, renewing civic participation and individual spirit, and addressing some of society's greatest needs.
Close
Marina Kim is founder of AshokaU, a national programme to build innovation and social entrepreneurship into universities. Her vision is larger than graduating the next cadre of leading professional social entrepreneurs who launch their own ventures. Regardless of chosen discipline or future career field, she is building a world where everyone can be a changemaker. By working to integrate social entrepreneurship into college and university life, Marina’s AshokaU strives to ensure that every aspect of the educational experience is a world-changing experience, so that students develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to effectively address social problems, and colleges and universities become more entrepreneurial and innovative.
Close
Mary's powerful model to reduce
childhood aggression by teaching
students emotional literacy and
fostering the development of empathy
has launched in Ireland, Scotland, USA
and New Zealand and other countries.
Mary is training others in Roots of
Empathy's very specialised methodology
and philosophy to meet strong
worldwide demand, while ensuring
quality. Now active in 40 schools across
Ireland and Northern Ireland, Roots
of Empathy will expand to additional
schools across Ireland in September
2011.
Close
Mary is building structures that enable older
people to engage in their communities
and actively contribute to society. She is
bridging gaps between generations and
disparate populations, placing older people
as advocates for other isolated populations
through a multi-faceted set of programmes.
These initiatives include Senior Helpline, a
national listening service, Failte Isteach, an
initiative which trains older people to teach
new immigrants English, and a national
programme of centers and engagement
efforts. Maryís pioneering work has in recent
years spread to the United States.
Close
Matt and his team are creating a new way for lenders in developed countries to loan to poor, small-scale entrepreneurs living in the developing world. His online platform establishes a connection through the stories of real people and continuously updated information on recent transactions. Through the site, lenders feel a collaborative spirit both with the entrepreneur and with other lenders who pay into a loan amount. Beyond transforming the lender experience, Matt and his team introduce new opportunities for the microfinance industry. First, they provide a new source of “patient,” affordable, risk-tolerant capital to those microfinance institutions (MFIs) that are solid and principled, but often too small to attract or absorb commercial-scale investment. Second, they introduce new standards of transparency that are enabling and not punitive, and that aim to reduce fraud and strengthen a culture among MFIs of transparency in accounting. And third, they have the potential to build an online credit history that can aid their borrowers in securing the trust of investors for future endeavors.
Close
Michael Kelly is catalyzing
a nationwide movement to
substantially increase the
number of people growing
their own food. Through
his viral organisation
Grow It Yourself (GIY),
he is creating simple
structures to tap into and
cross-pollinate existing
knowledge, excite new
participants, and spread
food growing on a massive
scale. Currently expanding
the GIY network around
Ireland, with over 6,000
active Irish members
in GIY, Michael has
significant international
demand for expansion.
Close
Based in Ireland, ALISON is the global source
for online education & a free form of online
community college offering everything from
computer courses to English classes, opening
up employment opportunity for its users. His
courses are recognised by the South African
Department of Education and are offered to
every job-seeker on the US Department of
Labor website. While currently serving almost
half a million registered users around the
world, Mike is on the path to reach multimillions
through what he believes will become
the "Google of higher education".
Close
Young girls from all socioeconomic groups and cultures encounter strong pressure to conform to social norms. Molly’s idea is to enable girls to understand these societal influences, and to have the strength, determination to rise above them and eliminate them. Molly founded Girls on the Run with a mission to educate and prepare girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living. Starting with this strong foundation, Molly’s idea is to create a social movement that will provide quality, life-changing experiences for girls and women; promote positive, healthy images of girls and women; support the development of healthy, resilient girls; ensure that girls and women have the opportunity to develop and express themselves with joy and authenticity; encourage millions of people to change the systems that constrain girls and women; and enable girls and women to reach their highest potential.
Close
(To be confirmed) Working with poor borrowers around the
world and architect of microcredit lending,
Muhammad Yunus is Founder of the Grameen
Bank, and winner of 2006 Nobel Peace
Prize. He has spread microcredit globally
and pioneering social business ventures
such as Grameen Telecom have enabled
rural village women to become profitable
sellers of telecommunications service in
their communities. His concepts with small,
collateral-free loans are growing in use within
American and European settings.
Close
Norbert Kunz is making self-employment
a viable career option for disadvantaged
populations in Germany. Through a holistic,
low-threshold support system that involves
opening banking services to those in need
and using certified trainers to help individuals
gain employment qualifications, Norbert
brings together all institutional stakeholders
to empower youth to take charge of their lives
and improve their communities. His work is
expanding rapidly.
Close
Peter Eigen is the founder of Transparency
International and leader of global coalitions
to fight corruption. He has developed indexes
and surveys that track and tackle corruption
at every level of society. His leadership is
producing change in systems of monitoring and
governance globally.
Close
Rafael is reimagining vocational education
through Genesys Works, which connects
students and leading corporations. He
gives low-income teens training in hightech
jobs and exposure to professional
work environments proving his belief
that students who experience success in
ìthat first professional jobî while still in
secondary school are more likely to go to
college and go on to thrive in the economic
mainstream.
Close
Using urban waste disposal as a basis, Ricardo Bertolino has launched a vibrant youth movement that effectively addresses this and other quality-of-life issues while at the same time preparing a new generation of leaders to take responsibility for their environment and their communities, and to mobilize others to do the same. The nucleus of this movement is a growing network of "Ecoclubes," participatory youth organizations whose members preserve natural resources and promote sustainable development within their communities, beginning with the problem of waste management. Ecoclubes are microcosms of democracy in action, with equal representation of boys and girls. The Ecoclubes engage the support of a wide range of actors, including municipal authorities, businesses, universities, schools, church groups, volunteer fire departments, and other non-governmental organizations.
Close
Creating a locally-based movement for towns,
cities and municipalities to create strategies for
reducing fossil fuel dependence and working
towards sustainability, Rob Hopkins is working
through local partners to help Irish communities
work towards a resilient future through his
Transition Towns network. Transition towns has
47 groups active across Ireland and has spread
to 10 countries worldwide.
