2015 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship: Awards Ceremony
Speakers
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Alasdair is a marine conservationist working at the interface of ocean protection and environmental justice. His organisation Blue Ventures develops locally led approaches to rebuild fisheries and restore ocean life.
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Founder, Graça Machel Trust
Graça Machel is a renowned international advocate for women’s and children’s rights and has been a social and political activist over many decades. She is a former freedom fighter and was the first Education Minister of Mozambique. Her contributions to the Africa Progress Panel, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Millennium Development Goals Advocacy Group and the High-Level Panel on Post 2015 Development Agenda, have been widely appreciated. She is a member of The Elders, Girls Not Brides, Board Chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, African Ambassador for A Promised Renewed, President of SOAS, University of London, Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Board Chair of the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, President of the Foundation for Community Development, founder of the Zizile Institute for Child Development.
As Founder of the newly established Graça Machel Trust, she has focused more recently on advocating for women’s economic and financial empowerment, education for all, an end to child marriage, food security and nutrition, and promoting democracy and good governance.
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, Soweto Gospel Choir
The Soweto Gospel Choir was formed to celebrate the unique and inspirational power of African Gospel music. The 24-strong choir, under the direction of Beverly Bryer, draws on the best talent from the many churches in and around Soweto.
The choir is dedicated to sharing the joy of faith through music with audiences around the world. Formed in 2002, Soweto Gospel Choir has achieved incredible success in a very short time. They have travelled the world, recorded 5 albums, two dvds and have won countless awards in Sth Africa, USA and Australia. They are Ambassadors for the Nelson Mandela Foundation and their patron is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Soweto Gospel Choir has performed with some of the biggest names in music and performed for some of the most influential people in the world.
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A practitioner from the very beginning, Jagdeesh’s 35 year professional engagement has been on interrelated issues of poverty and environmental degradation and on ‘systems thinking’ at the interface of ecology, society and economy.
Jagdeesh has been the Chief Executive of Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) since its inception in 2001 till July 2020. Subsequently, he was associated with the ecosystem initiative titled - Promise of Commons since its inception in 2020 till September 2021 as its anchor and curator. He was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Omidyar Network India in 2022. Currently, he is leading the designing of the Common Ground initiative and promoting systems leadership for environmental governance and resilient rural livelihoods.
Jagdeesh has been conferred the ‘Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship’ 2015 and he is also a Henry Arnhold (Mulago) Conservation Fellow (2017) and Senior Ashoka Fellow (2022).
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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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Ma Jun began his career in 1993 working for the South China Morning Post, where his research on China’s environmental problems spurred him to publish the 1999 book China’s Water Crisis. In 2004 he was selected as a Yale World Fellow. Upon returning to China, Ma Jun founded the non-profit organization the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) in Beijing in 2006.
As Director of IPE, Ma Jun led the development and launch of China’s first environmental public database, the Blue Map, with website and mobile app platforms. The Blue Map collects air, water and soil quality data from across the country, as well as pollution source information that provides a foundation for green credit and green finance systems. The Green Choice supply chain program he and colleagues initiated has motivated more than 3000 suppliers of major global and local brands to openly address their violation problems.
In 2006, he was awarded as China’s “Green Person of the Year” and was named as one of TIME Magazine’s World’s 100 Most Influential People. Ma was also honored with the Magsaysay Award in 2009 and Goldman Prize in 2012 for his environmental protection work in China, as well as the 2015 Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship for his innovative approach to “lifting the veil” on China’s pollution problems.
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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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Ann Cotton is Founder and Board member of CAMFED, an international non-profit organisation tackling poverty and inequality in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting girls to go to school and succeed, and empowering young women to step up as leaders of change.
CAMFED’s goal is to replace the existing cycle of poverty and inequality with a new cycle of empowerment and opportunity. The organisation’s unique approach is to not only support girls and young women through school, but also on to new lives as entrepreneurs and community leaders. To complete the “virtuous cycle”, graduating students become alumnae and many train and mentor new generations of students. More than 5 million children have already benefited from CAMFED’s programmes in a network of 5,745 partner schools across Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania and Malawi. In 2014, Camfed was recognised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for best practice in taking development innovation to scale.
Ann is an Honorary Fellow at Homerton College, and Social Entrepreneur in Residence at the Cambridge University Judge Business School. She is a noted speaker on international platforms, including the World Economic Forum, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Skoll World Forum, and the U.S.-Africa Summit. Ann has won numerous awards for her work, including an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the University of Cambridge and The Open University; an OBE in honour of her advocacy of girls’ education in Africa; the Skoll and Schwab Awards for Social Entrepreneurship; Woman of the Year in the UK; and UK Social Entrepreneur of the Year; and the WISE Prize for Education.
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Safeena is the Founder and Board Member of Educate Girls (EG), an Indian non-profit that mobilises communities toward girls’ education in some of the hardest-to-reach villages. Under her leadership, EG has enrolled 1.1 million+ girls in schools till date, improved learning outcomes for 1.6 million+ children, expanded operations to 20,000 villages through a 20,000+ strong team of community volunteers.
An LSE graduate, Safeena has worked extensively with underserved communities in South America, Africa and Asia. She is known for her efforts to bridge the gender and literacy gaps through tech-driven interventions, pioneering the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education and EG becoming the first Audacious project in Asia, which aims to bring 40% of India’s out of school girls back to education.
