2019 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Session Description
Join us for the emotional highlight of the week—our celebration of the 2019 Skoll Awardees. We’ll honor five remarkable social entrepreneurs from around the world who truly embody the spirit of Accelerating Possibility. We’ll hear their stories of imagination and courage in crafting blueprints for a better tomorrow. GRAMMY award-winner and Order of Canada recipient Sarah McLachlan will perform.
Doors open at 3:30pm and seating is general admission.
The Skoll Awards plenary is free for Skoll World Forum delegates, and no additional ticket is necessary. Members of the general public can purchase tickets in advance here.
Time & Location
Time:
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM, Wednesday, April 10, 2019
BST
Location:
New Theatre
Speakers
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Speaker
Julie Cordua, CEO. Thorn
Julie helped create Thorn in 2012 as an organization focused on building technology to defend children from sexual abuse. Under Julie's leadership, Thorn has created products and programs that are deployed today in 55 countries, have reached more than 3 million people and have helped identify more than 18,000 child victims of abuse. Julie came to Thorn from (RED) where she was VP of Marketing/Communications and helped establish the brand as one most successful cause marketing initiatives in history, delivering more than $160 million to fight AIDS in Africa. Prior to joining (RED), Julie spent nearly a decade in the wireless industry. Julie holds a B.A. in Communications from UCLA and an M.B.A. from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.
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Speaker
Gregory Rockson is the Co-founder and CEO of mPharma. mPharma is building a next-generation health management organisation (HMO) in Africa. Its portfolio of solutions includes vendor-managed inventory services, primary care solutions for community pharmacies and data analytics. Founded in 2013, mPharma is headquartered in Ghana with operations in 8 other African countries, Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Gabon, Uganda and Togo. The company also owns Haltons, Kenya’s 2nd largest pharmacy chain, and Vine Pharmaceuticals in Uganda and manages a network of 600 pharmacies and GoodHealth shops serving millions of patients annually. His contribution to the healthcare industry earned him a Skoll Award in social entrepreneurship in 2019.
Gregory received his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Westminster College, was a PPIA Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a Rotary Scholar at the University of Copenhagen. Gregory also founded the Big Brother
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Speaker
Nicola is a business leader and social innovator, driving multi-sector partnerships for systems change and inclusive economy.
Nicola is an Executive Director of Yellowwoods Holdings, a private investment group. Since 2010, she has led the group’s efforts to drive positive social and environmental impact through, and with, its portfolio of businesses that include financial services (e.g. Hollard Insurance); restaurants (e.g. Nando's) and eco-tourism (e.g. &Beyond) businesses. Nicola also manages Yellowwoods’ innovative social financing and grant making. Under her leadership, Yellowwoods has incubated a portfolio of African non-profit social enterprises, promoting universal access to ECD (e.g. SmartStart Early Learning Franchise), improvement in the performance of public education (e.g. Programme to Improve Learning Outcomes (PILO)) and in inclusive youth employment through the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator for which she won the Skoll Award in 2019. She is a McNulty Prize
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Performer
Founder, Sarah McLachlan Foundation
With over 30 years in the recording industry, Sarah McLachlan is a multi-platinum singer and songwriter best known for her intimate vocals and relatable lyrics. Canadian-born, McLachlan is a multiple Grammy and Juno Award winning artist who has sold over 40 million albums throughout her career and was recently inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. McLachlan has also been awarded the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Visionary Award and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.
In addition to her personal artistic efforts, in 1997 McLachlan founded the Lilith Fair tour, which showcased female musicians and brought more than 2 million people together over its three-year run. Lilith Fair raised over $7 million for local and national charities and helped launch the careers of numerous female performers. The festival was the most successful all-female music event and was the top-grossing touring festival during its run.
In 2002 McLachlan founded her non-profit organization, the Sarah McLachlan School of Music. The School of Music serves over 1,000 at-risk and underserved youth in Vancouver and Edmonton each year and provides, at no cost:
• A high-quality music program staffed with talented mentors, youth facilitators & guest artists
• A space for at-risk and underserved children and youth to develop the confidence they need to explore their strengths and overcome their challenges
• An opportunity for students to develop strong relationships with their peers and instructors
• A long-term commitment that nurtures trust, growth, and personal development
The school is funded entirely through private donations and McLachlan covers 100% of the administrative costs through her Foundation, so that all funds raised go directly to the student's education. The scientific evidence of music's value is increasing every day, there is no doubt that music has a positive effect on every child's life.
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Speaker
Maryana Iskander is CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia. She spent 10 years as CEO of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator in South Africa, winning the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2019. Prior to this, she served as Chief Operating Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, was an associate at McKinsey & Company, and a law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She earned a B.A. magna cum laude from Rice University, an M.Sc. from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. She is a Henry Crown Fellow and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
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Moderator
Chairman, Seiler LLP
Jim DeMartini is the Chairman of Seiler LLP. In his role as a trusted advisor, Mr. DeMartini counsels clients in matters including income, estate and gift tax planning, wealth management, all facets of real estate, and charitable gift planning.
Currently, Mr. DeMartini is a member of the Board of Directors of the Skoll Foundation and the Stupski Foundation. Mr. DeMartini was also Founder and Member of the Board of Directors of Sports Association for Youth, a non-competitive baseball league that currently benefits more than 1,000 Bay Area youths annually. Additional past community activities include Notre Dame de Namur University Trustee, Executive Committee Member, and Chairman of the Audit Committee; Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur of California Advisory Board; Santa Clara University English Advisory Board; Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford Capital Campaign Committee; Stanford University Medical Center Friends of Orthopedics; Chair of the Santa Clara University Men’s Golf Committee; and Skoll Global Threats Fund board member.
From 1999-2004 Mr. DeMartini served on the Board of Directors of Mid-Peninsula Bank, a member of the Greater Bay Bancorp group. He attended the University of California at Los Angeles and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting from Golden Gate University. Mr. DeMartini pursued graduate studies in taxation and speaks on a variety of related topics. Mr. DeMartini is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and California State Society of Certified Public Accountants.
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Speaker
Don Gips, CEO of the Skoll Foundation, leads the organization’s work investing in, connecting, and championing social entrepreneurs to create transformational social change around the world. His experiences span public service, politics, business, finance, and technology.
Most recently, he led Albright Stonebridge Group’s Africa Practice, consulting with companies, entrepreneurs, and foundations investing across the continent. Previously, he served as Director of Presidential Personnel in the Obama White House, ushering in the most diverse administration in U.S. history. He served as U.S. Ambassador to South Africa where he managed more than 1,000 staff and a budget of over $600 million across multiple government agencies.
Early in his career, he helped design and create a $650 million start‐up government corporation to promote community service which became the AmeriCorps program, still operational today. He served as Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Al Gore and Chief of the International Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission. Still earlier in Don’s career, he developed a clean water project with Sarvodaya, a leading social enterprise, and managed a refugee camp in Sri Lanka.
He sits on the board of Liquid Telecommunication, a Pan‐African provider of fiber and telecommunications services led by Strive Masiyiwa, one of Africa’s preeminent entrepreneurs and philanthropists; and the President’s Council on International Affairs at Yale University.
Don received an MBA from the Yale School of Management and his undergrad degree from Harvard University. He is married to Elizabeth (Liz) Berry Gips, who is a venture partner at Draper Richards Kaplan. Don and Liz have three grown sons: Sam, Peter, and Ben.
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Speaker
Bright is the President of mPedigree, a social enterprise working on three continents in partnership with governments, Fortune 500 companies, and grassroots organizations to spread innovative, including patent-pending, technologies that secure communities from supply chain fraud. At Koldchain, he led pioneering work at the Harvard Innovation Labs to invent & patent organo-sensors for biomedicals. Besides his own primary work, he is an enthusiastic Advisor of other organisations. He serves on the Supervisory Board of Care International; on the Sustainability Board of UCB, a European biopharma pioneer; the Board of Directors of the Salzburg Global Seminar; and is the Vice Chair of the Africa Population Health Research Center. He previously served on the inaugural Microsoft Africa Advisory Council. As an early Director at IMANI, he has contributed considerably to its recognition as one of Africa's top 5 think tanks. He was on the 2016 Fortune 50 World Greatest Leaders list.
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Moderator
Richard Fahey served as Chief Operating Officer of the Skoll Foundation from 2004 to 2021, where he contributed to the fulfillment of the Foundation’s mission to drive large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and the innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems. Richard now serves as Special Advisor to the Foundation.
As COO, Richard led the Skoll Foundation’s finance, impact measurement, technology, and other business management functions. He was the key executive staff interface between the Investment Committee and the Capricorn Investment Group which manages the Foundation’s endowment. Richard worked closely with the Foundation’s investment manager to align the Foundation’s investment capital with its mission.
Prior to joining Skoll, Richard spent nearly 25 years with the Hewlett-Packard Company in a variety of senior operations, infrastructure, finance policy, and controller positions. He earned his B.A. at Georgetown University in Economics and History, and his M.B.A at the University of Chicago.
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Moderator
Director, Stanford University
Debra is focused on achieving a more just and sustainable economic system through collaborative action, human centered design and transformational systems change. She serves on the Boards of the Skoll Foundation, B Lab, IDEO.org, Imperative 21 and the global advisory boards of the African Leadership University and the Wellbeing project. She also works as an advisor to social ventures around the world.
Pre-Covid, Debra was a faculty member at Stanford University's d.school where she co-founded the FEED (Food Entrepreneurship, Education and Design) Collaborative.
Pre-Stanford, Debra was a business executive at Hewlett Packard where the common threads in her broad, 22-year career were driving large scale change, creating new businesses and producing positive social impact and good business results concurrently.
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Speaker
Selorm Branttie is the Global Strategy Director for mPedigree, the industry leader in using innovative mobile technologies to counter the faking of products using mobile technology.
Since joining mPedigree in 2010, Selorm has been responsible for the expansion of the service under the mandate of NAFDAC in Nigeria and seeing the technology to industries including but not limited to Automotive, Cosmetics, Textiles and several Fast Moving Consumer Goods brands.
Selorm led efforts to put mPedigree on course to provide traceability applications for crop seed varieties in East Africa, with plans to bring other agro-inputs under the ambit of the surveillance program.
He is also responsible for the design and dissemination of public information related to drug supply chains and anti-counterfeiting, working closely with stakeholders like regulators and pharmaceutical co-operatives in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Sierra Leone.
Selorm is an Aspen Global Voices 2019 fellow and a Skoll Enterprenurship Award winner for 2019.
Selorm was a founding member of IMANI Center for Policy and Education, a think tank that directs on issues related to development and governance. His efforts contributed to the organization being named among the world’s top 100 think tanks by the United Nations and in the top 5 of African research institutes in consecutive years by the University of Pennsylvania
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Speaker
Former Chief Executive Officer, Crisis Text Line
Nancy Lublin enjoys building things that matter. At age 23, she turned a $5,000 inheritance into Dress for Success, a global entity that provides interview suits and career development training to women in need. Today, Dress for Success helps women reclaim their destinies in almost 150 cities in 22 countries.
In 2003, Lublin came to Do Something to rescue it from the ashes. The organization had lost its office space, was $250,000 in debt, and had just laid off 21 out of 22 people. Lublin moved everything online, transforming it into DoSomething.org, an organization that leverages technology like social media and texting to reach its audience. Today, DoSomething.org is one of the largest youth organizations in the world with more than 5.5 million members.
In 2013, while still CEO of DoSomething.org, Lublin turned her popular TED talk (http://bit.ly/1elbveM) into her third company. She raised $4 million dollars, hired a team, and launched Crisis Text Line. It processed over 100 million messages in its first five years and is heralded as a pioneer in big data for social good. Lublin served as CEO until of Crisis Text Line until June 2020.
Lublin’s innovative approach to business, teens and technology has transcended the not-for-profit world, making her a sought-after expert and public speaker. She wrote a popular monthly column for Fast Company for two years and has taught graduate-level courses as an adjunct faculty at both Yale and NYU. She is the author of 4 books and sits on the board of McGraw Hill Education and is the board chair for Change.org.
Nancy was a judge for 2017’s Miss USA Pageant (she thinks this is hilarious.) Actually, she has been a judge for lots of things and named to lots of lists and received many awards, but she will not let us list them here because she thinks lists and awards are silly.
Lublin has a BA from Brown University, an M.Litt from Oxford University (as a Marshall Scholar), and a law degree from New York University. She lives in Manhattan with her Husband (Jason Diaz) and two children. They spend their free time visiting the nation’s best water parks and ice cream shops.
