The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is a Swiss not-for-profit organization founded in 1998 that provides platforms at regional, national, and global levels to promote social entrepreneurship. The foundation is under the legal supervision of the Swiss Federal Government. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. Each year, it selects 20–25 social entrepreneurs through a global "Social Entrepreneur of the Year" competition.
Oluwagbenga Olabisi Sesan is a Nigerian social entrepreneur known for his contributions to the field of ICT.
Grameenphone, widely abbreviated as (d/b/a) GP, is a telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh. As of December 2023, its subscribers span over 82.20 million. It is a joint venture between Telenor and Grameen Telecom. Where Telenor owns a 55.8% share of Grameenphone, Grameen Telecom owns 34.2% and the remaining 10% is publicly held.
Grameen Telecom (GTC) was established in Bangladesh by Muhammad Yunus with a partial stake in Grameenphone (GP) and registered as a Not-for-Profit Company, Limited by Guarantee, under Section 28 of the Companies Act, 1994. GTC launched the program of Village Phone that enables rural poor to own a mobile phone and turn it into a profit-making venture. The vision behind the village phone program was formulated by Iqbal Quadir, who was convinced that a mobile phone could become a source of income. Quadir worked with Yunus and the Norwegian company Telenor to make the program a reality.
Iqbal Z. Quadir is an entrepreneur and promoter of the role of entrepreneurship and innovation in creating prosperity in low-income countries. He has taught at Harvard Kennedy School and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the brother of Bangladeshi-American entrepreneur and artist Kamal Quadir.
Forum of Young Global Leaders, or Young Global Leaders (YGL) is a non-profit organization. It was created by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum and is managed from Geneva, Switzerland, under the supervision of the Swiss government. It is run by the World Economic Forum.
Innovations is a peer-reviewed academic journal that focuses on entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. It is published quarterly by the MIT Press.
Habib Haddad is a serial entrepreneur and early stage investor. He is currently the president and managing director of the E14 Fund that invests in spin-offs from MIT. Prior to that Habib has spent his career in startups as a founder and early employee.
Bengali Americans are Americans of Bengali ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage and identity. They trace their ancestry to the historic ethnolinguistic region of Bengal region in the Indian subcontinent, now divided between Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. Bengali Americans are also a subgroup of modern-day Bangladeshi Americans and Indian Americans.
Jane Marie Chen is the co-founder of Embrace, a social enterprise that invented and distributes a low-cost infant warmer, that gives premature and low-birth-weight infants a better chance at survival. The Embrace infant warmers / incubators have now helped to save over 700,000 babies in 25 countries. Jane served as the first CEO of Embrace, the non-profit arm of the organization, before stepping into the chief executive officer (CEO) role of Embrace Innovations, the for-profit social enterprise that was spun off in 2012.
Silverius Oscar Unggul is an Indonesian environmental activist. He is known for his work in improving natural resource management in Indonesia's regional economies. He founded the organization JAUH to preserve of Indonesian rainforests by helping villages develop sustainable timber economies.
Regina Honu, is a Ghanaian social entrepreneur, software developer and founder of Soronko Solutions, a software development company in Ghana. She opened Soronko Academy, the first coding and human-centered design school for children and young adults in West Africa. Honu has received multiple awards, including being named by CNN as one of the 12 inspirational women who rock STEM. She was also named as one of the six women making an impact in Tech in Africa and one of the ten female entrepreneurs to watch in emerging economies.
Marlon Parker is the founder of Reconstructed Living Labs (RLabs) - a South African social entrepreneur who uses information communications technology (ICT) to empower communities, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and named by the Mail and Guardian as 1 of 300 young South Africans you have to take out to lunch. He was elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2014.
INJAZ Al-Arab is a non-profit organization for education and training in workforce readiness, financial literacy and entrepreneurship across the Arab World. INJAZ Al-Arab is the Regional Operating Center of JA Worldwide (JAW), one of the largest global non-governmental organizations dedicated to addressing fundamental social and economic challenges faced by young people. INJAZ Al-Arab is also an active participant in the United Nations Global Compact. Over 7 million students have participated in a broad base of entrepreneurship training opportunities aimed at developing basic business skills to start and run their own businesses while obtaining soft skills increasingly demanded by the private sector. Since its inception, INJAZ Al-Arab has built a network of over 100,000 classroom volunteers, who are leaders from the corporate world. INJAZ Al-Arab has a Regional Board of Directors, which comprises 15 executives, as well as a team of staff, led by Akef Aqrabawi, President and CEO of the Middle East/North Africa for JA Worldwide.
Ekhanei or ekhanei.com was a mobile-based online marketplace classified advertisements website of buying and selling property, gadgets, vehicles and personal items for sale. Tickets and jobs are also posted among other things. Starting in 2006 as CellBazaar, it was the first online free classified ads website in Bangladesh. By Alexa Internet ranking, as of August 2015, it was the top shopping site and the fifth business and economy website in Bangladesh. In 2017 the parent company announced to shutdown it.
Philip E. Auerswald is an American author, economist, and cofounder and coeditor of Innovations (journal). His most recent book, The Code Economy: A Forty-Thousand-Year History, explains how code has been a key driver of human development.
bKash is a mobile financial service (MFS) in Bangladesh operating under the authority of Bangladesh Bank as a subsidiary of BRAC Bank PLC. This mobile financial service company started as a joint venture between BRAC Bank Limited, and Money in Motion LLC. As a mobile financial service (MFS) provider in Bangladesh, bKash users can transfer money into their mobile accounts and then access a range of services. In particular, transferring and receiving money domestically and making payments. Services like mobile recharge prepaid and postpaid package internet service Value Added Service Customer Service or paying utility bills are also possible through bKash USSD (*247#) and bKash App. A user can receive remittance on bKash. In November 2021, bKash became the first ever unicorn startup company in Bangladesh. In May 2023, bKash became the regional sponsors of the Argentina Football Association.
Njideka Françoise Harry is a World Economic Forum Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship Fellow.
Social entrepreneurship in South Asia involves business activities that have a social benefit, often for people at the bottom of the pyramid. It is an emerging area of entrepreneurship that is supported by both the public sector and the private sector.
