October 29, 2005

Student NGO Aims to Help AIDS Refugees

Stanford Daily staff writer Cassidy Deline writes on FACE AIDS, an organization started in August 2005 by Lauren Young, Jonny Dorsey, and Katie Bolbach, Stanford juniors who put their undergraduate careers on hold to work toward fighting AIDS in Africa. The plan is to create co-ops among HIV-positive refugees that will be trained to make beaded awareness pins and will double as a support group—something that is lacking in Africa.

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June 01, 2005

The End of Social Innovation

All things must come to an end, and this is the end for our social innovation column. It’s been a bumpy ride, but it was worth it in order to make a simple point: Dedicated and talented people can create positive social change.

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May 17, 2005

From Stanford Engineering to Social Innovation

Can a water pump help alleviate poverty? Our social innovator of the week, Martin Fisher, has spent the last 15 years proving that it can.

In 1991, Martin Fisher and Nick Moon founded ApproTEC, a non-profit organization that develops technologies for alleviating poverty. More than 36,000 farmers in Kenya have now used their low-cost water pumps to create their own small businesses. They hope to take 400,000 people out of poverty in the next few years.

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May 03, 2005

WITNESSing Human Rights

“See it. Film it. Change it.” This is the catchphrase of WITNESS, a human rights organization founded in 1992 by musician Peter Gabriel. WITNESS helps front-line human rights organizations use video and other media in their advocacy work.

The social innovator we interviewed this week is the executive director of WITNESS, Gillian Caldwell, a lawyer and filmmaker.

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April 19, 2005

Fair Trade for the Poor

Have you ever seen a “Fair Trade Certified” logo on a bag of coffee? If you have, then you already know the work of this week’s social entrepreneur, Paul Rice.

In 1998, Paul Rice founded TransFair, the only independent certifier and promoter of Fair Trade products in the United States. He has been awarded an Ashoka Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship for his work on the behalf of farmers in the developing world.

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April 05, 2005

Is Compassionate Capitalism the Cure?

This week we interviewed David Green, founder and executive director of Project Impact. Green’s innovations in technology and distribution have helped make healthcare accessible in developing countries. He is a past recipient of both a MacArthur Fellowship and an Ashoka Fellowship.

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March 09, 2005

Injustice, Action and Social Change: Our Three Favorite NGOs

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has described non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as “the conscience of humanity.” NGOs address every issue imaginable and they operate in every country in the world. Non-profit multi-national organizations range in size, structure and purpose. But they are all mission-driven, broadly representative and full of the potential to catalyze massive systemic change. They’re present on both sides of every conflict, and they’re not risk-averse. Below are our three favorite NGOs — who they are, what they do and why we think they’re so great.

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Posted by Tony Wang at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)

February 22, 2005

Counting the 'Invisible People' of Brazil

How can technology transform international development? How can new technologies promote social change? This week we interview the founder of MobileMedia, an organization that hires Brazilian youth to use Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices to survey the “invisible people” of Brazil. Melanie Edwards is the founder and executive director of MobileMedia, and she is also a lecturer in Public Policy and a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford.

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February 08, 2005

Finding the Next Social Entrepreneur: Interview with Bill Drayton

Bill Drayton is probably the best-known person in social entrepreneurship. He has a vision and an organization that is shaping the future of the “citizen sector.”

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Posted by Tony Wang at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)

February 01, 2005

Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Stanford students want to change the world — even if they don't always admit it. Freshmen arrive knowing all the privileges they've been given, and seniors leave wanting to show that their Stanford experience wasn't just all about getting that job at the end.

But at the same time, there's an idea out there that subverts these good intentions: If you want to make a change, you have to work for a non-profit organization. Non-profits are good for social change, but bad for the bank; for-profits are good for the bank, but bad for social change.

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January 25, 2005

An Education with a Mission

Nestled in Silicon Valley, a hub of innovation and creativity, Stanford has many ties to industry, including biotech, information technology and finance. But the ties don’t end there: Stanford is also linked to many leading companies involved in social innovation and, as a result, has become the leading undergraduate institution in this field. Over the past six years, since the first class in social entrepreneurship started, student interest has grown tremendously in innovative non-profits and for-profits with social missions.

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January 18, 2005

The Power of New Ideas

David Bornstein is the award-winning author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, and The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank. His articles have appeared in both national and international news media. The following is an excerpt from his article “The Power of New Ideas” written for Solutions Magazine.

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January 11, 2005

Springboard Forward: 'A Job is Just the Beginning'

This week, we interview Elliott Brown, Class of ’89, and founder of Springboard Forward, a non-profit career development organization. Springboard Forward provides skills development and job coaching for low-wage workers. Based in Mountain View, Springboard works with employers to provide their low-wage employees with the skills and confidence to advance their careers.

Elliott Brown won an Ashoka Fellowship in 2004, a prestigious award for top social entrepreneurs and a “Social Capitalist Award” in the Jan. 2005 issue of Fast Company.

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January 04, 2005

New Ideas for Social Change

The Innovation section in The Daily usually focuses on technological innovations at Stanford. This makes sense: Stanford is a leader in developing new technologies. From new medicines to new search engines, the technological innovations coming out of Stanford will change the way we live.

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Posted by Tony Wang at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)