The FINANCIAL — The fifth Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship took place at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School from 26-28 March.
The Forum, organised by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the School, focused on the theme of “culture, context and social change” and was attended by around 700 social entrepreneurs, academics, financiers, politicians, policy makers and others from over 40 countries around the world.
At the opening plenary session in the Sheldonian Theatre, Jeff Skoll, founder and chairman of the Skoll Foundation and Participant Productions, introduced the Forum by reviewing how far social entrepreneurship has come in the last five years. “Social entrepreneurs today have more headlines, more awards, more advocates and more allies than ever,” he commented. “We have arrived.”
Professor Lord Giddens, sociologist and architect of the "third way" in politics, addressed the Forum on the subject of the politics of climate change. Phil Hope MP, Minister for the Third Sector in the UK, then spoke about social entrepreneurship from the perspective of a Labour politician, focusing on the “new giants” that threaten our communities – giants such as inequality, climate change and social epidemics.
A panel comprising Pat Mitchell, President and CEO of the Paley Center for Media, Nafis Sadik MD, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, Karen Tse, Founder and CEO of International Bridges to Justice, and Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, discussed the challenges involved in achieving social change across different cultures.
Other highlights of the Forum included the ceremony for the presentation of the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, incorporating an address by Jimmy Carter, former president of the United States. Eleven organisations were given Skoll Awards. They were:
Jenny Bowen, Half the Sky Foundation
Matt Flannery and Premal Shah, Kiva.org
Jeremy Hockenstein and Mai Siriphongphanh, Digital Divide Data
Connie Duckworth, Arzu
Mark Plotkin and Liliana Madrigal, Amazon Conservation Team
Michael Eckhart, American Council on Renewable Energy
Mitch Besser and Gene Falk, mothers2mothers
Paul Farmer, Partners in Health
Daniel Lubetzky, PeaceWorks Foundation
Mechai Viravaidya, Population and Community Development Association
Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, Visayan Forum Foundation.
Al Gore, former vice president of the United States and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, addressed the closing plenary session, among other speakers
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