Meet Jordan Kassalow

© Epic, 2010

 Prized for Founding Vision Spring

"A little investment in a pair of glasses goes a long way." 

As a young optometry student, Jordan Kassalow traveled to rural Mexico with an organization that provided eye care to under-served populations.  While there, he was stunned to find that many of the patients' eye problems could instantly be fixed with simple reading glasses--the kind that you can easily buy for $10 at most grocery stores in the United States.  Jordan realized that there must be millions of people with the same predicament around the world, and he wanted to help.  Seventeen years later, Jordan created an organization to do just that.  

In 2001, Jordan created Scojo Foundation (later renamed VisionSpring).  The organization aimed to make affordable eye exams and eyeglasses available, particularly to the poor.  Using a business in a bag model, VisionSpring armed rural women with affordable business start-up kits and vision screening training.  These new vision entrepreneurs then spread out to conduct vision tests, sell reading glasses, and refer customers who need prescription lenses to a VisionSpring optometrist or partner eye institution. 

From its inception, VisionSpring has been a revolutionary organization.  The results are instantaneous and impact is significant.  A recent study by the University of Michigan, showed that on average VisionSpring's customers experience 35% increased productivity.  That's like adding two and a half extra work days to the user's week!  For the rural poor, this is a life-changing investment. 

To date, VisionSpring has expanded to work with ten partners on four continents.  They have trained more that 9,000 vision entrepreneurs and sold over 613,000 pairs of glasses. 

Sources

VisionSpring Website

Acumen Fund Portfolio Page

Check Out This Video

VisionSpring 2009 Global Video

Meet Martin Burt

© Epic, 2010

Prized for Creating the Self-Sufficient School

"We would like to consider rethinking all the programs that have to do with poverty alleviation and really start thinking about programs that deal with poverty elimination."

Warm.  If I had to use one word to describe Martin Burt, that would be it.  The first time you meet, he treats you like an old friend.  He can kick back, smile, laugh.  Perhaps its this warm presence that has helped him to accomplish so much.

After studying in the United States, Martin Burt returned to his home country of Paraguay.  Excited to put his education to practice, he soon founded Fundación Paraguaya to offer microfinance and entrepreneurship education to Paraguay's poor.

But it is his self-sufficient school that has won him global attention.  In 2002, Fundación Paraguaya acquired La Escuela Agricola San Francisco, a small agricultural school in Cerrito, Paraguay.  The idea was to try to make the school self-sufficient by selling the school's products and services to pay for the costs of running the school.  It was a daring experiment, but Martin hoped that the school could provide Paraguay's poor with a relevant education at an affordable price.  The amazing thing is that it worked!  Since 2007, the school has able to cover 100% of its operational costs, making it the first self-sufficient school in the world.

Today Fundación Paraguaya owns two other Paraguayan agricultural schools that are working towards self-sufficiency.  Martin Burt travels the world working with Fundación Paraguaya's sister organization Teach a Man to Fish to coach other schools throughout the world in their efforts to become self-sufficient.  He envisions the self-sufficient school as an important answer to the global problem of rural education.

Sources

Fundación Paraguaya Website
WISE Website 2009 Laureate

Schwab Foundation Profile

Social Edge Blog

Check Out This Video 

Martin Burt, an uncommon hero starts microcredit in Paraguay (Skoll Foundation)

Meet Jessica Jackley

© Epic, 2010

Prized for Co-Founding Kiva and ProFounder

"The stories we tell about each other matter very much."

Jessica Jackley majored in philosophy and political science.  She never expected to change the world--especially through business.  However, attending a lecture by Muhammad Yunus was all it took to change that.  For the first time, she was introduced to the concept of microfinance, a system of providing small loans and other banking services to the poor...and she loved it.

In fact, Jessica was so excited about microfinance that she quit her job to spend three months working for Village Enterprise Fund in East Africa.  Her job was to interview microloan recipients to evaluate how the loans had impacted their lives. The results were impressive, and she was thrilled to see the dignity that microfinance programs offered to these otherwise-ignored entrepreneurs.  

When Jessica returned to the US, she wanted to make microfinance available to more would-be borrowers.  In the spring of 2004, Jessica and Matt Flannery founded Kiva, the world's first peer-to-peer microlending website.  Here's how it works: anyone can go to the website, browse entrepreneur stories and pictures, chose a cause, and make a $25 loan.  Simple but revolutionary.  

As of today, Kiva has loaned an impressive $175,365,825 to 455,859 entrepreneurs in 54 countries. The current repayment rate is 98.99%.  With Kiva running successfully, Jessica has moved on to another exciting project.  She is the founder and CEO of ProFounder, a website that provides an online platform to help small entrepreneurs in the U.S. raise start-up cash.

Sources:
Jessica Jackley's TED Profile
Kiva Website 
Profounder Website


Check Out This Video:
Jessica Jackley: Poverty, Money--and Love (TED Video)

Meet Nick Moon & Martin Fisher

© Epic, 2010

Prized for Founding KickStart (formerly ApproTEC)

"If you look at the problems in Africa--in other developing countries -- the solution is to create a middle class." --Martin Fisher

When Martin Fisher (pictured on the right) traveled to Peru, it was the first time he had ever encountered poverty in the developing world.  As he trekked through the Andes, he couldn't stop thinking about how his background in mechanical engineering could be utilized to fight poverty.  Armed with a new PhD and a Fulbright Scholarship, Martin flew to Kenya to study the relationship between poverty and technology.

Enter Nick Moon.  A skilled carpenter, Nick was already in Kenya working with ACTIONAID to teach and utilize valuable construction techniques in impoverished slums and villages.  Martin learned about Nick's work and sought him out for help with his study.  Eventually, Martin joined the ACTIONAID team as well.  What was originally planned for a 10 month stay turned into a permanent job.

But something wasn't working.   Nick and Martin both began to see a discouraging pattern that so many of their projects were following.  Initially, projects would seem like a big success.  Aid workers would invest lots of time, energy, and money into getting things started.  Once the projects were up and running, funding and support would be withdrawn, and aid workers would move on to new ones.  Later, when aid workers would return to check up on their previous assignments, they were almost always dismayed to find the projects not functioning properly or even at all.

Martin and Nick spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was going wrong.  They eventually decided to create an organization that they hoped would provide sustainable solutions to poverty.  In 1991, Martin and Nick founded ApproTEC, which was later renamed KickStart.  The company designs affordable technologies that help their customers increase their incomes.  KickStart's most successful product is the MoneyMaker Irrigation Pump.

To date, KickStart has sold over 156,000 irrigation pumps and created more than 99,900 new enterprises.  Each year, their products facilitate over $101 million in new profits and wages for their customers. 

Sources
PBS New Heroes Website http://www.pbs.org/opb/thenewheroes/meet/moon.html
Lemelson-MIT Program http://web.mit.edu/invent/a-winners/a-fisher.html
Kickstart Website http://www.kickstart.org/about-us/

Check Out This Video
PBS The New Heroes: Nick Moon & Martin Fisher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud1rwf8_Cv0

Meet Jacqueline Novogratz

© Epic, 2010

Prized for Founding The Acumen Fund

"Philanthropy alone lacks the feedback mechanisms of markets, which are the best listening devices we have; and yet markets alone too easily leave the most vulnerable behind." 

Would you have the guts to give up a high-paying job on Wall Street to try to change the world?  Jacqueline Novogratz did.  After three years of working as an international banker, she accepted a position with a nonprofit microfinance organization working in Africa.  

It wasn't an easy transition.  Many of the organization's women were angry to have a  slender, young, American girl for their new boss.  Most of her family and friends thought she was crazy. But eventually, Jacqueline was able to find her niche.  She moved to Rwanda, where she co-founded the country's first microfinance organization called Duterimbere.  While there, she also helped to overhaul "the blue bakery" (that she later found out should have been green). Jacqueline's time in Africa changed her forever: believing that an understanding of business is essential to creating sustainable, scalable, and empowering solutions, she left Africa to pursue an MBA.

After business school, Jacqueline worked for the Rockefeller Foundation, directing their Philanthropy Workshop and Next Generation Leadership program.  During this time, her vision of a combination of philanthropy and business solutions began to solidify.  

In 2001, Jacqueline's vision culminated in the foundation of The Acumen Fund, a venture fund that uses a business approach to fight global poverty.  The fund invests both money and business expertise in new businesses and organizations that offer valuable services and products to the poor.  Jacqueline says, "We termed [it] patient capital--not traditional charity, not traditional business, but something in-between."

Today, The Acumen Fund is helping over 36 million people through  investing millions of dollars in 35 "thriving enterprises" throughout East Africa, India, and Pakistan. 

Sources

The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz (fantastic read)

The Acumen Fund Website

Check Out This Video

Jacqueline Novogratz's TED Speech on Patient Capital (time well spent)