Global X interviews Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO, a global design firm that helps organizations and companies innovate around their products and services. Tim Brown remembers that when he went to India with Jacqueline Novogratz (founder and CEO of Acumen Fund), he was impressed by the systemic thinking and level of innovation that Dr.Govindappa Venkataswamy (Dr. V) had brought to the Aravind Eye Care Hospital in Madurai. It is now believed to be the best eye care and teaching facility in the world. The lesson? "By trying to serve those who have the most needs, you can end up being truly innovative, to a point where those innovations have relevance not only in the developing world but in the developed world also."

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They launched Kiva, the online micro-lending venture. They tell you why. And how! Global X interviews Matt and Jessica Flannery, co-founders of Kiva, before Oprah can get the chance. Watch Matt as he explains how he made the decision to quit his Silicon Valley job and work full time for Kiva. And listen to Jessica as she describes her pre-marital problems, which actually led to Kiva's birth! Be sure to read Matt's blog, The Kiva Chronicles, on socialedge.org!

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Meet Sam Goldman, the ultimate social entrepreneur! A returned Peace Corps volunteer in Benin who grew up in Mauritania, Pakistan, Peru, India and Rwanda, he studied biology and environmental studies in Canada and received his MBA from Stanford. He just launched d.light design, the social venture that received best honors at the recent Global Social Venture Competition held at Berkeley. Watch Sam as he explains his ambitious goals and describes his ah-ha moment: "My neighbor's son in Benin was badly burned by a kerosene lamp. I want to provide a source of light that is safe and cheap." And read let there d.light, his new blog on Social Edge.

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Global X was in Atlanta recently, where he interviewed Jimmy Carter, who likes to describe himself as "a husband, the father of four children, grandfather of 11 and now great grandfather of one, head of the Carter Center for the past 25 years. And yes, former President of the United States!" President Carter tells us what he saw in a small village in Ghana, and why he made the decision to eradicate the Guinea worm from our planet. Results so far: 99.7% accomplished! He hopes that the US will become again the champion of peace (not of pre-emptive wars), the champion of human rights and preeminent in its dedication to justice. And he thinks that each of us can exemplify peace, justice, truth and humanity: "The most powerful people in a democracy are individuals."

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Dans cet entretien avec Global X, Apollinaire Malumalu, prêtre diplômé de sciences politiques et ancien doyen de l'université, raconte ce qui s'est passé en 1998 quand l'armée de la République Démocratique du Congo a entouré son église et l'a emmené en cour martiale. Il a été finalement libéré quatre jours après, « grâce à la mobilisation de la population locale ».

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Global X, who has traveled to Hawaii, was wondering what "Eddie would go" meant. He had to go to Oxford to find out. He listened carefully as Edwin Ou, a Berkeley student currently attending the Skoll World Forum at Oxford, told him the story of this amazing character and how it relates to social entrepreneurship. He also told Global X what he was hoping for 2017: "Give, give, give!"

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Mohammed Abba runs Mobah Rural Horizons, which provides an electricity-free refrigeration system easy to operate by African villagers. He tells Global X why his simple technology, which better preserves local crops, is breaking the vicious cycle of poverty. The results: farmers sell their crops when demand is high, and more girls can go to school.

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Social entrepreneur Roshaneh Zafar, founder and managing director of The Kashf Foundation, Pakistan's third largest microfinance institution, tells Global X why she had to unlearn what she learned about economics. She also shares what happened when she realized that she was sitting at a conference next to a gentleman called Muhammad Yunus.

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Global X interviews Joachim Ezeji (GSBI 2007), founder of the Rural Africa Water Development Project in Nigeria, a social venture that improves access to safe drinking water through household water treatment technologies.

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Global X interviews Kjerstin Erickson, Founder and Executive Director, Forge

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Bernice Celeyta is president of La Asociación para la Investigación y Acción Social - NOMADESC (Association for Social Research and Action), where she works primarily with women, trade unionists, campesinos, the Afro-Colombian and indigenous peoples. Berenice and her team work with affected communities to raise social awareness and promote empowerment. They use civic and legal tools to non-violently defend themselves and assert their human rights. In this interview with Global X (in Spanish), she talks about forensic anthropology, exhumations related to criminal acts and concludes: "It's better to die for something than live for nothing!" ¡Es mejor morir por algo que vivir por nada!

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Global X had a little chat this morning with Jacqueline Novogratz (see picture here). He listened, mesmerized, as she told him what happened when 10 of the wealthiest people on earth met one of the poorest families in India. And what she is hoping for in 2017.

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Global X interviews Laila Iskandar, the chairperson of CID Consulting, a for-profit/non-profit hybrid organization based in Cairo, where she has worked with garbage collectors for the past 15 years. Listen to her as she tells the moving story of a young woman who used to be a recycling girl, as they sat down in a Cairo restaurant while waiting for a visa to go to France and speak at UNESCO. The young woman told Laila Iskandar: "I know this place. When I was four, I used to collect garbage with my dad." Laila Iskandar adds: "I almost cried." Her advice to fellow social entrepreneurs: "Challenge the definition of entrepreneurship and look at the well being of people around us. Social entrepreneurship is a transition phase. Examine the whole concept of business and profit: if it's not social, then it's bad business."

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At the Skoll World Forum, Global X had a chance to chat with famous film producer and social entrepreneur Peter Samuelson (see his Wikipedia profile). Listen to him as he tells the true story of an HBO executive who cried during a business lunch. This experience became the catalyst for his social benefit ventures.

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Mathias Craig launched blueEnergy to provide a low-cost, sustainable solution to the energy needs of marginalized communities through the construction of wind turbines and the installation (and maintenance!) of hybrid wind and solar electric systems.

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David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World, told Global X what happened when he was a young journalist and he first met Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh. He also talks about his aunt Suzan, who taught him to climb the fence when necessary: "The world is a playground, and one shouldn't follow the rules at all times."

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Nadaa Taiyab - Acumen Fund Fellow

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UNITUS Microfinance Leadership Summit 2007

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Karen Piegorsch is the Founder and President of Synergo Arts, a nonprofit organization, and CEO of Synergo LLC, a design company based in the U.S. Synergo provides ergonomic solutions to artisans and entrepreneurs in the developing world, mostly in Guatemala. She has a background in physical therapy and industrial engineering, in addition to a PhD in public health. This allows her to conceive practical solutions that improve productivity and product quality, potentially increasing earning potential while preventing serious damage to the artisans' health. Karen tells Global X how she was able to build an ergonomic bench that helped artisans achieve in two days what used to take them three. More importantly, she noticed that for these women, "pain was not the limiting factor anymore. They just stopped working because they had other things to do, not because they were in such a pain."

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Global X interviews star Social Edge blogger and Acumen Fund Fellow Keely Stevenson in New York, as she just returned from East Africa where she worked for A-to-Z, a mid-size enterprise producing mosquito nets. Her lessons: for a social venture targeting the bottom of the pyramid, the distribution channel is of the utmost importance. And pricing has to be right, too! She tells Global X how difficult those decisions were for her: is $6 per net the right price, or $3? Why not $1.50? Should we subsidize the production of mosquito nets, or should we aim at being sustainable and giving the market a voice?

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UNITUS Leadership Summit 2007

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Global X interviews Martin Fisher, CEO of Kickstart, a nonprofit social enterprise that addresses a major market failure by manufacturing irrigation pumps such as the Super MoneyMaker to help small farmers in the developing world. "They have only one asset --a small plot of land. And one basic skills: farming. So let's think big, and let's tackle the biggest problems!" says Martin Fisher in this short interview. Listen to his take on poverty: "The number one need of a poor person anywhere in the world is to have a way to make more money. It's not about education, heath care, or clean water, because if you find the way to make more money, you can afford to buy all these things."

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Jose Hernandez, a Mexican social entrepreneur, works in malnutrition, in microfinance and in health. He shares with Global X his advice: "Fight for the cause at all times! No efforts are wasted. Meditate, pray, work for the cause, and you will succeed!" He also tells Global X what happened when he left Mexico at age 22 to meet the Pope in Italy. His mentor being Mother Theresa of Calcutta, he thought that this was the next logical step. But how do you get a one-on-one meeting with the Pope when you have no connections?

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Global X interviews Angelique Smit at the Global Social Benefit Incubator. Originally from the Netherlands, Angelique Smit is now based in Cambodia with Ideas at Work, where she helps market the Rope-Pump to low-income Cambodian villagers. The water pump is designed to improve the quality of lives of village women by lightening the burden of household water collection. Watch this three-minute interview in which Angelique Smit tells Global X why she is an optimist: "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. I want to stay awake!"

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Elizabeth Hausler explains to Global X that she was finishing her Ph.D. in engineering at Berkeley when an earthquake hit India and killed 20,000 people. That's when she realized that "it's not the earthquake that kills people, it's the building collapsing." She looked for a solution and launched Build Change to build earthquake-resistant houses in developing countries and change construction practices permanently so that homeowners in seismically active developing countries can sleep at night.

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