How Jeroo Billimoria is Turning Poor Children into SaversFrom The Daily Beast: "Want to ensure poor children mature into poor adults? Make sure they spend all their leftover cash. Social entrepreneur Jeroo Billimoria expains how she’s trying to end the cycle by enlisting banks and governments to help kids open savings accounts..."
"Billimoria, 47, is a Mumbai-born serial social entrepreneur whose latest project is an ambitious effort to bring hundreds of millions of children into the world’s financial system. Billimoria started working with street kids in India 20 years ago, which led her to found Childline, a network of help lines in 74 of the country’s biggest cities. She took the concept global with Child Helpline International, which now operates in 153 countries." |
A Young Entrepreneur Puts Kenya on the MapWhen web developer David Kobia first heard about the civil unrest in his native Kenya that began after the 2007 contentious elections, he sprang into action. Within just two days, he launched a web portal that enabled witnesses of violence anywhere in Kenya to phone in place and time, which were then mapped.
This was the beginning of his business Ushahidi (or “Testimony” in Swahili). From WorldCrunch: "Today, Ushahidi has a worldwide reputation for its crisis communication software. The Ushahidi platform, which makes it possible to easily crowd-source information — via SMS, email, Twitter and the Web — is now being used in 30 countries... Kobia, who has since received a number of international honors such as being named MIT Technology Review's Young Innovators Under 35 Humanitarian of the Year in 2010, is now one of the most prominent representatives of Africa’s young start-up generation." |
Tania Luna, "Surprisologist"For this TED talk (right), the co-founder and CEO of Surprise Industries expected to speak about surprise and the importance of not being attached to outcomes.
Instead, she was inspired to tell a more personal story about her Ukrainian family getting asylum in the United States when she was 6-years-old and arriving in New York with virtually nothing. She sees her work as connected to her upbringing -- in which a piece of bubble gum, or a mis-delivered pizza - was magical, because it gave her an appreciation of the joy of little surprises. |
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