 From using hip-hop to transform the lives of favela dwellers in Brazil, unlocking ancient storytelling through augmented reality in Australia, decentralising healthcare in the Netherlands or eradicating hidden hunger in Costa Rica, social innovators are finding systemic solutions to the world's most pressing problems to ensure a just, sustainable and equitable world. We are here today to recognise a special set of innovative leaders who have dedicated themselves to addressing some of the world's toughest problems. To announce the social innovators of the year for 2022, we will be joined by the co-founders of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Professor Klaus Schwab and the chairperson Hilda Schwab. Klaus and Hilda, over to you. Thank you, François. Professor Klaus and I started the Schwab Foundation in 1998 because we sensed that a distinct, more innovative approach to alleviating problems associated with social inequality and environmental challenges was emerging. We saw a new generation of pioneers who channeled their passion, resources, creativity and sense of injustice and dedicated themselves to finding ways to achieve real change in the world around them. For over two decades, we have championed the work of these social innovators bringing their work and models to the attention of world leaders and the platform of the World Economic Forum. Over the past two years, during this pandemic, we have witnessed how their work is more relevant than ever. For example, by bringing quality healthcare to rural India to combat COVID or by empowering black local businesses in Brazil, overcoming the economic barriers of racial inequality or by using artificial intelligence and big data to create inclusive education platforms from South Korea all the way to South Africa. Today, 722 million lives have been directly improved by the work of this community of over 400 leading social innovators. In addition, to help the social enterprise sector increase its reach in response to COVID, the Foundation established the COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs in early 2020, representing over 90 members and an estimated 100,000 entrepreneurs as the largest collaborative in the sector. Thank you, Hilde. It is a great moment to be here to bring optimism to such a difficult time in the world. We certainly live in unprecedented times. Radically different pandemic experiences have exacerbated generational geographical, political and economic divides and further amplified by the evolution and access to technology. During the Davos agenda, we are gathering global leaders together on the imperatives of the year ahead. We are hearing from heads of states, heads of governments, business leadership, international organizations and civil society on approaches to the most urgent global issues. It will take not only technological innovation, but organizational innovation and social and relational innovation to build the trust required to design new systems and deliver new solutions together. The World Economic Forum has always acted with the spirit of entrepreneurship in the global public interest, and that is why we have always respected and been inspired by social entrepreneurs. The Schwab Foundation has created an extraordinary group of social innovators who have shown such a values-based approach focusing on inclusivity, collective action and sustainability can deliver significant gains to millions and start to change mindsets, policies and systems for a more equitable future. And we need some now more than ever as part of our global community. We are now delighted to announce the leading social innovators of the year 2022. Since 2019, we have recognized social innovators in four different categories across private, public, civil society and academic sectors. For the social entrepreneur category, these are founders or chief executive officers of a for-profit or non-profit social enterprise that have demonstrated an innovative and impactful model of addressing social or environmental challenges, in particular towards rectifying social inequalities and empowering excluded and marginalized groups and vulnerable ecosystems. Ashraf Patel, Prava and Community Youth Collective. Selso Atayde, Central Unica das Favelas, Favela Holding. Joste Block, Burzorg. Kennedy Odede, Shining Hope for Communities. Rene Parker and Marlon Parker, R-Labs. Mikaela Jade, in Digital. Rana Dajani, We Love Reading. Wenfeng Wei, Dati Lab. For the corporate social intrapreneurs category, these are innovative and purpose-driven corporate leaders in multinational or regional companies who drive the development and roll out new products, initiatives or services or business models that address particularly social inequalities and environmental challenges, while also creating sustainable benefits for the company. Sam McCracken, Nike N7, Gisela Sanchez, Nutri Vida. For the public social intrapreneur category, these are innovative and purpose-driven government leaders in public sectors or international organizations who harness the power of social innovation to create public good through appropriate policies, regulatory and programmatic tools to enhance active citizenry, address social inequalities, and protect vulnerable ecosystems. Pradip Kakati Unets, Sanjay Bratan Open Government Partnership. The social innovation thought leader category. These are recognized experts and champions such as academics, authors or ecosystem builders who substantially contribute to the knowledge and practice of social innovation as a transformative process and are shaping the evolution of the field. Alberto Alemanno, Acha Se, Paris, and the Good Lobby. Adam Kahane, Rios Partners, Hariehan SNF Akora Institute, Johns Hopkins University. Thank you, Klaus and Hilda, and congratulations to all these incredible social change leaders. Four of these special awardees sat down with me earlier to share their journeys and how social innovators are important catalysts to achieving both direct impact as well as systemic change for our people and planet. Let's have a look. I'm delighted to introduce four of the Schwab Foundation awardees here with us today joining live from across the world. We have from Aman in Jordan, Rana Dajani, the founder and director of We Love Reading, from Beaverton, Oregon, Sam McCracken, founder and general manager of N7 at Nike, from Mumbai in India, Sanjay Pradhan, the CEO of Open Government Partnership, and from Baltimore in Maryland, Hariehan, the Stavros Nyakhros Foundation Professor of Political Science and the Director of the SNF, Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. A warm welcome to you all. As we now look ahead at 2022, governments, business and civil society face unprecedented social and economic challenges from tackling gender and racial inequalities to achieving sustainable and equitable growth. The pandemic, as we know, has exacerbated fractures across society and it is a critical year for us to come together and build trust. Rana, I'd like to start with you. We are a scientist, an activist, an author, a professor, and a social entrepreneur. Tell us about We Love Reading and how social entrepreneurs can also be catalysts towards more systemic change. Well, We Love Reading is a program that changes mindsets through reading to create change makers. What we do is we foster a level of reading that allows a child to fall in love with reading to become a lifelong reader and therefore a lifelong learner beyond the walls of the school, beyond the period you're in school, preparing them for a future that we don't know what it looks like for education, but at least they have the skills, the critical thinking and that love of learning. Now, we do that, we do that approach by addressing pivotal points and root causes. So this holistic strategy that we adopt that we love reading results in preparing these, the children and the adults in the whole community to have a mindset of I can. And they do that and have an agency, a feeling of agency and responsibility that I don't have to wait for somebody to create a change. I can create a change by myself. And we do that by training them how to read aloud in their local community and their local language from the local culture. And this builds this feeling of identity and belonging. The second thing is that we love reading is a very simple program based on shared universal values that allows it to scale, to be adopted by anyone, anywhere, and yet it is very local because of that local language. So there's this harmony between unity and diversity, which is so important to reach every human being. And lastly, we use technology by we use it in the way that we want rather than it's only us because we focus on that human-human interaction because we're social creatures. That's how we evolve. And it's so important for the child brain development. So ultimately, we love reading approach, which is a systems approach by fostering that feeling of responsibility and trust in ourselves, in our fellow humans that we can identify challenges in our community and come up with solutions, not just to address the SDG of education, but actually all the SDGs because of this feeling of I can be the change that I want to see in the world. Thank you so much, Rana. And that sense of that I can change is also what we've started to see that social entrepreneurs have brought to the world. What we're seeing also is people within companies, large companies, having this same motivation and the same aspiration that we can change. I'd like to turn to Sam McCracken now and ask Sam how corporate entrepreneurs and corporate entrepreneurship and the N7 program you built at Nike helped to elevate the indigenous community and what pathways exist for corporate relationships with indigenous communities and how is N7 an example of what's possible? Thank you, Francois. If you don't mind, I'd love to introduce myself in my traditional way. I come to you as a citizen of the Cinnaboyne Sioux Tribe from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Northeastern Montana. I'd like to start off with a little explanation of what is N7. And the N truly stands for Nike or native, depending on who we're presenting this to. But the grounding factor and the key point is the seven. The seven really stands for, I believe, or ethos we have as indigenous people that reads in every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on seven generations. And I think that was one of the key factors that allowed as a corporate entrepreneur for this thing to resonate authentically in our community and build that trust that we have with our indigenous community. Secondly, I'd like to share the mission of the work that we do to bring inspiration to the indigenous community through the power of sport with a strong focus on our youth. Health disparities run rampant in our communities and we would love to have sport become a daily habit to really address those disparities that reside in our communities through the longevity of the historical trauma that has been put on our people for years and years. And I think that's the unique thing about N7 as we look at, from an authentic point of view, is that we are completely grounded in who we are as a brand in our indigenous community. And we have gained and garnered that trust by the authentic work we've done in the community with our corporate leaders in the Ad Nike. The importance of corporate entrepreneurship is really the importance of the trust factor we have and authenticity we have not only in our community, but in our corporate environment. And as you look at it holistically, we would love to be able to approach our community with how do we help, from a brand perspective, elevate our amazing stories and celebrate our community and take them from the margins to the mainstream. And I think that's one of the key deciding factors of us having that trust is really celebrating amazing stories of our amazing community members through the work we do at Nike N7. Thank you, Sam. It's incredible your work at N7 and to focus in on this concept of trust and kind of what that actually means in terms of what the World Economic Forum also has been promoting for five decades around stakeholder capitalism. You're in many ways an embodiment of that vision. So thanks again for joining us. I'm going to turn to Sanjay now who Sanjay, you're the CEO of Open Government Partnership. I'd like to ask how Open Governments can actually help address this crisis of trust that we have at the moment. And why is this agenda so important to you personally? What is the role of public entrepreneurs or reformers as you refer to them? Thanks, Francois. You know, we confront a crisis of democracy today because trust in government has plummeted. In far too many countries, citizens perceive their governments to be unresponsive, corrupt or captured by special interests. At the same time, across our 78 country Open Government Partnership, we are also seeing reformers from inside and outside government at national and local levels joining forces to build trust through four concrete reforms. And I am indeed passionate about this because amidst the gloom and doom that we find today, these show us a hopeful alternative. So first, reformers are opening up opaque government budgets, contracts and company ownership to fight corruption. In Ukraine, reformers built online platforms where previously opaque contracts that were captured by powerful oligarchs are now disclosed for citizens to monitor and report violations saving the government $1 billion and 80% of businesses reporting reduced corruption. Columbia has empowered citizen auditors using a mobile app to monitor and ensure that COVID-19 stimulus reaches the intended beneficiaries. Second, reformers are empowering citizens to shape policies that impact their lives, allocating budgets for projects in Madrid, Spain, or providing feedback on health clinics using a mobile app in Kaduna, Nigeria. Third, reformers are empowering historically marginalized communities to tackle inequality such as enhancing access to justice for the Roma minority in North Macedonia or empowering women by addressing the gender wage gap in Jalisco, Mexico. And fourth, reformers are tackling the insidious spread of disinformation, such as Canada regulating online political ads. But to tackle the trust crisis we face, reformers must scale up these innovations. But for this, they face powerful vested interests. Growing up in Bihar, India, I saw my father harassed and threatened as he fought a lonely battle against corruption side government. Today, courageous reformers and activists face similar challenges from across from the rise of authoritarian leaders. My passion is to connect these lonely warriors so they can find collective courage, inspiration and strength. Our collective imperative as a partnership is to forge a countervailing force against the rise of authoritarianism, a force that renews democracy and builds citizen trust. Thanks, Francois. Thank you so much, Sanjay. I'd like to turn to Hari now to tell us a little bit about the Innocent Agora Institute and how you got there. Picking up on what Sanjay was saying, the role of external reformers, perhaps you can share a bit of your work on social movements and explaining why this declining trust threatens our collective efforts to address these critical challenges right now. Sure. Well, thank you. I'd like to start just by thanking my colleagues on the panel and the Schwab Foundation for bringing us together to describe this vital work that we're all doing around the world. So how did I get here? So maybe I can start just by saying I grew up as a daughter of Korean immigrants. My grandparents were war refugees from North Korea to South Korea, and then my parents migrated to the United States. And I think that legacy taught me two lessons that profoundly shaped the work that I do now. First, being the daughter of immigrants taught me that transformation is not only possible, but it's a way of life. And second, being the granddaughter of refugees taught me that our communities and the societies that we build together, they're more fragile than we think. And so that's a big part of why I'm so proud to lead the SNF Agora Institute. We are an academic and a public forum at Johns Hopkins University that seeks to realize the promise of the ancient Agora in modern times. We try to understand how we can transform the ability of people from all backgrounds to engage in the kind of pluralistic democracy that Sanjay is describing to us and how those people can act together to develop more resilient and less fragile solutions for a better world. And so we work in partnership with business, with civil society, with companies, and everyday community leaders that transform scholarly insights and turn them into usable knowledge for civic and political actors who can enable real world change. And in all of our work, like my panelists, one of the core things that we're finding is that declining trust in social, political and economic institutions is threatening the ability of multi stakeholder partnerships to address public problems. The sticky social problems that we all face, building a sustainable world, creating the social and economic stability that we need for human thriving, tackling inequality. These are all problems that must have both the internal and external reformers that my colleagues talked about, the entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurs and the public and private institutions working together, yet entering into any multi stakeholder partnership, especially one that entails power imbalances, it entails a leap of faith, right? Like I have to be able to say, I may not be willing to get my way, but I know that we are stronger acting together than we are acting alone. And so people, what we find that people are much less likely to take that leap of faith when they don't trust the other people at the table. And so that's why so why so much of the research that I do, it works with social movements around the world to help them improve the ways that they can equip people to become architects of their own future, right? When people have the experience of putting their own hands on the levers of change, grounded in their own experience and connected to each other, then they become much more trusting of the leaders of the processes of the institutions that enable those experiences. And so from when the moment that I was a kid, I learned from my family that the greatest source of resilience that we have in any social change effort is people. And it's an honor today to be able to connect our work at SNF Agora to this community of social innovation leaders. I think we're doing that vital world of trying to rebuild the trust that we also desperately need. Thank you, Harry. And thank you for reminding us this whole spectrum of social innovation and all of you on the panel around how your work truly brings to life the ability for people to be architects of their own future. Whether Rana and your work, Sam, Jai and your work at Nike, Sanjay at Open Government Partnership, and Harry, your work at the Agora Institute. And the concept of the Agora being the marketplace and reminding that markets are not only these impersonal, financial mechanisms, but are actually highly relational. I've been reading a little bit about Heidi Larson, an anthropologist who has described how a chain of trust is necessary for social systems to work. And that chain is made more fragile by the feeling of being disenfranchised and not heard. For me, social innovators are a critical link in this chain, providing information, services, opportunity, voice and power. So a sincere thanks to each of you for sharing your important perspectives today and for the work that you and your teams do. I know that each of you wanted to recognize not only the other awardees we're celebrating here today, but also all the people you work with and all the partners who make your work possible. So we salute them all. And now, to conclude, we have a special guest who wanted to applaud you and all the social innovators of the year for 2022. Thank you so much. Hidden in any crisis is a moment of opportunity. An opportunity to rethink how things are done, freshly evaluate the resources we have at our disposal and unlock the creativity of our greatest minds. I am so inspired by the 15 trailblazing leaders represented here today. They point to this prospect of developing innovative economic bridges that lead to inclusive economies. Each of you, together with your organizations, are designing a blueprint for meaningful economies which will restore our planet and support our people for a future of sustainability. Congratulations to the social innovators of 2022 who show us that we can find hope in disaster and that we can reimagine progress in the midst of so much loss. Thank you to our special guests for joining us today and congratulations once again to all 15 awardees. Check out our website to learn more about them. And thanks again for tuning in.