 A cordial welcome to this Social Innovators Award celebration. This year in a virtual forum to which we all have become accustomed to in the last six months. Usually we meet in person during the UN General Assembly at the Sustainable Development Impact Summit of the World Economic Forum where social innovators play an important role. Last year we began the summit at the opening plenary consisting entirely of social innovators demonstrating the key role they have to play in the Sustainable Development Agenda. This year the SDI Summit is more important than ever and I invite you to participate it in the program which is high-level impact oriented and where your contribution to the different issues is highly valued. The COVID-19 pandemic is exposing deep inequalities disproportionately affecting vulnerable and excluded communities. It has also demonstrated to all of us how important and challenging it is to be a social innovator. You are needed more than ever but at the same time have to fight for continued existence because of lockdown and lack of resources. For this reason we have created the COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs and Innovators with over 60 other organizations, philanthropic foundations, businesses, international organizations, impact investors and intermediaries to coordinate the sector's efforts to overcome the significant impacts of COVID-19. I'm very touched by the stories I heard from many of you which showed what individuals can achieve in a situation that has brought so much pain, anxiety and suffering to millions. I can only imagine what courage and perseverance it takes to continue your mission in such difficult and sometimes tragic conditions. I want to express to you my deep admiration, my great thanks and I do so on behalf of all of us in the Schwab Foundation as well as on behalf of the 800 colleagues at the World Economic Forum. You are true role models when working with the mission of the forum in mind committed to improving the state of the world. It is even more important today than the last 20 years to come together and celebrate social innovators. Social innovation must penetrate society and should become incorporated into all aspects of life. As you know we have extended our community by integrating it in addition to the traditional social entrepreneurs three more categories corporate social entrepreneurs leaders inside a company that address societal and environmental challenges public social entrepreneurs government leaders or leaders in international organizations and social innovation thought leaders recognized respected experts and academics and this year we went through a particularly intensive selection process where we felt we should spotlight the special efforts being made in fighting the pandemic and its consequences. What we need when we hopefully and thanks to a fair distribution of treatment and testing move out of the pandemic is a common effort to create a more resilient more inclusive and more sustainable world. We need a great reset. I want to introduce the president of the World Economic Forum Berger Brande who in his former position as the foreign minister of Norway acted himself as a social entrepreneur in the political field very importantly moderating the peace process in Colombia. Thank you so much Hilda. It's really my great pleasure to congratulate this year's Schwab Foundation social innovators of the year. You have done such an impressive job and work and you join also such an impressive community. The Schwab Foundation's social innovators operate in over 190 countries impacting the lives of 622 million people. That's impressive. By spotlighting local solutions and local capacity and by working with partners across the forum's networks this community is truly improving the state of the world. Today as we respond to COVID-19 crisis and the pandemic and stakeholders look to shape a recovery the work you do and the way you do it with creativity with purpose and in partnership is ever more critical. Thank you. This summer the forum launched a great reset. I hope you heard about it. This initiative is to address the urgent challenges we face in a way that delivers a more inclusive sustainable job creating and resilient future. From restoring the health of our people and our planet to renewing prosperity an innovative approach is definitely needed. We can't continue for example to act like we have a planet B because there is no planet B. This approach the great reset strengthens partnerships within and between societies. This is why the great reset is convening leaders from a cross business government and civil society for purpose driven action-oriented collaboration. We know that progress happens when we bring together stakeholders who have the drive and the influence to make positive change happen. Which is why we need passionate and values driven champions such as yourselves part of this work. Your work building a more just and equitable world is crucial to shaping a stronger future and you can act as a lighthouse community inspiring others to take meaningful action. I think your work has been very consequential and the time is no crucial to address the big challenges we're facing and I'm heartened to see such a committed and innovative group of leaders as you represent. On behalf of the World Economic Forum it is my pleasure to really congratulate you on this award. I wish you continued success and look forward to having you part of the World Economic Forum's community and continue to make such huge consequential impact in improving the state of our planet. I want to express my deep thanks to the Motsipe Foundation for their great partnership since many years and I ask Dr. Precious Motsipe to address us. Dear Precious as a medical doctor and in many functions also as Chancellor of the University of Cape Town you have shown your social engagement in many ways and how a privileged position with the heart in the right place can be used to do a lot of good. Your foresight in creating a platform to showcase and celebrate social entrepreneurship is at the point when all countries and global communities are battling to make sense of the many social and economic challenges that poorer communities have had to live with all these years. This is now a reality for even developed and wealthy nations. As the Motsipe Foundation we feel hopeful as we witness this new normal and we believe that the social entrepreneurs will help society to redefine our practices in this new era. We applaud you for your work in creating the Schwarz Foundation for social entrepreneurship. By its very nature social entrepreneurship with its emphasis on social innovation and system thinking is a winning business model for the majority of poor countries where health systems education and social security have been found wanting. Our social entrepreneurs use innovative business models and new technology to give hope to the millions of people living on the margins. We're seeing students whose career investments are at risk because they have no electricity or laptops at home. There are mothers who may lose their lives in childbirth because of the inadequate access to health systems which are still reeling from the pandemic and young people whose informal businesses have had to be shut down leaving them and many of their employees and their families unable to sustain themselves. In the non-profit sector social innovators provide us with solutions that return exponential benefits which is vital if we're going to attain the sustainable development goals set by the United Nations. There is a 2.5 trillion funding shortage every year when it comes to investments towards these goals. The eradication of poverty and ensuring equal access to opportunity is everyone's business but without adequate resources we must advocate for improving our current investments guiding our capital towards the innovators who are scaling transformations through changes to our systems our processes and our lifestyles. It begins with an idea but to the innovators here today who took those ideas and made them into something meaningful I virtually applaud you. In times of crisis we rely on innovative thinkers like yourselves to guide our next steps. We look to your ideas and your inventions and we find hope. What is particularly unique about social entrepreneurship is that it is able to break down sectors shining a light on collaborative path that we can walk together. We all know the African proverb if you want to go fast you go alone but if you want to go far go together. We are excited to walk this journey with you and we reimagine our future together. We have now the immense pleasure to honor the awardees 2020 and I ask Francois Bonicci head of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship to introduce them. Thank you Mrs. Schwab. Social innovators are disruptors in the service of others especially in situations where the market or traditional actors have failed. From harnessing the power of fourth industrial revolution technology to educate teens in Africa to protecting some of the world's most vulnerable groups in Asia and pioneering sustainable consumption in Europe and ultimately building ecosystems to support social innovation globally the social innovators of the year are using their ingenuity creativity and determination to solve and wrestle with the world's most pressing problems. Social innovators are crucial in the response and the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and an integral part of the great reset. I'm delighted to congratulate and welcome three of the Schwab Foundation's social innovation awardees of 2020 to discuss with me the challenges and the opportunities of social innovation in the time of COVID. Guilherme Brammer Jr. Boomerah Brazil Jesus Hirena and Mauricio Lim Miller Family Independence Initiative USA Azim Sabahat Global Healthcare Systems India Adriana Barbosa Preta Hub Brazil Ashif Shaik Jan Sahas India and now in the corporate social entrepreneur category Prashant Mehra Social Inclusion Mindtree India Corine Bazina Danone Communities Danone France Nicola Galambic Yellowwoods Holding South Africa Hadi Webowo Shiaria TBK BTPN Bank Indonesia and now in the social innovation thought leader category Jeff Shen Dongshu Lepping Social Entrepreneur Foundation People's Republic of China Tsai Ka Kui KK Education for Good Hong Kong Ndidi Nunele Sahel Consulting Agriculture Nutrition Nigeria Catherine Clark the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship Duke University USA and now in the public social entrepreneur category Ada Colau Ibayano Mayor of Barcelona Spain Cynthia McCaffrey UNICEF representative to the People's Republic of China Congratulations to all of you and welcome to our community and now we come to another exciting part of our meeting where we discuss the challenges to drive social innovation forward in this age of COVID-19 crisis and beyond. I'm delighted to now introduce our panel from the social entrepreneur of the year category Lindi Wehmaklali founder and chief executive officer of Africa Teen Geeks in South Africa in the corporate social entrepreneur category Karine Bazina general manager of Danone communities from Danone in France from the social innovation thought leader category Jeff Shen Dongshu from the Lepping Social Entrepreneur Foundation from the People's Republic of China welcome to all of you I'm really honored and delighted and inspired to have you here. Lindi Wehmaklali I'm going to start with you as a compatriot we are greatly inspired by your work and that of Africa Teen Geeks please tell us a little bit about your work and why the work you've done is so important during the time of the COVID pandemic and how you and your team have responded. Thank you so much for your honor first of all I'd like to thank you and the World Economic Forum and Shrop Foundation for for the recognition it meant a lot and also to take this time and and congratulate all all the winners as well. Africa Teen Geeks started as just a non-profit organization that was focusing on on teaching African kids how to code with the vision of inspiring the next generation of tech innovators and entrepreneurs but our role has then evolved specifically on now we don't just focus on coding and robotics only we also focus on STEM and I'm sure you are aware with the report that came that put South Africa as one of the the least performing when it comes to math and science so we we cannot really start focusing on as you are aware with the our president putting together the the commission on the fourth industrial revolution and that we want South Africa to be a leader in Africa really and in innovation specifically in the tech sector we can't do that if our kids are not performing well in STEM and and a lot of the programs that are currently available you know that are sponsored they focus when the kids are from grade 10 to 12 basically the last three years of education and and we I feel personally but also is an is an organization that is too late we have to start as early as possible when the kids actually start school and start getting them to be comfortable but also to love math to love science to be to be passionate about it so by the time they get to grade 10 where they need to choose a subject then math and STEM are not those scary subjects that you need to be a genius to do because I don't believe that I think it's about muscle memory the longer you teach a child the more comfortable they are with with with any subject the better they become so if we start with them as early as possible early intervention is more is actually important rather than coming and trying to fix the problems that we find when it's already too late for our kids and our role during the the COVID-19 I think that's one of the great thing about being a non-profit but also being able to respond quickly when our president announced the lockdown it was only Thursday and on Monday we launched our online school to and we were able to get children I mean the first week we had about 30 000 kids that signed up from great art so as young as six years old up until um grade 12 and by the end of of lockdown we we were already reaching around 500 000 children and so that has really been exciting for us but also being able to really develop a fully fledged school with a staff of about 110 teachers and running about 200 session every day so that was exciting and chaotic but really great to see how our teachers also were able to respond because and also all of them had never taught online so we had to literally give them a two-hour training session and and then be able they had to really jump in there and it's been so great to see how most of them were able to just go there we had a teacher for example who was um who didn't have a computer he was teaching from his cell phone but he also didn't have an internet and his house was not so great so he went and was teaching his class actually outside in a tree from his house and that was for us just shows the commitment and the passion that um you know our teachers and also I would say our people have for education if they're given an opportunity to to save. Lim Diwa you're such an outstanding example of what so many social innovators have done in this period but it's because of the work that you've been doing for so many years that put you in a position to be able to adapt and respond and support in your case so many government teachers and government schools in being able to kind of roll out these programs in a way that sometimes the public sector were not ready to do um because of uh what they had been facing and the severe lockdown that South Africa faced so I mean great credit to you and your team for being able to do that in such a short period of time but also it's such an example uh of why social innovators can be supporting government programs but also running uh and developing their business with technology. Karina I want to come to you now um you and the known communities and the known have been supporting the work of social entrepreneurs for many years now. Please tell us a little bit about why a company like the known has supported and invested in social entrepreneurs. Let me tell you a little bit about what is done on communities first so it's a corporate investment fund that is dedicated to social businesses that means that we my job in fact is to identify innovative social entrepreneurs that have decided to dedicate their life in order to solve a social issue and the role with the known communities is to bring them the support they need either capital can be expertise can be networking so that they can create sustainable uh social impact at scale. So why a company a corporate like the known would invest in that the fund has been created to the initiative of Professor Mohammed Yunus and the known uh in fact in the known since the 70s we have what we call the dual project uh the conviction that social and economic goes together um you cannot grow a company in a desert was saying uh Antoine Riboux the previous CEO of of the known so there is this conviction from uh the very beginning that you need to take into account all your stakeholders if you want to create sustainable value. Having said that even if it was a conviction into the organization we felt at some point that we needed something a vehicle that was even more at the forefront in order to push the known to accelerate towards its transformational journey and that's why the known communities was created in order for the known to be able to learn by doing to explore different ways to do business and also to inspire people within the known as a kind of north guiding star so that it helps people within the company to see and to feel and also to experiment that it's possible to do business in a different way. And thanks Corinne you've also described what it takes and what it means to be a corporate social entrepreneur what we started to recognize last year through this new award category and why you know we believe there are these similarities between social entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs because of the mission because of the way you work because of the commitment and passion because of uh the persistence but you have different tools at your disposal. In the last year we've seen stakeholder capitalism and the stakeholder approach get a lot of attention clearly it's been the motto and the philosophy of the world economic forum for its 50-year history and earlier this year the known became the first listed company in France to adopt the entreprise a mission-based enterprise which came into French law in 2019. So tell us what it means to be as the known communities the driving internal force of some of this change you've explained you have you know a company that has got its values driven in purpose and yet you have a role inside the company as well. So tell us a little bit around what is the role of corporate entrepreneurs in driving and realizing these kinds of missions. Our role is to challenge the statu quo within the entreprise in fact I think what we play as a role is exactly the role that social entrepreneurs are playing with the world I would say. So we challenge the statu quo and we act as accelerators and as disruptors as inspirators. So that's mainly what we do within the company. And you were explaining to me and a call we had last week as well that you often test out some of the business models of what might inspire but also demonstrate what's possible within a company. Yes exactly. Can you give us an example? Well I think for instance a big corp can be an example as you may know that known as an objective of being a big corp certified 100% by 2025 and this was even brought forward initially we were thinking of adding it by 2030 and a big corp is a certification that helps you to measure the value that you create for all your stakeholders. I think if we had said something like that in 2007 for instance to people within Danone when Danone communities was created that at some point within Danone we will measure the value that we create for all our stakeholders nobody would have believed us within the company. Because we did it with some social businesses starting for instance by Graham in Danone which was the pioneer one where we said we will measure in this business not only the financial value but also the value we create for all the stakeholders within the value chain which was an example to show that it's possible to do that in business not only in a social business but also in a classical business. So this could be one of the examples for instance. Thanks Corinne and that's been a long legacy and now we see so many companies needing to and wanting to report on their environmental social and governance metrics and you've been a trailblazer in that so congratulations again I want to now turn to Jeff and thank you for joining us so late in China we're delighted to have you here you have been a pivotal node really a father figure of building the field of social innovation and social entrepreneurship in the People's Republic of China recognized by so many people around the world we're really honored to have you here tell us a little bit about the Leaping Social Entrepreneur Foundation and your work over the years and how social innovation and social and the practice of social entrepreneurship is different in the context of China. Thank you for your introduction and they're great to have the honor to be the awardee of the Schwab Foundation in the World Economic Forum it's a really great honor and congratulations to other awardees. I guess actually now we are calling ourselves as a catalyst and a way maker and ecosystem builder for the social innovation society in China for inclusive society but actually it takes a long time for us to recognize that so about 18 years ago when I sold out my company started thinking about how to get into the social development sector uh all in our mind is how to leverage market power to help the poor so we become serial social entrepreneurs and venture creators so we set up about six social enterprise and b-cups in China like you know micro finance one early education when vocational training and job creation went for the lower migrants and even for affordable housing with that direct service we almost served a million people here in China for the past 15 more years and about 10 years ago we are thinking how to leverage our potential for more impact for jobs so we think maybe we have the expertise to partner with great partners we try to really make a new system in China for the social innovators a new ecosystem because in China I think one special thing is actually business sector is the foundation of the civil society which is quite different from the others so how to leverage the business power how to leverage the tech power for good is really a main challenge for us and with that I think we actually find another position is quite suitable for us is help those social innovators from their minus one to zero point five stage I mean when people cannot judge how risk it takes we can help them in that stage it really makes a lot of new things can be happened my daughter very happy recently because she just joined a new type high school a high school raised by a high school graduate so the principal of the high school is just now 23 years old he named the Jason Wang so Jason actually set up this new type high school a creative high school about three years ago at that time I think he is he was trendy so he gave up the opportunity to be a college student in the United States about four years ago he decided to to use his expertise with his his roommates in China to to find a new type school because I think he understand that the word challenge for for lots of people like him and my daughter age is they spend they waste a lot of time in the classroom to do lots of exercise for a high school and that is not actually people needed for the future so they decide to change the situation by themselves and actually they got some systemic help Jason let a lot of people to help from traditional educators from new type investors so actually they didn't do this high school as a non-profit first they they do the high school as a peak up with that I think Jason understand how to leverage entrepreneurship and the volunteerism together thank you Jeff and not only have you proven with your life's work that you believe in this approach the bottom-up approach of seeing solutions develop and see what works but clearly you're putting your daughter in the school as well and so you fully believe in this approach it's clear that next generation will also lead us and I think this is the worker of Lindy where as well is to is to empower them and yet right now it remains a crisis South Africa's had an extremely hard lockdown in the way and tell us a bit about the reality and the challenge that you face despite reaching 500 000 school children what else what do governments need to do to enable the work of social entrepreneurs and social enterprises yeah I mean with us the 500 000 for for me I see the failure really because we have 11 million kids in South Africa that are at school and 500 000 is literally just a drop in the ocean and the reason for that is because of lack of access to internet and lack of you know and also the price of of of data in South Africa being one of the highest in the world so um and currently now I see that even before I mean COVID that access to internet was not something that has was seen as um you know a basic need some something that government should actually invest because if you look at how much money has been invested in the development of broadband it's not a lot and and obviously um being a developing country obviously you know the issue was we need to focus on issues of of bread and butter we must build school we must make sure that people have access like um to social security while those are important but this um this crisis showed us that access to internet is actually just as important because all the kids of um the the parents who are relatively well off the middle class and rich were not affected at all by um by COVID-19 my kids have been going to school the entire time so they went through the entire curriculum I was listening to our minister um last week a few weeks ago actually talking about how it's going to take about between 18 and two years for the kids who were not who basically during hard lockdown were not able to go to school for them to recover and that also what it does it also increases the achievement gap because what it means is that those kids from rich families or middle class family are gonna just I mean cruise through and they're gonna pass they're gonna do well at universities but the kids that are poor um are gonna struggle and that's not because they are not smart it's just a matter of you know where they are born who their parents are matters and I've seen also when you look at governments you'll find that I'm just gonna make an example with South Africa you see how a government has um you know um a a team of um leading CEOs and entrepreneurs that advise them on investment but you look at even a lot of countries you won't see um a government or president having a team of social entrepreneurs advising him as well while we need business um for the economy to grow but you also need social entrepreneurs who are able to balance both um the social issues as well as as entrepreneurship while um a business will measure their success just on profit alone a social entrepreneurs measure our success based on impact it's not so much about how much money I've made is also how much how many people did I help while making the money that I made right so it's it's really important that those social entrepreneurs should also be um have a seat at the table so that they can help in in influencing policy and also also one thing that I love about about social entrepreneurs when we start we don't have money so you start from nothing so we know how we can actually go out and and inspire other other young people to be able to get into this sector because we know how to do more with little so and that goes a long way because by the time you have more resources you're able to reach more because you used to be frugal you're used to to focus on you know the one dollar must go as further as possible now when I have one million instead of just focusing on the PR I'm like I don't need PR I can reach one million kids you know so I think that is really something that is really important because if you look at how um social some companies when they invest in um you know in their social um responsibility it's always more mostly about the PR you find that they spend more money on the PR than they do on the actual programs and so I think it's it's we social innovators should be given a seat at the table thank you Lindy we're for showing us the values at the heart of social innovators you really embody that in all that you do and just thank you again for for your work uh Corrine as we come to the close here it's clear that the year ahead is going to be a difficult economy for all organizations both for-profit companies and nonprofits how do you continue to sustain your work and continue to convince a large corporation that this work is important uh now more than ever all right it's going to be a challenge uh and I think it's also going to be an opportunity because I think that now it's clear for everybody for individual consumers people that things are interconnected congratulations again and to all of the awardees a warm welcome to the Schwab Foundation community an incredible community that makes us each day get up and despite what we read in the papers we know there is an incredible hope for the world you represent tens of thousands of social innovators around the world who look up to you we salute you we honor you we celebrate you and we thank you goodbye thank you for a fascinating discussion I really hope to meet you all in person next year and finally I'm thrilled to introduce to you now a celebrated musician and dear friend who spontaneously agreed to conclude our celebration with short remarks and a piece of music the world famous cellist Jo Jo Ma thank you Hildi I am so excited to be here today welcoming the social innovators of the year 2020 the Schwab Foundation and Hildi have been unwavering in their support of this community because you are so important to the world and let me tell you something that I think that you have done you have improved the lives of people around you in the world because you care and I think that's one of the most important things to start with and to end with you care you care because when people hurt are hurt you hurt you care because you have been able to listen to what the needs are of people you care therefore about the environment about the sustainability of the environment about how we consume you care about people's health people's education you care about rural development and job training you want people to find jobs and you care about human rights inequality in places all around the world so I am so excited that you are adding to what is going to be an improved state of the world which is the mission of the world economic forum and in order to thank you I would like to play for you two little pieces of music one is called simple gifts and the second one actually has everything to do with listening because the composer of that work did very much like what you did is you listened and that's how he taught his students he taught his students he said to them don't compose like me but just listen listen to the music around you listen to what people are saying through their music whether it's the indigenous americans or to african americans or immigrants all around you and his students guess what they listened and then they became teachers and when they became teachers they taught their students to listen and it took two generations of people listening that created the unique voices innovative voices of erin copeland duke ellington and george gershwin so the composer the teacher is the bourgeois it's coming home where we're starting with a thank you of simple gifts and then coming home as gratitude for everything that you have accomplished and are going to accomplish