In terms of benefits, the winners will join the Schwab Foundation’s community of accomplished social entrepreneurs around the world – a community that shares knowledge and experience while exchanging best practices. The winners also have access to the meetings of the World Economic Forum and are provided with an unparalleled platform to engage and connect with government, corporate, intellectual and media leaders.  In addition, the Schwab Foundation seeks to help social entrepreneurs showcase their innovative, market-based social impact initiatives, thus, enhancing opportunities for business growth.  

Together with the World Economic Forum, the Schwab Foundation will recognize these leading social entrepreneurs, who will be announced at the Africa Regional Summit in Addis Adaba, Ethiopia in May 2012, where global and regional leaders will gather to address major economic and societal issues.

We are especially looking for candidates working in the following countries:

East Africa: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda
Central Africa: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, DRC, Gabon,
Southern Africa: Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe
West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivorie, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania,
Niger, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Togo.

Please send any suggestions to Abigail Noble at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by September 1^st.

To apply or to view the criteria, selection process, and benefits, please go to: http://www.schwabfoundseoy.org/africa

Criteria for Selection into the Schwab Foundation Network

1. Innovation: The candidate has brought about social change by transforming traditional practice or introducing systemic change. Such transformation can have been achieved through an innovative product or service, the development of a different approach, or a more determined or rigorous application of known technologies, ideas and approaches. A salient characteristic of a social entrepreneur is coming up with a pattern-changing idea and implementing it successfully.


2. Sustainability: The candidate has generated the social conditions and/or institutions needed to sustain the initiative and is dedicating all of his/her time to it.  

If set up as a non-profit entity, the organisation is achieving some degree of financial self-sustainability through fees or revenues or is engaged in creating mutually beneficial partnerships with business and/or the public sector. Where possible, economic incentives are embraced. If set up as a for-profit entity, the orientation toward social and
environmental value creation predominates, with financial return from the sales of its products/services treated as a secondary means to an end, rather than an end in itself.  

In addition, the approach should emphasize community-based empowerment and sustainability as opposed to short-term aid.  


3. Direct social impact: The candidate has founded, developed and implemented the entrepreneurial initiative on the ground, often together with stakeholders and poor or marginalised beneficiaries. The candidate is directly improving the lives of its target beneficiaries. It is tacking a social or environmental problem at its source, pursuing social change and transformation rather than a palliative approach. Social enterprises, are distinctly different from charitable foundations and from a CSR project of a traditional business. The impact manifests itself progressively in quantifiable results and testimonials over time, and the data/information is well documented. There are no significant negative externalities.  


4. Reach and Scope: The social entrepreneurs’ initiative has spread beyond its initial context and has been adapted successfully to other settings in the country or internationally, either by the entrepreneur him/herself, or through others who have replicated or adapted elements of it.  The absolute number of beneficiaries, or the proportion of people reached in the targeted population are some indicators or reach and scope.


5. Replicability: The initiative can be adapted to other regions of the world to solve similar problems. The entrepreneur is open to sharing with others the tools, approaches and techniques that are critical to the adaptation of the initiative.

Objectives for Selection into the Schwab Foundation Network

1.  to foster a community of leading social entrepreneurs around the world. The Foundation provides the platforms for this community to promote sustainable and innovative solutions through interaction with corporations and other stakeholders of global society. These platforms are provided in close partnership with the World Economic Forum and its series of regional and global events.


2. to contribute to the scaling of social innovations in the world by fostering a continuous dialogue among the key experts and practitioners.


3.  to identify leading social entrepreneurs in their respective countries through the “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” awards, which will be run by key partners of the Foundation. The Social Entrepreneurs of the Year awards shall be at the center of an effort to promote social entrepreneurship on a national level, to familiarize the general public with social entrepreneurship and to highlight role models for others to follow.


4. to identify young social entrepreneurs of the next generation who often develop highly innovative and sustainable approaches. The Foundation nominates these entrepreneurs as Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum and offers them a unique multistakeholder network to advance their causes and ventures.

5. to facilitate advanced professional education opportunities. The Foundation works with Harvard University, Stanford University and INSEAD to provide scholarship opportunities to the best executive education courses in the field to the selected social entrepreneurs. The Foundation works closely with leading academic institutions to publish case studies on specific social entrepreneurs for incorporation in undergraduate and graduate level courses.

Note: The Foundation does not give grants or invest financially in the organizations of its selected social entrepreneurs.