Who's Who in SocEnt (and what about the Worms?)

Who's Who in SocEnt? Worms. 

"Guatemalan native Maria Rodriguez is fixing her country’s economy from the ground up, by investing heavily in worms with her company ByoEarth. The worms eat trash (solving a persistent problem of how to dispose of waste) and the resulting worm waste can be sold to farmers as a powerful fertilizer."

Brilliant! Clear social impact in mind – boost Guatemalan economy by improving farming and reducing waste – and a great source of revenue – selling rejuvenated waste as powerful fertilizer. I have a soft spot for anything that turns useless garbage into beautiful energy. I don't have any idea why . . . 

Below I've selected my favorite five (but its really six) from Forbes 30 under 30 Social Entrepreneurs. You don't have time to read about 30 people, so read about my favorite five (six). Check out their site for more info. 

These top three I chose because they are most inline with the Luminary philosophy: Strike at the roots, instead of hacking at the branches. They address root issues like education, leadership, and communication.

Juan David Aristizábal Ospina

"Juan David Aristizábal Ospina is the founder and president of Buena Nota, an organization that informs, engages and connects Colombians around social problems and their solutions. Today Buena Nota has at least 1 million individuals actively involved with the platform; Aristizabal is working to develop a strong, integrated relationship with academia, and a Social Entrepreneurship Bank that will connect ventures with potential investors."

Eric Glustrom, Boris Bulayev, Angelica Towne

"Eric and cofounders are [of University X] dedicated to transforming Uganda’s education system to equip young people with the leadership skills necessary to become change-makers in their communities. Educate! partners with locals schools to provide a two-year social entrepreneurship program for 16- to 18-year-olds that ditches rote memorization in favor of leadership development."

I couldn't find anything on this alleged "University X"

George Srour

"Building Tomorrow engages students in service-learning, fundraising, awareness and design activities to generate support for the construction of primary academies in East Africa. In Uganda, partner communities match the students’ support by donating land and volunteering 20,000 hours of labor to construct each academy. Since it was founded in 2006, Building Tomorrow has opened 10 academies in Uganda serving 3,250 students, and has four more under construction."


Bill Clinton's in their front page photo banner, so it's got to be good!

Lily Liu

"The New York City-based startup [PublicStuff] developed a system that replaces or improves upon city call centers—residents can make real-time requests to local governments, via a website or an app, when they spot a pothole or spy graffiti; requests get routed to city employees to fix. During Hurricane Sandy, people living in affected cities found the service and spontaneously started reporting--even though most the affected cities weren't signed up."

I included this one because this or a similar app was being used in rural Oahu, HI with some success when I lived there earlier this year; its getting around. In HI people mostly reported abandoned cars . . .

Eden Full

"At the age of nine, Full entered a science competition and built her first solar car. Now at 19, Full has launched a company, Roseicollis Technologies, to bring new inventions to Kenya and other developing countries; the company's primary technology is the SunSaluter, a cost-effective solar panel rotator that increases the efficiency of solar panels by 40%, for only $10."

Generally, I don't really care about solar panels that much, I just think they're cool, but this was just too awesome – built her first solar car when she was nine?! And now she's selling solar panels for 10 bucks? Who is this girl? 




Which brings us to our sixth.

Simone & Jake Bernstein

"In 2009 Simone Bernstein, then 17, and her brother Jake, then 15, spent the summer creating a website that listed all the volunteer opportunities for teens in their hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. The reason: as a young teen Simone Bernstein had been frustrated by a lack of a central resource for this information. This March Simone and Jake launched a national website, volunTEENnation.org . The siblings also created a regional Youth and Family Volunteer Fair. Roughly 7,500 young people have found opportunities to give back through VolunteenNation since its launch."

I included these fine folks because of their age. I found it remarkable that such young people are doing good and centralizing the volunteer database, something which we all can agree, needs to be done. And their websites definitely the best of the bunch.  

Perhaps someday soon, we'll see the Luminaries up on this list. Our ideas our still developing and we hesitate to jump the gun before we're ready, but as things are going I see us evolving into the business of franchised civic centers, ones thriving with activities, recreational therapy, and discussion. We seek to produce discussion, essentially, seeing it as an invaluable good, and one that will stimulate change at the very roots of the issue.

What ideas do you have? Who do you think should be on this list?

Or join in @GeorgeASimons #WhosWhoSocEnt