Prize Winner 2010

Bill Drayton is founder and current chairman of Ashoka, a non-profit organisation aimed at location and supporting socially oriented entrepeneurs around the world. Over the last three decades Ashoka has succeeded in affording the concept of "social entrepreneurship" global significance and building an international social network. To this day more than 2,500 Ashoka Fellows have been supported in about 70 countries on five continents.

Bill Drayton now intends to use this network in order to implement proven projects in other countries as well, thereby taking international social innovations originally on a local or regional level. This was the reason for launching “Ashoka Globalizer”, which is to be understood as a process of internationalization of social initiatives:

• Selection procedure:
  25 of the over 2,500 Ashoka members world-wide have been selected as globalizers for this year.
  Selection criterion: It must be possible to implement the project on an international scale - as, regards both content and organization. Ahsoka's globalizer process will be carried out every year; new globalizers will be selected, consequently, the social effect will also be enhanced every year.
  
• “Hofburg talks”:
  The 25 selected globalizers meet with 25 business entrepreneurs and philanthropists from all over the world. In individual talks, the social entrepreneurs' multi-year business plans, concepts and implementation scenarios discussed and further developed, and then the social effect actually achieved measured.
  
• Ongoing exchange within the globalizer community via an internet platform, the Mindshare Community, or meetings in person.

• Actual implementation of the selected projects with the help of the philanthropists and business entrepreneurs, aiming for a considerable increase of the number of people that benefit from these initiatives.

• Performance rating determining the efficiency of the globalizer process: How many people are reached with the selected projects today, and how many people will be reached in one year, and in five years? How many more countries will be included in the future?

The prize money of the Essl Social Prize has been used to fund the entire Ashoka globalizer process, ranging from the first preparations to complete implementation in the year 2010.

Bill Drayton: “25 new Ashoka fellows go global with their activities year after year. In a few years, the whole initiative will have brought about a measurable improvement of their conditions of living for hundred thousand people”.