Dare to Imagine – Skoll World Forum 2013
Speakers
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President and Editor-in-Chief, The Huffington Post
Arianna Huffington is the President and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of thirteen books. In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely-read, linked-to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. Originally from Greece, she graduated from Cambridge University with an MA in Economics.
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Director, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joichi Ito is the Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the former CEO of Creative Commons. He has created numerous internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan and was an early stage investor in Twitter, Six Apart, Wikia, Flickr, SocialText, Dopplr, Last.fm, Rupture and other internet companies.
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Co-Founder & President,
KivaPremal helps lead Kiva.org —a crowdfunding website that connects people through lending to alleviate poverty. Since 2005, over $1B in philanthropic loans has been crowdfunded to millions of underserved entrepreneurs in 90 countries — with a 96% repayment rate. The site has been named as one of Oprah's Favorite Things and a Top 50 Website by TIME Magazine. Premal's inspiration came while volunteering in India while on leave from PayPal, where he had been an early employee. Premal began his career as a management consultant and graduated from Stanford University. He’s passionate about making it easier for anyone to discover their own power to make real impact. He serves on the Board of VolunteerMatch.org & Watsi.org — a crowdfunding for developing world health care site. For his work as a social entrepreneur, Premal was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and selected to FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 40 under 40″ list.
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Dr. Sakena Yacoobi is CEO and founder (1995) of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL). Born in Herat, Afghanistan, she studied in the U.S., earning a degree in biological sciences from the University of the Pacific and a public health master’s degree from Loma Linda University. A university professor and health consultant for a time in the U.S., she returned in 1992 to work with her people. While training refugee teachers in Pakistan, she published eight Dari training guides. Known as “The Mother of Afghan Education”, Sakena’s innovative, community-based approach have greatly increased access to quality education and health for women and children, transforming the Afghan educational scene. A leader in providing human rights, leadership, peace and health training for women, AIL has impacted the lives of more than 17 million Afghans, 70% of whom are women. The first to offer human rights and leadership training to Afghan women, AIL also supported 80 secret home schools for 3,000 girls in Afghanistan after the Taliban closed girls’ schools. AIL was also the first organization to open Learning Centers for Afghan women. AIL now has a Legal Clinic to provide free legal services to poor Afghan women and has been hosting large scale peace conferences around Afghanistan using the poetry of the Afghan poet Rumi to teach lessons of justice, human rights, good citizenship and peace.
Besides her work with AIL, Sakena has four private schools, a private hospital and radio and TV stations. Among her awards are six honorary doctorates, Sunhak Peace Prize, WISE Prize for Education, Opus Prize, Jonathan Mann Award, Afghan National Peace Award and Sri Sathya Sai Award for Human Excellence in education. Dr. Yacoobi is a Skoll and Schwab Social Entrepreneur, an Ashoka Fellow and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She is Vice President of Creating Hope International (CHI), Global Fund for Women former board member, a Fetzer Institute advisor, and a member of the USAWC.
