8 Women Social Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing The World

To coincide with the hundredth anniversary of some women first gaining the right to vote – and the recent release of the eagerly-awaited The Moral Marketplace: How Mission-Driven Millennials and Social Entrepreneurs are changing Our World – author and social entrepreneur Asheem Singh highlights eight women from across the globe, some well known, some flying below the radar, many of whom feature in his book, who are changing the world through fierce leadership and social entrepreneurship.

Betty Makoni was a child rape victim in Zimbabwe whose assault was hushed up. She grew up to become a teacher, advocate and researcher and set up the Girl Child Network, which lets girls share their experiences in classroom settings. GCN has spread across Africa and there is even a chapter in Basildon, Essex. Supermodel Adwoa Aboah recently set up a sassy, online, generation-Z variation on the network called Gurlstalk last year.

Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, born 1980, is an Ethiopian social businesswoman and inspirational speaker and the founder of SoleRebels, Africa’s fastest growing footwear company that now supplies 30 countries worldwide, and that is ecologically sustainable and ethical in all its production ‘to boot.’

Lily Cole is already well known as more than a supermodel. With a double first in history of art from Cambridge University, she has also set up the social enterprise platform Impossible. This year, she will help lead the celebrations to mark the bicentenary of Emily Bronte’s birth.

Laura Bates is the British grad who founded the everyday sexism website. A simple blog has become a global brand, the hashtag itself is an icon of our times and a testament to the accessibility and potential of social entrepreneurship in our time.

Talia Frenkel. A former photojournalist, she now makes condoms that women in developing countries are not afraid to carry around. One pack purchased here, sees one given free to a vulnerable person in an AIDs danger zone.

Eden Full. A young woman and an engineering and innovation genius. When she was 19 years old, Full dropped out of Princeton University to turn her high school science fair project, the SunSaluter, into a global juggernaut. It provides both clean water and electricity for poor communities being as it is a solar panel that tracks the movement of the sun across the sky, making it significantly more energy efficient than sedentary flat panels. It can now be found in 15 countries around the world and Full has no plans of stopping there.

Wendy Royskopp. A Princeton grad who realised that quality of teaching was essential to life chances. The social movement she founded, Teach for America, its British counterpart, Teach First and other chapters are revolutionising education.

Malala Yousufzai. She was oppressed, denied an education. She was butchered, she got up, she spoke out, she won the Nobel prize for peace. She now studies law at Oxford. And still she has so much to give. An enduring inspiration.

 

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