Your Mark On The World

Having created the fastest growing fintech company in Pakistan by on-boarding more than 70,000 people, Naureen Hyat, 33, co-founder and head of Tez Financial Services has a long way to go to reach her goal of financially empowering the 100 million people in her country who are unbanked or under-banked. Visa recently held a Shark Tank-style competition for women entrepreneurs in around the world in two categories, fintech and social impact. Hyat won the $100,000 prize in the fintech arena—despite a genuine integration of social impact in her model. The prize also included mentorship and access to Visa products and services. “Financial inclusion in Pakistan is extremely low. The World Bank estimates 100 million adults, out of a total population of 189 million, lack access to formal financial services. Low-income consumers in particular struggle to access credit, smooth cash flows, manage bumps and shocks, and save to meet their future goals,” says Tahira Dosani, managing director of Accion Venture Lab, a seed

The processes corporations use to find candidates to fill open positions is fraught with weaknesses that perpetuate bias. Arthur Woods of Mathison.io is hoping to change that for good. Woods, despite being a white, not-yet middle-aged man, counts himself among diverse individuals. Like Alan Mathison Turing, the inventor of the first electronic computer for whom the company is named, Woods is gay. Mathison.io provides a platform that applicants can quickly use to create a profile that allows them to identify all the ways they might be considered diverse, from ethnicity to gender identity and religion. It’s all there—with the goal of making sure everyone is represented. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Dr. Eric Liguori, executive director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Rowan University is passionate about doing good in the world. Under Liguori’s leadership, Rowan University will be hosting crowdfunding training for nonprofits, sponsored by Johnson & Johnson’s CaringCrowd with me as the trainer on September 24, 2019. Register here. Liguori is a remarkable educator. Named educator of the year by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, he was later chosen as the youngest president ever elected to lead the organization. He thinks of entrepreneurship as a tool for solving social problems. A kind, family-focused person by nature, he’s seen his students create solutions to homelessness and environmental problems and the impact they have. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Playing on the adage that it is better to teach someone to fish than to give them a fish, Joseph Carbone, 66, founder and CEO of the Utah-based non-profit Eye Care 4 Kids, says you have to ensure they can see the fishing pole. “That is what we do at EC4K,” he says. In under 20 years, the organization has helped about 300,000 people obtain free or affordable eyeglasses. While most of those kids live in Utah, the organization began working with partners internationally almost from the beginning. Every year, Carbone leads a trip to the Navajo reservation that includes parts of southeastern Utah. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2Pa3liP. Today, the nonprofit operates nine clinics and serves 50,000 people annually.

Mike Jacobs of IBM’s corporate social responsibility team, joined me to talk about the ways IBM is using its technology for good, especially water scarcity. All the technology that is being used by corporations for business purposes is now being deployed, often on concessionary terms, to address social problems. Interview with Mike Jacobs, the Business Strategy Leader & Chief of Staff, Corporate Social Responsibility at IBM of IBM. How are you personally affected by Using Technology to Combat Freshwater Scarcity? I am lucky to have access to fresh, running water. What’s most important to me is that IBM is making a real impact for others who don’t have access to clean water. My background is in disaster relief and helping communities build resiliency, so I know how important it is to deliver tailored and localized solutions that drive meaningful impact. IBM combines leading artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology to predict extreme weather and help people and

Kevin White spent 20 years in the Marines. In 2004, he was stationed at the European Command (EUCOM) as the humanitarian assistance program manager. He witnessed efforts to provide eyeglasses to people who needed them. The process was cumbersome and inefficient. For the past 15 years, White has been working to develop a better process for helping people who can’t afford glasses to get them. He has invented a revolutionary process for diagnosing the lenses people need and preparing them on-the-spot for a price of $5. The system relies on volunteers who receive three hours of training and are then prepared to help people diagnose themselves and build them a pair of glasses almost instantly. The system works well when organizations who are already making humanitarian efforts add the system to their efforts. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Greg Brodsky, 42, founder of Start.coop, a startup accelerator for co-ops, says the interesting thing about co-ops is that people love them but don’t know what they are. He’s working to keep the former and change the latter by helping social entrepreneurs launch successful ones. “Co-op is this funny word that most people have heard, but really very few people can accurately define,” Brodsky says. “We've actually done some research that around 76 percent of people would be more likely to support a co-op, everything else being equal, but only about 10 percent of people can accurately define it.” Traditionally, a business is owned by entrepreneur founders and investors. A co-op may be owned instead by either workers or by customers—or both. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2YPqCLe.

On our current path, 40 percent of demand for water is likely to be unmet in 2030. We’re talking about water shortages of biblical scale! Mindy Lubber, the CEO and President of Ceres, is working to prevent that. Focusing on actors with the most to lose—corporations that have the most exposure to water—she moves investors to advocate for greater accountability. The results are dramatic. Companies are beginning to report on their use of water and have begun to invest in protecting and preserving clean water sources. There is far to go but Ceres is on the case. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Social entrepreneur Leesa McGregor, was thinking not only about how to teach her three-year-old Max the alphabet but also how to teach him values. She hit on the idea to create an alphabet book that used values rather nouns like apple, book and cat. The book, A New Alphabet for Humanity, beautifully illustrated, is ready for publication. To raise the funds necessary for publication, Leesa is running a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. She hopes to build a social enterprise around the book to help more people. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.

Mohammed Faisal has not been thwarted by the random accident that nearly killed him in January. He passionately continues his work, using his struggle to regain his life as an inspiration for others. Mohammed is the founder of The Money Hub, which works with kids in New York City high schools to help them learn basic and important financial literacy skills. He saw his home life transformed by his parents’ purchase of a home when he was young. He wants everyone to start out on a path to financial security. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.

Dr. Jonathan Foley, 50, executive director for Project Drawdown, joined me for a discussion about climate change (watch in the video player above). His statement, “This may be the single biggest business opportunity in human history,” sounds like hyperbole but there may be no one better qualified to make that statement correctly. With a PhD in atmospheric sciences from the University of Wisconsin and having spent three decades doing and managing research into climate change, he is certainly qualified on the science. His case that the business opportunity is there hinges on this key premise: We literally have to reinvent our energy systems, our food systems, our manufacturing, our cities. Everything! You can look at that is like, ‘Crap, that's a really big problem.’ I think we have to look at as “Wow, what a great opportunity!” especially if we do it right. We can improve lives. We can reduce inequity. We could solve some of our other social ills if we do it wisely. And we could build a better world for fu

Candice Whitely joined Sewing New Futures four years ago when she visited New Delhi and saw the work the nonprofit was doing there to help women make a transition from prostitute to seamstress. In the community of Najafgarh in the suburbs of Delhi, the residue of India’s infamous caste system condemns women to marry young and into sex work to feed their families and pay their own bride price. Sewing New Futures helps women develop an alternative career path, not only for themeselves but for their daughters as well, saving them from a tragic fate most cannot even imagine. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.

Michael Dash is taking a step back from the hard-charging life he led for so long to re-center. In the process, he’s dealt with his own addictions and gained some powerful perspectives. He shares his insights in he book Chasing the High. He also shares some powerful insights in our conversation, which you can watch above. Interview with Michael Dash, the CEO of FATE - From Addict To Entrepreneur . The following is the pre-interview with Michael Dash. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above. Expert Tips: Tip 1: Do not make emotional decisions in business or your personal life. Emotional reactions cause frustration for both parties involved and usually involve an outpouring of negative energy. This usually leads to an uncomfortable conversation that needs to take place after the fact to heal any hurt feelings and ends up being a complete drain of time. Tip 2: Change is actually easy. Too often people equate change to the result they are expecting from change but these two ideas actually have no c

“Tegu takes us back to the joy of play,” says Jose Zelaya, the Honduran toy manufacturer’s accounting manager. More importantly, the creator of wooden blocks with embedded magnets that fascinate and engage children, is employing people in a country stressed by poverty, unemployment and violence. Tegu, founded by Chris and Will Haughey a decade ago, with the mission to create jobs in a country that desperately needed them. Along the way, they’ve proven that Honduras, less than three hours and just $233 (roundtrip, according to Google) by air from Houston, can be competitive with manufacturing in China and other Asian countries. Ana Sauceda, an industrial engineer for Tegu, visited with me during my on-site research trip. You can view our discussion in the video player at the top of this article. She says the company is now shipping product to a variety of countries around the world, including China, Japan, Malaysia, Switzerland, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. The company’s biggest market remains the United St

In 1998, Kurt Ver Beek had been living in Honduras for nearly a decade when he and four Hondurans founded the Association for a More Just Society, initially with the primary goal of delivering aid to vulnerable families. Quickly, however, they realized that little progress could be made without addressing the violence and corruption that then plagued and continue to plague the Central American country. Fighting those twin demons became their mission. By 2012, Honduras had the highest homicide rate of any country in the world. Evidence was building that corruption and violence were closely related. The son of the president of the National University was murdered by two uniformed policemen who were attempting to steal his car. The Association for a More Just Society helped to investigate and advocate for the prosecution of the guilty in that case. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2GAqtAg. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

For nearly two decades, Christie’s Place has been a refuge and a resource for women living with HIV/AIDS in San Diego. While the organization receives funding from a variety of sources, some of the funding comes with constraints and limitations. Recently, Christie’s Place raised money via CaringCrowd, Johnson & Johnson’s global public health crowdfunding site, because it allowed the nonprofit to fill some critical gaps in its funding so that the organization can continue serving its community. Executive Director Rhea Van Brocklin noted that J&J matched donations up to $250 during the campaign, dramatically easing the effort required to hit the funding goal of $5,000 in the most recent campaign. Over the years, Christie’s Place has raised over $14,000 on CaringCrowd. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.

Spoonful Apparel, founded by Susan Elwer, to end child hunger, sells comfortable clothing with inspiring messages and donates 50 percent of the proceeds to the effort. With slogans like “I choose kindness” emblazoned on the front, the clothing is virtually a living advertisement for doing good. The social enterprise sells the merchandise through online retail, to corporations and for events. To date, the company has provided 65,000 meals to kids! Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.

Generous by nature and raised in a vulnerable circumstance, Elisa Torres, now a marketing manager at J&J’s Ethicon, is passionate about ending human trafficking. Recently, she raised money for A21 Campaign, a nonprofit that rescues women from slavery, using CaringCrowd, J&J’s global health crowdfunding platform. By making human trafficking more difficult, profit margins are squeezed and perpetrators are encouraged to move on to other endeavors with less damage to human beings. Elisa raised a total of more than $15,000 for the nonprofit using CaringCrowd in two separate campaigns. The site is easy to use and she notes that J&J matched virtually the donations in her campaigns, doubling her impact. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.

One of the most remarkable social enterprises I’ve encountered in recent years is Ejido Verde, in Michoacan, Mexico, now run by CEO Shaul Paul. By reestablishing pine forest where they were once universal, Ejido Verde will grow a pine resin industry with the potential to employ thousands of people, lifting them into the middle class. Ejido Verde is helping indigenous people to cultivate and care for trees for a decade before they begin to produce resin. Once they begin to produce, Ejido Verde will accept repayment in the form of raw resin--just 10 percent of the production. Ejido Verde also guarantee the purchase of the remaining resin at market prices. Pine resin is a big business globally, totalling about $10 billion USD. The resin is used in all sorts of products, including colas. After twenty years, the indigenous people will have the option to begin logging their trees or to continue harvesting resin--for up to 60 more years until the trees die naturally. Carbon credits are expected to supplement the

“Hunger is a year-round struggle,” Jane Leal, Vice-Chair for Feeding Middlesex County, says. She’s grateful for the fundraising help offered by Johnson & Johnson’s CaringCrowd crowdfunding site that helped raise much-needed flexible funding to help close gaps in the community’s effort to feed those who are food-insecure. Jane helped raise almost $7,000 using CaringCrowd, nearly half of which was donated by J&J as a match. CaringCrowd is a crowdfunding platform for nonprofits that serve public health needs; food is a public health need. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.