Skoll World Forum: Impact, Talent and Jimmy Carter

Thursday afternoon of the Skoll World Forum also offered so many interesting panels that the choice of which to attend was hard. Editor’s note: this was not the first time Ann had a hard choice of panels this week. I buzzed between a panel called “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, What’s the Impact of this All?” which tackled social impact and metrics to track it (Acumen’s Chief Investment Officer, Brian Trelstad, was a panelist) and another called “Addressing the Talent Gap,” on which Acumen’s Talent Manager, Deepti Doshi, was a panelist.

Marc Freedman, CEO of Civic Ventures, was also on the Talent panel and described his organization’s initiatives redirecting mid- to late-career executives in the private sector to work with social entrepreneurs and innovators addressing pressing issues. Civic Ventures has an innovative Senior Fellows program which selects high performing baby boomers and places them with NGOs or social entrepreneurs for a year. Half of the stipend is paid by the NGOs and half by the Fellow’s corporation. Freedman passionately described the Fellows as folks who feel “midlife is getting to the top of the ladder and finding it was leaning against the wrong wall.”

Through the first 2 days, the Forum’s highlight was definitely the evening speech by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He is 84; witty, erudite and humble all at the same time. He described responding to Jeff Skoll’s invitation with the question: what is a social entrepreneur? Jeff responded “you are one, Mr. President.”

Carter proceeded to give an astonishing and inspiring speech, in which he described the work of five social entrepreneurs who have inspired him, as well as the work of his own Carter Center. He talked about the rights we hold dear in the West: freedom of speech, the right to assemble, the right to vote. Those rights don’t mean much, he said, when you can’t feed or clothe your family, or give them even basic health care. People in the West are dying of smoking related diseases and obesity while people in the developing countries are dying because they don’t have the basics.

He talked about some of the Carter Center initiatives, including work toward eradication of diseases such as the guinea worm and described his (ultimately successful) efforts to persuade a village chief to let the project team take the necessary steps to rid the village pond of the worms. What was striking about his story was the respect he had for the chief, who was resistant to the need for a cure. He did not strong-arm the chief to accept the obvious solution, but listened and worked with him until he had gained his support. That village, in which 500 of 700 residents were afflicted by guinea worms, is worm free today.

There were many more stories and a number in the audience were moved to tears. And so ended the second day of the Skoll World Forum – where else can a story about guinea worms move hundreds of people to tears?