Stories of Change 3: 20/20 Vision - Predictions For The Decade

Stories of Change
VOL 3:
20/20 Vision: Predictions for the Decade

Predictions for the Decade
For the third in our Stories of Change eBooks we asked Ashoka’s social entrepreneurs to think
ahead to the end of the decade to what they hope or believe the world will look like in 2020. (You
can see the first two volumes at [www.ashoka.org/stories].) We also asked them what they will do
this year to move us in that direction. Here’s what they said.
Social change always begins with a dream. Social Entrepreneurs are visionar y because they question
the status quo. They understand the forces which give rise to the challenges we face and can see a
future beyond these challenges. For the last thir ty years Ashoka has looked all over the world for social
entrepreneurs who have a vision big enough to change the world. They are people who think deeply
about how to make their communities more fair, just or sustainable.
But they don't just dream about this future. They take action to bring a different world into being.
They understand the many steps required to create the future they see, and have the commitment to
see the journey through. Successful social entrepreneurs are also skilled at communicating their vision,
empowering others to share it and become changemakers themselves.
The changemakers represented in this volume come from diverse countries, ages and perspectives.
They are working on some of the world's most difficult issues: democratizing media, fostering peace
in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, pioneering new models of health care, teaching
empathy and opening up changemaking to all.
Their work is innovative and impor tant, and through this volume we hope you will discover more about
them. And we hope see new oppor tunities to be involved in creating the changes this decade demands.
STORIES OF CHANGE
Stories of Change is Ashoka’s electronic book series. Through these publications we will share the
stories of the changemakers in the Ashoka community: Fellows, Youth Venturers, staff and par tners.
People who are producing system change solutions for social problems, inspiring innovation
and creating an Ever yone A Changemaker™ world.
We hope you enjoy and share these stories. But most impor tantly, we hope these stories will inspire
you to continue creating change in your community.
Table of Contents
Abdelfattah Abusrour, Fellow............................................................................................................... 3
Angela Coleman, Fellow.. ...................................................................................................................... 4
Pascal Katana, Youth Venturer............................................................................................................... 5
Scott Cowen, Ashoka U........................................................................................................................ 6
Sanjana Hattotuwa, Fellow.................................................................................................................... 7
Jane Karanja, Changemaker.................................................................................................................. 9
Marina Kim, Ashoka............................................................................................................................10
Osmond Mugweni, Fellow.. .................................................................................................................11
Phil Auerswald, Ashoka U...................................................................................................................13
Jimmy Wales, Fellow............................................................................................................................15
Sakena Yacoobi, Fellow........................................................................................................................16
Jacob Colker, Sundeep Ahuja, & Ben Rigby, Changemakers.............................................................17
Hemant Sahal, Youth Venturer............................................................................................................18
Al Hammond, Ashoka..........................................................................................................................19
Jane Leu, Fellow...................................................................................................................................20
Jerry White, Fellow.. ............................................................................................................................21
Ashley Shuyler, Changemaker.. ...........................................................................................................23
Ian Carter, Ashoka U..........................................................................................................................25
Bright Simons, Fellow..........................................................................................................................27
Lynn Price, Fellow................................................................................................................................28
Ingrid Lemus Sologaistoa, Youth Venturer.........................................................................................29
Howard Weinstein, Fellow..................................................................................................................31
Connect with Ashoka.. ........................................................................................................................32
Editor and Coordinator : Tom Dawkins

Layout & Cover Illustration: Rachel Land
Thanks To: Charles Tsai, Beverly Schwar tz, Mindy Zhang, Lennon Flowers,
Tyler Anh, Abby Chroman, Leah Fotis, Sarah Jefferson, Keith Hammonds,
Bill Matassoni, Paula Castillo, Sarah Graddy and to ever yone who
contributed their vision!
Attribution‑Noncommercial‑No Derivative Works

Abdelfattah Abusrour Fellow
What changes do you think 2010 will bring?
I guess in 2010, political awareness, human rights activism and environmental issues will take larger
space in the agendas of official and popular organizations.
What will you make happen in 2010?

In 2010, I will diffuse my philosophy of beautiful resistance through performing and visual ar ts as
means of giving hope and defending values that make of us human beings. You may be careless now,
but before the end of your life, you will be a changemaker.
More people will be committed to our slogans: “We do not have the luxur y of despair” and “We are
all human beings and equal par tners in making a change that we can be proud of ”—“Ever ybody is a
changemaker, and nobody has the right to say I can’t do anything.”
What changes do you hope to see by the end of the coming decade?
I hope to see commitment to hope and values that we share as human beings, that we are all human
beings and equal par tners in making positive and long‑lasting changes, that nobody is above the law or
the values. I hope to see more space given to children’s and rights issues and intercultural exchange to
break stereotypes and create oppor tunities for interaction. I hope to see no hypocrisy and compromises
with the values of justice, right, freedom, peace, humanity, and love. I hope to see no hungr y people, no
occupied people, no political prisoners, no interdictions for free movement, and no alienation of some
people on the expenses of others.
Abdelfattah Abusrour, Fellow, Palestine (Elected in 2006) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/aabusrour]

combats the child soldier phenomenon by providing ar ts programs, job skills training,
and psychological counseling for children in Palestinian refugee camps. He founded the
Al‑Rowwad Community Center [alrowwad.vir tualactivism.net] to create empowered
young suppor ters of non‑violent resistance.
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Angela Coleman Fellow
The year 2010 is a year of positive change. Many major changes have been occurring these past few
years, but 2010 will bring about a tremendous shift in priorities and focus regarding health, culture, and
lifestyle choices. It will be a year of abundance and blessings where we can reap what we have sown
over the last several years. This slow‑moving but highly effective shift will be global and spiritual, as well
as physically manifested.

In 2010, I will bring my dream of a Sisterhood Agenda global training academy into fruition. Its physicality
will be in the Virgin Islands, but it will be an interactive online learning system, as well. I also see myself
playing a more active role in media that empower women and girls.
I hope to see women of different ethnicities and backgrounds coming together in the spirit of sisterhood
to uplift, educate, and heal each other.
Angela Coleman, Fellow, United States (Elected in 2002) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/acoleman]

founded Sisterhood Agenda [www.sisterhoodagenda.com] to help African American
girls and young women develop a healthy respect for themselves and their sisters while
acquiring other impor tant life skills. Her curriculum has helped par ticipants improve
their academic performance and demonstrate increasingly positive behavior.
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Pascal Katana Youth Venturer
To me 2010 is a year of great change, especially to youth in all par ts of the world. It’s a year that will
define youth as a catalyst for positive changes in this world. We believe our elders will give us this
chance so that we can do our best to raise the economies of all nations and contribute positively in
regards to the current climatic changes.

Well, I believe that I am a hardworking youth, and my first job will be to create awareness among my
fellow youth, especially those who are in rural areas, to make them realize that they are the people who
can transform this world positively through working hard in research just like I have done. By doing
so, I will have created a big impact to the world through making them use their minds to develop the
world with hope that something positive will arise, like a solution for the current climatic change. I am
working on a community project that involves simple science, making sure that polythen papers and
plastic material are disposed effectively without contributing to climate change.
As I said earlier, it all comes from hard work and teamwork. It’s this attribute that made me believe that
by the end of the decade Ear th will be a better place to live, and that it will be a planet where all of the
basic problems that affect human beings will be eliminated through our teamwork as youth and through
new research. I also believe that, given a chance to be taken to a place where science research is a
priority, I can deliver something brilliant at the end of the day, because I am young and love innovation. I
hope this will be taken into consideration so that brilliant young minds will not be neglected.
Pascal Katana, Youth Venturer, Kenya (Elected in 2009) is the inventor of Smar t
Charger, a gadget that makes use of the energy generated by bicycles in order to
charge mobile phones and small rechargeable batteries that can power radios. In April
2010 Pascal hopes to implement his invention in five urban villages in Kenya.
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Scott Cowen Ashoka U
Higher education in the U.S. is in the early stages of significant change brought on by a weakened
economy, changing demographics, increased technology, and continued interest in civic engagement
at all levels of society. These trends will impact institutional strategies, structures, and processes by
demanding increasing accountability, access, affordability, and community connections.

I will ensure that Tulane is on the leading edge in responding to emerging trends to secure its future
and make it a leader in higher education. The focus of our effor ts will be to position Tulane as the
world’s leading university in developing the next generation of engaged citizens and leaders devoted to
building healthy and sustainable communities around the world.
I hope universities, especially research universities, will deploy their unparalleled talents to addressing
and solving some of society’s most intractable problems while proactively working with communities
who desire to transform and revitalize themselves.
Scott Cowen, Ashoka U, United States, the President of Tulane University, an Ashoka U
Changemaker Campus. He was recently named by TIME as one of the ten best College
Presidents in the United States [www.bit.ly/cRwQFo].
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Sanjana Hattotuwa Fellow
The defining line between what is perceived today as new and traditional media will be erased. Traditional
media will use citizens in their repor ting. Citizens will use the Web, Internet and mobiles in their own
repor ting. They will compete and increasingly complement each other. Technologies such as natural
language processing, semantic analysis, pattern matching, and semiotics on the Web will be used to make
sense from a growing river of information, little of which will be impar tial or accurate. A slow news
movement, involving contextualization, reflection, and curation, will emerge as a counter vailing thrust
to the heady pace of instant news feeds. Compelling stories will emerge from places without TV, radio,
electricity, water, drainage, sanitation or permanent shelters but with mobile phones. Print journalists
will learn that voice, photo, video, and innovative visualizations of complex problems strengthen a stor y.
All journalists will realize that to sustain empathy in protracted conflict, to communicate the horror of a
pogrom or genocide, to influence progressive policy, and to strengthen aid, stories need to be personal
and compelling and inspire hope. We will lose friends and colleagues to violence in 2010. Some of us
will be killed or imprisoned, or called terrorists and forced to leave the home and countr y we love
first and most. All of us will use our own media to tell our stories, competing with the narratives of
others. The best narratives we consume and remember, and which compel us to act, will be those that
inspire us and showcase resilience, simple acts of defiance and courage and even of violence against
injustice. Illiterate peoples will tell us their stories. We will inhabit a world where ever yone—whether
they are citizens or nomads, stateless, IDPs, or refugees—will be addressable through a mobile number.
We will witness more people than any time in histor y interconnected through a web controlled by the
parochialism of governments, terrorists, and commercial interests. Ergo, though we will see increasing
threats to the neutrality of the Internet as a medium, ever yone on the Web will contest this control. Yet
social changemakers in all domains will find oppor tunities for change and hope through technologies
unimaginable even a few years ago. All journalists will find in 2010 tools, platforms, ser vices, and new
paradigms in media generation, dissemination, and consumption that they will ignore to their own peril.
2010 will be a year we stop calling new media new media. We will simply use a range of media through
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a host of devices for little or no cost to challenge impunity and strengthen democracy, human rights, and
human dignity. Most of us will fail in this task. A few will succeed and inspire others to follow suit. This
is our challenge as social changemakers in the coming year—to live in hope, and risk disappointment.

I will pit the media I generate and inspire against media both unprofessional andpar tisan. I will seek to
demonstrate by example that progressive, citizen‑centric media on the Web can, even during violence
and war, interrogate and highlight issues vital to democracy and peace. I may fail, but through such failures,
I will learn vital lessons to share with others. I will re‑launch Groundviews [www.groundviews.org], now
one of Sri Lanka’s leading sources of critical opinion and analyses and globally recognized as a cogent
model of citizen journalism. The new avatar of the site will better reflect the diversity of voices and
content already on the site, and our growing interest in using photography, semantic visualizations, and
video to tell compelling stories. I will hold traditional media accountable for their bias, par tisanship, and
lapses in professional journalism. I will help traditional media leverage new technologies to strengthen
their journalism. I will work with human rights and media freedom defenders to help them use new
technologies to bear witness and at the same time, aler t them to the many ways in which technology is
used to monitor and cur tail their work. Most impor tantly, I will continue to work and live in Sri Lanka,
a countr y coming out of war that is still ver y distant from a just and sustainable peace. My work will
focus on the meaningful application of technology to strengthen democracy, justice and human rights.
Through this work and sober reflection on the challenges to peacebuilding post‑war, I hope to inspire
conversations, content, and action that will help my countr y heal, remember, seek justice, forgive, hold
accountable those who violate human rights, and envision a peace more meaningful than the mere
absence of war.
Acknowledging that all peoples are no longer passive recipients and consumers of information. This is
a paradigm shift from a decade ago, and largely undergirded by developments in telecommunications
technologies. Though the spectre of cyber‑wars is no longer limited to the domain of science fiction, new
technologies widely available, for free or little cost, can and must be leveraged by social changemakers
to bear witness and strengthen democracy. This is a challenge increasingly difficult, for these technologies
will also be used widely for hate and harm. Yet what I hope to see at the end of the decade is that
peoples, now able to tell their own stories even if they are illiterate, destitute, internally displaced, or
refugees, will name and shame those perpetrators of violence and those who could, but did nothing to
stop it. Technology can be a great leveller, and we must ensure it is used to strengthen democracy, for
increasingly, the enjoyment of our fundamental human rights rests on it. I hope that by the end of the
decade, this vital realisation will find expression in constitutions, policies and practices of governments,
initiatives of civil society, and the ethics of business and journalism.
Sanjana Hattotuwa, Fellow, Sri Lanka (Elected in 2008) [www.ashoka.org/shattotuwa]

created Groundviews [www.groundviews.org], a Sri Lankan web‑based journal that
allows citizens to express their political views and par ticipate in dialogue. Hattotuwa
leverages new media to call attention to humanitarian emergencies, promote social
justice, and provide a forum for critical debate.
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Jane Karanja Changemaker
I think the year 2010 will bring a lot of changes in the way people have been conser ving the environment,
especially in Kenya, where most people have experienced the effects of climate change through
unexpected droughts—crop failure due to environmental destruction. They will be keen to conser ve
the environment through tree planting and restoring the water towers in the countr y, to ensure food
security and healthy livelihoods.

I will plant 500 indigenous tree seedlings, increasing the number of school gardens by moving on to
other schools within my province. I will star t culinar y lessons and taste education with the school
garden members. I will introduce poultr y and rabbit keeping to the school garden members.
I hope to see a food‑secure world.
I hope to see a world free from climate changes.
I hope to see a healthy world free from diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.
I hope to see a united world, with no “blacks” and no “whites.”
Jane Karanja, Kenya, Changemaker.com Finalist: [Innovation: Solutions for Rural

Communities] provides quality agricultural education to youth through the School
Garden Initiative. She established 11 schools that empower youth to grow their own
food, learn sustainable farming methods, and pursue food security and biodiversity.
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Marina Kim Ashoka
People of all ages will be looking inward to question what really matters to them and adjust their
lifestyle accordingly.

My personal commitment: be better about saying no. The world is getting more complex and we need
to simplify and focus on what’s impor tant.
More babyboomer retirees mentoring teenagers and young professionals. The “millenials” have such
high expectations and so many options that life is quite stressful and it’s hard to have perspective. This
upcoming generation needs older and wiser people to reassure them that life will turn out fine and to
value the journey and learning along the way.
Marinia Kim leads the Ashoka U program, bringing together university par tners from
around the world to increase the quantity and quality of social entrepreneurship
education. Having been at Ashoka for four years, Marina helped to found the University
Network for Social Entrepreneurship, and more recently, the Changemaker Campus
Initiative.
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www.flickr.com/photos/23283084@N05
Osmond Mugweni Fellow
In Zimbabwe 2010 is an optimistic year, one when the Government of National Unity is to function
in a synchronized manner. The year should bring peace, stability, prosperity, and positive economic
development that benefit the grassroots in the countr y.

Growing up in traditional Shona woodlands, biodiversity was the norm. I am saddened by the demise of
the ecosystem in arid and semi‑arid ecosystems due to land degradation. Project Sustainable Rangelands
Management will see the blooming of savannah grasslands in Zimbabwe and in all semi‑arid rangelands
of the world.
In the Shona culture and belief system, the land evolved with herding grazers, and the absence of
one results in the destruction or extinction of the other. The conventional grazing management belief
that too many animals cause overgrazing is a misconception of the semi‑arid savanna environments
of southern Africa, where ecosystems evolved with thousands of herding grazers such as wildebeest,
buffalo, elephants, lions, leopards, cheetah, and hyena. When animals intensively grazed for shor t periods
(a month, at most), they left and came back one or two seasons later.
The Shona believe that overgrazing is caused by the failure to provide an adequate recover y period
for grazed plants. Predators (lions, leopards, cheetah, hyena, etc,) controlled the timing of rangelands
use by grazers by keeping the grazers bunched and moving. The solution for semi‑arid rangelands
degradation: time‑controlled grazing based on indigenous Shona grazing management practices.
This involves heavy stocking rates for shor t periods followed by long recover y periods.; The land
is divided into units where one‑third of the area is grazed in early summer and one‑third in late
summer, and one‑third is allowed a full summer to recover. These units are rotated annually. This is
a simulation of the community herding that was characteristic of Shona hamlets of Zimbabwe in
the 16th to 18th centuries.
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I have in my head the vision of how arid or semi‑arid rangelands will be different when these practices
are followed, and I will not stop until this idea is not only at work at Njeremoto Biodiversity Institute
but is across society as a whole. I will not be content to solve a problem in one or two villages only,
and will not rest until we have a global solution to this problem.
In the long term, new knowledge will be developed based on the differences in the biological decay
processes that exist between the brittle (savannah) ecosystems and the non‑brittle (temperate or
equatorial) systems. In order to ensure the sustainability of agricultural production systems, future
scientific knowledge should incorporate and strive to improve on local community knowledge and
traditions.
The long‑term goal of the Institute is to facilitate and see wealthy, empowered resource managers,
local communities, and academia sustainably managing semi‑arid rangelands productively and with
biodiverse, stable rural ecosystems. Hence a functional Njeremoto Biodiversity Demonstration and
Training Institute is established, monitored, made fully operational, and sustained in Zimbabwe and
is replicated in the Southern African Countries by December 2015. We hope to create a place at
Njeremoto Biodiversity Institute where sustainable grazing and wetland utilization and management,
based on indigenous Shona practices, can be demonstrated by 31 December 2015.
Osmond Mugweni, Fellow, Zimbabwe (Elected in 2003) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/omugweni]

founded the Njeremoto Biodiversity Institute [www.njeremoto.org] to develop and
promote productive, environmentally sustainable land management among livestock
farmers. Mugweni’s solution increases halts deser tification, prevents overgrazing,
enhances food security, and reduces pover ty in Zimbabwean communities.
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Phil Auerswald Ashoka U
2008: crisis. 2009: recover y. 2010? The coming year will be about renewal…or, alternately, about the
stagnation of leadership. In the absence of crisis, will the political determination exist in Washington
to push back against powerful incumbents—as happened in the context of the G.M. bankruptcy and
at moments in the midst of the financial meltdown? As the world economy stabilizes, will consensus
emerge on a follow‑on to the Kyoto Protocol—and if it does, will it end up favoring entrenched energy
interests (in the U.S., farm/biofuels and coal) or will it be structured to encourage the disruptive
innovations required for a transition away from carbon intensity and for sustained economic renewal?
One way or another, count on the global mobile phone revolution to continue; on China to consolidate
is new central role in world affairs; and on entrepreneurs and innovators to substantially advance the
process of global development and economic recover y—with or without any help from policy‑makers
and international organizations.

My goal is to contribute to a rethinking of the possibilities of our time with a book titled “The
Coming Prosperity: Making the Most of Humanity’s Moment.” You’re hearing it here first. I’ll star t
my blog [thecomingprosperity.blogspot.com] on this Januar y 1, 2010. I’ll be drawing a good deal of
content from the first four years of Innovations journal. The point of the book? See next question.
Human well‑being will likely improve to a greater extent in the next quar ter centur y—beginning with
the next decade—than at any time in histor y. This isn’t just good news. It is humanity’s moment. But
progress toward global prosperity is not inevitable. The choices we make will determine the extent and
reach of the coming prosperity, and our par t in it. Shared infrastructures of information, increased ease
of collaboration, and above all greater economic inclusiveness on a global scale are all contributing to
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this singular transition in human histor y. It is up to us to make the most of it—for ourselves and for the
communities of which we are a par t.
Philip Auerswald, Ashoka U, United States, is an Associate Professor at the School of

Public Policy and AshokaU Faculty Champion at George Mason University. Professor
Auerswald’s work focuses on entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation. He is
the co‑editor of [Innovations: Technology | Governance | Globalization], a quar terly
journal from MIT Press about entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. He
author and co‑author of numerous books, repor ts, and research papers.
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Jimmy Wales Fellow
In 2010, 100 million people will come online for the first time.

In my own small way, I will help to be sure that they have something interesting to see when they come
online.
A billion more people online, all joining the global conversation.
Jimmy Wales, Senior Fellow, United States (Elected in 2008) [www.ashoka.org/jwales]

invented and built Wikipedia [www.wikipedia.org], a free open‑source encyclopedia
that leverages collective knowledge in content creation. He also founded the Wikimedia
Foundation [www.wikimedia.org], an organization that aims to bring free content to
the world.
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Sakena Yacoobi Fellow
As conditions worsen throughout the world, people will reach out more and more to help each other.
We are already seeing this happen in Afghanistan.

It is not about what I will do but what “awakened” young people will do. Young Afghan men and women
in Emerging Leaders groups facilitated by the Afghan Institute of Learning will implement visionar y,
innovative grassroots projects to benefit the people in the communities where they live.
A peaceful, prosperous, democratic Afghanistan in a peaceful, prosperous, democratic world.
Sakena Yacoobi, Fellow, Afghanistan (Elected in 2006) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/syacoobi]

advocates for the empowerment of Afghan girls and women. Her organization, the
Afghan Institute of Learning [www.afghaninstituteoflearning.org], provides training,
leadership development, education, and health ser vices to over 350,000 women and
children each year.
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Jacob, Sundeep, & Ben Changemakers
At some point in the year, the Internet will turn 6,000 days old.

100 million more people will become smar tphone owners.
2010 will be the year of the “micro‑action” and by 2020 such actions will be embedded into ever y
organizations’ strategy.
Jacob Colker, Sundeep Ahuja and Ben Rigby, United

States, Changemakers.com winners: [The Power of
Us: Re‑Imagine Media competition 2009], are the
founders of The Extraordinaries [www.beextra.org],
a new platform that allows people to complete
micro‑tasks for organizations, causes or people they’re passionate about, using a mobile phone or web
browser, in a few minutes of spare time.
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Hemant Sahal Youth Venturer
With the active and pivotal role of the developed nations, more social action including rapid
technological development and transmission to the unreached masses happening in the developing
nations, I believe 2010 will bring more stability to their economies and ensure inclusive growth,
with a major contribution coming from one of the youngest population in the world, India. This will
culminate with a better tomorrow for the present and the coming generations.

I am launching a new campaign called a “Global Innovation Village” with the help of Centre for Sustainable
Rural Development and Research Studies, VITU, where passionate youth from my university will be steered
into rural communities to ensure sustainable development by solving ten basic problems per village
by employing simple technologies. I am aiming to cover minimum of two villages in 2010. Apart from
this I will be focusing on fur ther development of my own ventures CALLMAT and CALLINTRIP too.
I sense that we have already caused a lot of damage to our environment, and the pace at which we
are taking steps against it is miserable. So being an optimist, I hope to see more people involved
in addressing ubiquitous environmental issues around the globe. With so many industrial disasters
happening, I hope to see more social responsibility and accountability among corporations and
governments of different nations.
Finally, I anticipate per vasive innovations leading to hassle‑free and cost‑effective solutions to existing
global problems.
Hemant Sahal, Youth Venturer, India (Elected in 2009) launched a venture to develop
CALLMAT, a multipurpose pollutant‑removing mat. Easily suspended in a collection of
tanks of water requiring treatment, CALLMAT will prove a cost‑effective way to
increase the supply of clean water to households and farmers. Hemant was inspired to
invent the CALLMAT when he visited his hometown in rural India and was
struck by the number of people suffering from heavy metal poisoning.
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Al Hammond Ashoka
I think 2010 will see renewed focus on disparities and an increasing demand that some of them be
redressed. Moreover, to the extent that governments don’t act, I think that 2010 will see increased
effor ts by citizens’ groups, social entrepreneurs, and socially interested investors to address key human
needs on their own.

I intend to build enough rural health units, or healthpoints,” in India in 2010 that the viability of
this solution for meeting unmet health needs is no longer in question. We want to establish a new
standard for high quality rural healthcare deliver y—one that ensures safe drinking water, access
to qualified doctors by telemedicine, and access to modern diagnostics and legitimate medicines.
And 2010 should also see the expansion of the healthpoint model to at least one other countr y.
By the end of the next decade, 2020, I think you will see the explosion of private sector ser vice
deliver y in poor communities in most countries—electric power, telecomunications, safe drinking
water, healthcare, and even education. These will be mostly fee‑for‑ser vice businesses, with prices
low enough that even low‑income households can afford the ser vices, and with quality high enough
that people will reject low‑quality ser vices. And what this will represent is the entr y of several billion
people into the global market and into full economic citizenship.
Al Hammond is a Senior Entrepreneur with Ashoka’s Full Economic Citizenship

program, where he is leading an effor t to transform rural healthcare. He is a serial
social entrepreneur, with five prior star t‑ups to his credit and a former journalist who
went on to found and edit several national publications and oversee the launch of the
prominent blog, [www.nextbillion.net].
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Jane Leu Fellow
What I would like to see is a reversal of the heightened xenophobic climate brought on by the
economic downturn. We need to encourage civic, business, and community leaders to speak out against
the depiction of immigrants as criminal or a drain on society, and instead promote the robust economic
contributions of America’s newcomers and recover ways of celebrating our nation’s immigrant heritage.

Upwardly Global now has a strong presence on both coasts and in the hear tland. In 2010 we will use
our growing national presence to address the systemic regulator y barriers foreign trained professionals
face in rebuilding their careers, permanently increasing oppor tunities for thousands of immigrants to
rebuild their careers and contribute their skills to the economy.
My hope for the coming decade is that immigrant integration will become a nation building priority in
the U.S. to ensure our countr y’s economic and cultural vibrancy, and maintain America’s longstanding
reputation as the land of oppor tunity.
Jane Leu, Fellow, United States (Elected in 2005) [www.ashoka.or g/fellow/jleu]

founded Upwardly Global as a new way for corporate America to recruit, hire and
integrate foreign‑born professionals into the U.S. workforce, while helping highly
skilled immigrants, refugees and political asylum‑seekers reclaim their careers.
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© Carolyn Ramsdell, 2009 Survivor Corps Fellow, El Salvador
Jerry White Fellow
Violence will increase in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, as the world faces an historic fork in the road
to settle the Arab‑Israeli conflict with a two‑state solution. To prevent future Crusades‑like conflict,
special attention must be paid to the centrality of Jerusalem—the hear t of the conflict. It will not be
possible, indeed it will be a mistake, to relegate the “Holy City” to later status negotiations.
2010 will also bring increased focus and alarm re: mental health issues related to Americans returning
from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. With rising suicide and addiction rates among soldiers and
veterans, the invisible wounds of conflict, with their social cost, will become central concerns. The
Veterans Administration and Depar tment of Defense should realize that their huge DC‑based
bureaucracies are not well suited or equipped to handle this growing challenge.
We will see increased attention paid to the issue of disability. In July 2009, U.S. President Barack
Obama signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, signaling our growing
awareness that disability is not something that happens to someone else, but ultimately affects
us all. Universal accessibility and nondiscrimination will be key to freedom for 650 million people
with disabilities in the world today.

We at Sur vivor Corps are working on the first‑ever national reintegration strategy and plan for helping
American veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Check out [www.healthyhomecoming.org]
to get involved.
We will publish the first‑ever repor t on landmine and UXO contamination in the Holy Land, with
communities calling on Israeli and Palestinian leadership to follow Jordan’s footsteps to clear hundreds
of non‑operational minefields that threaten civilians and hinder economic development.
21
We will demonstrate the value of peer suppor t—sur vivors helping sur vivors—to improve the physical,
social, and mental health of war victims and veterans. Sur vivor Corps will disseminate its training
and tools to enable hundreds of conflict sur vivors to provide effective peer counseling to tens of
thousands of traumatized victims of genocide and violence in South America, Africa, the Mideast,
Southeast Europe, and Asia.
I expect the United States will join the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty (and hopefully the Cluster Munitions
Convention), aligning its policy and practice with 156 other countries, including all our NATO allies that
have already banned the production, use, stockpiling, and expor t of anti‑personnel mines.
We should see declining suicide rates among U.S. veterans and soldiers, provided the White House,
Defense Depar tment, and Veterans Administration promote policies for community engagement and
suppor t to ensure successful reintegration.
Jerry White, Fellow, United States (Elected in 2009) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/jwhite]

helps sur vivors of war and violence heal and transform their communities. He founded
Sur vivor Corps [www.sur vivorcorps.org], a peer‑to‑peer suppor t network that
transforms passive victims into active leaders in combating conflict.
22
Ashley Shuyler Changemaker
The rate of technological change that we have seen over the past decade is breathtaking. Who, for
example, could have possibly predicted the Twitter phenomenon ten years ago? And who could have
predicted that, by contrast, barely after having entered our lexicon, “tweet” would already end up on
a university’s “2009 List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English”? So, while hardly brave
enough to predict what other changes will occur in—or last through—the coming year, I do believe
that 2010 presents countless exciting oppor tunities for those of us working in par tnership with social
entrepreneurs around the world. In par ticular, I believe that a quickening technological pulse will be at
the hear t of development effor ts in 2010.
Access to technology is truly changing the landscape of oppor tunity, even in the most remote corners
of the world. These technological shifts are empowering individuals ever ywhere to formulate ideas,
debate their merits, and then take action. Through a par tnership between [Google and the Grameen
Foundation], for example, individuals across rural Uganda can now access health and agricultural tips
through their cell phones. Numerous websites such as [Changemakers] and [Social Edge] are providing
the forum for innovators to share and discuss their ideas.
To share a powerful personal example, one month ago a secondar y school teacher in the one of
the most remote, drought‑stricken areas of Tanzania read one of my blog posts on his cell phone,
and sent me his response [www.africaid.com/blog/?p=2707] using his keypad. Developments such as
these will truly begin to make far‑reaching changes in the field of international development and social
entrepreneurship.

Computer scientist Alan Kay said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” In 2010, I
will be working hard to help invent the future for other young women through a new AfricAid
23
imitative called the Kisa Project [www.africaid.com/kisaproject]. This program will marr y the enormous
power of social networking with the extraordinar y needs of young women around the globe.
With access to online resources and curriculum materials, families and youth in the U.S. will have
the oppor tunity to par tner in a meaningful and immediate way with girls in Tanzania through Kisa’s
unique social networking platform. Together, these students from around the world will work to make
educational oppor tunities possible, and will provide mutual suppor t as they become leaders and social
entrepreneurs in their respective communities. I believe that, through such thoughtful applications
of technology, we can all work together to invent a new future—one with infinite oppor tunities for
dialogue, par tnership, and social change.
The beginning of this decade saw a burgeoning movement toward empowering the world’s women.
As the year 2020 nears, it is my deepest hope and belief that this movement will not only have
continued, but will have achieved truly tangible results. I look forward to achievement of the U.N.’s
Millennium Development Goals [www.un.org/millenniumgoals] of universal education and gender
equality for the world’s women and, in par ticular, their ability to have access to a high school
education. Through educational oppor tunities, women ever ywhere can be empowered to lead more
full and meaningful lives. I am sure that technology will play a role in making these oppor tunities
possible—creating powerful par tnerships among individuals who are dedicated to making this world a
better place for those that come after them.
Ashley Shuyler, Changemakers.com winner: [Champions of Quality Education in

Africa competition 2009], is the Executive Director of AfricAid [www.africaid.com] a
nonprofit organization that suppor ts girls’ education in Africa. AfricAid won the
Changemakers competition for the [Teaching in Action initiative] that gives Tanzanian
teachers tools to use student‑centered teaching methods.
24
www.flickr.com/photos/jiannone
Ian Carter Ashoka U
This next year has the potential to include many significant worldwide changes. In the United States, I
believe that we will see substantial movement towards making basic health care be seen as a human
right instead of a privilege. I believe that there will be meaningful progress to curb climate change
stemming from the Copenhagen Conference. I also believe that 2010 will continue the trend of people
becoming more aware of each other and less focused on material possessions and status; a move
towards active citizenship and a growing sensitivity of the problems and oppor tunities to make our
communities a better place for all.

“Chance favors the prepared mind” ‑ Louis Pasteur. I strive to be prepared so that I can take
advantage of oppor tunities unknown at the present. In 2010 I will help make Colorado a national
center and model for social entrepreneurship and active citizenship by working with Ashoka’s
Change Your City campaign, Changemaker Campus program and Youth Venture. I will help launch 20
Student Social Ventures out of the University of Colorado. I will take steps to move a project to
increase access to energy in Nepal off paper and into real world application. And I will continue my
passion of giving voice to the voiceless in our community, those who are not heard or are unable
to advocate on their own behalf.
By the end of the coming decade I hope to see a worldwide nuclear non‑proliferation agreement with
a complete elimination of the current nuclear arsenal, which threatens instead of protects. I hope to
see the gap between rich and poor shrink instead of grow. I hope that world’s citizens’ basic human
rights will be respected and that ever yone will have access to the necessities that most of us take for
granted: clean water, shelter, food, and safety. Moreover, I hope that problems will cease to be seen as
25
problems and instead be seen as oppor tunities. Oppor tunities to apply ourselves and our resources
to improve the lives of others. “Strength does not lie in what you have. It lies in what you can give and
what you can do.”
Ian Carter, Ashoka U, United States, is a student and Ashoka U Project Manager at the
University of Colorado‑Boulder where the Changemaker Campus team has launched
a Social Entrepreneurs speakers series and is developing a social entrepreneurship‑
themed dorm to launch Fall 2011 [www.ashokau.org/site/?page_id=352].
26
Bright Simons Fellow
This is the year that the world’s most prominent, most flamboyant “development bubble”—China—
will burst. I am not predicting the collapse of this giant countr y in a few months’ time. I am only
saying its brand of waste‑intensive GDP growth will cease to defy the logic of innovative, sustainable
growth. The reordering of Chinese development towards a more rational formula will represent the
most massive shift in global orientation to socio‑economic progress ever witnessed.

I will help position “quality” alongside “access” as equal supporting pillars of the ongoing, unprecedented
drive to deliver medicines to the poor across Africa, thus helping eliminate waste and per verse
outcomes in the ultimate goal of improving basic health care on the continent.
A “development singularity” will ensue, wherein all of us who consider ourselves as development
agents—whether in the bureaucratic, political, entrepreneurial or technical sense—will break out
of our limiting and stifling silos and embrace a Kurzweilian unity of consciousness in purpose as
well as in action.
Bright Simons, Fellow, Ghana (Elected in 2008) [www.ashoka.org/bsimons] is

the founder of mPedigree [www.mpedigree.net], an organization that promotes
transparency in the pharmaceutical marketplace. By implementing a SMS messaging
system, Simons empowers consumers to validate drug quality and make educated
pharmaceutical purchases.
27
Lynn Price Fellow
There will be more solutions with greater efficiencies for siblings who are separated in foster care
to experience more accountable visitation plans, secure placements for siblings to live together, and
have access to consistent resources and suppor t for life planning for individuals and sibling groups
when they are emancipated from the foster care system.

Suppor t the work of Camp To Belong and other child welfare organizations and advocates to
replicate their models by providing keynotes, workshops, and coaching. “Vision For A Change,” my
featured keynote and book, is respective to new business development and impactful outcomes
alongside Ashoka criteria and ideals.
Ever y state in the U.S. and multiple countries will have legislation for sibling visitation and placement,
with more families recruited for siblings to live together. Adoptive families will welcome siblings into
their permanent homes or honor visitation plans if siblings are separated.
Lynn Price, Fellow, United States (Elected in 2005) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/lprice]

founded Camp To Belong [www.camptobelong.org] to reunite siblings separated by the
foster care system. In addition to helping siblings bond and sustain their relationships,
Lynn advocates the prevention of sibling separation through community awareness
programs.
28
Ingrid Lemus Sologaistoa YV
As a new year begins, each person prepares for the new challenges to come in the different aspects of
his/her life—maybe a new job, or perhaps simply another year in school. But regardless of how small
these changes may seem, I do believe that we all find our own ways to face these twists and turns.
I have had the great blessing of bringing a little joy to people that live in a red zone ghetto in
Guatemala with a project that I and other five people, who now are dear and close friends, have
developed. The SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) project is called Reinventing La Limonada, which
aims to reduce the levels of pollution of the ghetto through the creation of eco‑friendly companies
and to promote a recycling culture. We star ted just two years ago, but we have grown, and we plan to
keep growing and facing whatever challenges may come.

For this coming year, we have traced the direction we want to follow and how we plan to get there.
One of our main goals is to replicate Reinventing La Limonada in other needed communities and help
other organizations do so; we believe that it is easier to star t with a helping hand than from scratch.
This is why we have already given the first steps to star t three different Reinventing projects in three
different communities, two of which will only be super vised and not run by us. Another one of our
goals is to implement recycling program promoting the recycling culture in seven schools, at the same
time bringing out the entrepreneurial spirit in students. Students not only have to develop effective
recycling programs but also collect the greatest amount of recyclable material possible by stimulating
and propelling other students and teachers to par ticipate. Last, but definitely not least, we want to
expand our LEW project. LEW (Lemonade eco‑weaving), which is a project of Reinventing La Limonada,
provides jobs for needed women in the ghetto through handmade eco‑products. We have employed
six women that weave purses and pencil boxes made out of chip wrappers, and we have sold these
29
products. However, our goal for year 2010 is to introduce these products in stores so we can ensure a
monthly income for the ladies.
We believe the world needs a decisive generation to bring a real change in our countr ymen, neighbors,
friends, and family and I am sure that with passion and commitment we can face whatever challenges
are brought before us.
We have shor t‑term goals, but we also have a vision and mission, both of which mark the direction we
want to follow. In ten years, I would like to see a cleaner and healthier ghetto where all the people are
used to recycling their material instead of using the river and ravine as dumpsters. Having the three
other replicates of Reinventing La Limonada running on their own is also in my wish‑list. I would also
like to have a formal LEW project built into a company that not only provides jobs for six women but
for at least twenty. I would like the recycling programs on schools to be permanent and also to get
companies interested on handling adequately all their waste and making recycling par t of their policy.
Ingrid Lemus Sologaistoa, Youth Venturer, Guatemala and her team, Reinventando
La Limonada, are working one of urban slums in the hear t of Guatamela City, to
implement a project to clean up the environment, improve health and generate income
for the community.
30
Howard Weinstein Fellow
I feel more people, organizations, and governments will realize that in order to increase the wealth
of their society, NGO, or people, more effor t will need to be focused on educational programs. Only
through education can you increase the wealth of a nation. You could eliminate HIV/AIDS from Africa
tomorrow and the wealth of these nations and their people will not increase. But get their citizens an
education and watch what happens!

Even though I work on a sustainable economic empowerment program for people with disabilities,
20 percent of our time will be spent on improving the communication skills of our workers. Also an
outcome of our solar‑powered hearing aid project is to get children in developing countries a low‑cost
hearing aid so that they can be mainstreamed into a local public school, as there are few schools for
the deaf. We hope to supply 25,000 hearing aids per month to children in developing countries. I will
also be helping other NGOs open solar‑powered hearing aid projects around the globe so that by the
end of 2010 we are supplying over 1 million hearing aids a year to these children.
I hope to see society integrate people with disabilities in greater numbers into their workforce. We hire
people who are deaf because they speak in sign language, making their hand‑eye coordination better
than the average person’s. We need this special ability in order for the minuscule hearing aid electronic
components to be micro‑soldered. I hope that society will begin to see a person with disability as just
that, and not as a disabled person, which they most cer tainly are not.
Howard Weinstein, Fellow, Brazil (Elected in 2008) [www.ashoka.org/hweinstein]

developed SolarAid [www.newsweek.com/id/135381], a low‑cost, high quality hearing
aid for low‑income individuals in developing countries. Weinstein’s business model
empowers deaf employees to be leaders and advocates for the full inclusion of
hearing‑impaired people in society.
31
Photo Credit: Tirbhuvan Tiwari
ABOUT ASHOKA
Connect with Ashoka

We hope you have enjoyed the stories in this publication and we invite you to join our online
communities and become par t of the Ashoka community.
CHANGEMAKERS.COM
Changemakers is Ashoka’s community of changemakers, a platform for those wishing to make a
difference and the organizations that wish to engage with them. Changemakers open‑sources social
change ideas by hosting competitions and conversations that matter.
ASHOKA IS SOCIAL!
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Ashoka was founded on the belief the social entrepreneurs are the most powerful force for changing
the world. Our investment in leading entrepreneurs is deliberate – we suppor t the best innovators,
who we believe will achieve the greatest impact for systemic social change. These entrepreneurs
also ser ve as role‑models and facilitators for the next generation of social leaders, building an
Ever yone A Changemakers™ world.
We believe that the synergy between a passionate “who,” an innovative “what,” a sustainable “how,” and
a community of changemakers can and will change the world.
SUPPORT OUR WORK!

Ashoka would not exist without an amazing network of suppor ters around the world. Join this
community by becoming an Ashoka Member [www.ashoka.org/membership].
32
The most significant historical event of our time is the
emergence of social entrepreneurs as the dominant
force for social change around the world and the
newly competitive citizen sector they are creating.
These extraordinary individuals solve critical social
issues on a global scale from every area of need. They
inspire others to adopt and spread their innovations—
demonstrating to all citizens that they, too, have the
potential to be powerful changemakers.
33

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Stories of Change

20/20 Vision: Predictions for the Decade

Editor and Coordinator : Tom Dawkins

Attribution‑Noncommercial‑No Derivative Works

What will you make happen in 2010?

Abdelfattah Abusrour, Fellow, Palestine (Elected in 2006) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/aabusrour]

What will you make happen in 2010?

Angela Coleman, Fellow, United States (Elected in 2002) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/acoleman]

What will you make happen in 2010?

What will you make happen in 2010?

What will you make happen in 2010?

Sanjana Hattotuwa, Fellow, Sri Lanka (Elected in 2008) [www.ashoka.org/shattotuwa]

What will you make happen in 2010?

I hope to see a world free from climate changes.

I hope to see a healthy world free from diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.

I hope to see a united world, with no “blacks” and no “whites.”

Jane Karanja, Kenya, Changemaker.com Finalist: [Innovation: Solutions for Rural

What will you make happen in 2010?

What will you make happen in 2010?

Osmond Mugweni, Fellow, Zimbabwe (Elected in 2003) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/omugweni]

What will you make happen in 2010?

Philip Auerswald, Ashoka U, United States, is an Associate Professor at the School of

What will you make happen in 2010?

Jimmy Wales, Senior Fellow, United States (Elected in 2008) [www.ashoka.org/jwales]

What will you make happen in 2010?

Sakena Yacoobi, Fellow, Afghanistan (Elected in 2006) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/syacoobi]

What will you make happen in 2010?

Jacob Colker, Sundeep Ahuja and Ben Rigby, United

What will you make happen in 2010?

What will you make happen in 2010?

Al Hammond is a Senior Entrepreneur with Ashoka’s Full Economic Citizenship

What will you make happen in 2010?

Jane Leu, Fellow, United States (Elected in 2005) [www.ashoka.or g/fellow/jleu]

What will you make happen in 2010?

Jerry White, Fellow, United States (Elected in 2009) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/jwhite]

What will you make happen in 2010?

Ashley Shuyler, Changemakers.com winner: [Champions of Quality Education in

What will you make happen in 2010?

What will you make happen in 2010?

Bright Simons, Fellow, Ghana (Elected in 2008) [www.ashoka.org/bsimons] is

What will you make happen in 2010?

Lynn Price, Fellow, United States (Elected in 2005) [www.ashoka.org/fellow/lprice]

What will you make happen in 2010?

What will you make happen in 2010?

Howard Weinstein, Fellow, Brazil (Elected in 2008) [www.ashoka.org/hweinstein]

Connect with Ashoka

SUPPORT OUR WORK!

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