Babson’s Mark Albion Hosts 2009 Social Venture Network Innovation Awards
Dr. Mark Albion, Office of the President for the Lewis Initiative at Babson College, will emcee the evening ceremony honoring seven innovative organizations at the 3rd annual 2009 Social Venture Network (SVN) Innovation Awards on Friday October 23 at the Estancia La Jolla Hotel and Spa in La Jolla, California. More than 300 socially responsible CEOs, investors and executive directors will be in attendance at this premier North American innovation event.
A judge and mentor, Albion joined a panel of 16 judges to evaluate entrepreneurs who are addressing the world’s most pressing social and/or environmental problems in innovative ways with significant impact. The judges selected five winners (and two honorable mentions) from numerous applications received this year:
Brent Baker, Tri-State Biodiesel - New York (www.tristatebiodiesel.com): TSB is the national leader in urban, sustainable biodiesel production.
Shannon Boase, Earthcycle Packaging - Vancouver, BC (www.earthcycle.com): Earthcycle uses the design brilliance of nature to develop innovative sustainable packaging made from a renewable resource, palm fiber, which composts in less than 90-days.
Sam Goldman and Ned Tozun, D.Light Design - Palo Alto, CA (www.dlightdesign.com): D.Light enables bottom-of-the-pyramid households without reliable electricity to attain the same quality of life as those with electricity, beginning with replacing every kerosene lantern with clean, safe, and bright light.
Mark Hanis, Genocide Intervention Network – Washington, DC (www.genocideintervention.net): GIN's investment guidelines, institutional investors in 27 states, 23 U.S. cities and 61 universities have placed targeted restrictions on their Sudan-linked investments, and eighteen countries have launched divestment campaigns based on the model.
Gregg Keesling, Workforce, Inc. – Indianapolis, IN (www.work-force-inc.com): WFI helps formerly incarcerated individuals successfully transition into civil society by providing employment supported to keep as much electronic waste as possible out of Indiana's landfills.
The two honorable mentions are Joseph James, whose Corporations for Economic Opportunity provides green jobs to rural, African-American communities in the South, and Ben Powell, whose Agora Partnerships provides microfinance and education to companies normally too large for traditional microfinance assistance.
A seven-time social entrepreneur, Albion left Harvard Business School after nearly 20 years as a student and professor, to develop a community of service-minded MBAs, co-founding Net Impact in 1993. He's made 600+ visits to speak at business schools on five continents, for which Business Week magazine dubbed him “the savior of B-school souls." Next April, Albion will be the first "social" entrepreneur to receive the distinguished national entrepreneur of the year award at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business.
Albion has been a grand prize and development track judge for many years at the MIT $100K, and has served as a judge for several other business-plan competitions, including most recently the Jay Chiat International Awards for Strategic Excellence in the Social Strategy. Formerly, he officially represented the United States at the United Nations on how to educate the next generation of socially conscious global leaders.
Founded in 1987, Social Venture Network (SVN - www.svn.org) is a peer-to-peer network of CEOs, investors, and nonprofit leaders committed to building a just economy and sustainable planet. SVN believes in a triple bottom line for business, one that values healthy communities and the human spirit, as well as high returns. SVN members are part of an expanding global network of pioneering entrepreneurs who are helping to transform the way the world does business.
