Changemakers: Skoll Awardees Win Ashoka/G-20 Competition
November 15, 2010 by Eddie Scher
The G-20 has committed more than one-half billion dollars to support the winners of the G-20 SME Finance Challenge. Pres. Barack Obama, Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulated the winners in person and announced the funding commitment at the closing of the G-20 Seoul Summit. The 14 winners included two Skoll Awardees: Scott Gilmore for Peace Dividend Trust and Willy Foote for Root Capital.
The world’s small and medium-sized enterprises are the key to reducing world poverty, creating jobs and wealth, and ensuring a global economic recovery. But banks and the financial sector virtually ignore them, making access to capital and growth difficult, ultimately forcing too many to fail. The Group of 20 nations and Ashoka’s Changemakers are partnering on The G-20 SME Finance Challenge, naming 14 top SMEs from around the world. The best solutions will be scaled up and expanded with millions of dollars and introduced at the Seoul G-20 Summit this November.
“I am very pleased that we have been able to launch this concrete program through the G20 that is making a difference in people’s lives,” President Obama said. “Between the Koreans, Canadians, and the U.S., we are going to contribute $528 million to put into practice some of the extraordinary ideas that are represented by the winners, and to boost the excellent work they are already doing. When it comes to creating jobs and opportunity, often times it’s the small and medium sized enterprises that make all the difference in people’s lives. And one of the biggest challenges for such companies is to make sure they receive the financing that they need.
“We look forward to – as a consequence of this award – seeing more and more creative mechanisms to finance worthy enterprises. And many of the lessons that are going to be learned from these projects are ones that hopefully can be expanded to a whole host of countries for years to come.”
November 21, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Tom Boone:
The announcement of the winners of the SME competition this week brings just awesome news. The success here (in excess of one-half billion dollars earmarked to these innovative Ashoka) is the culmination of the work of literally hundreds if not thousands of individuals all who share a common positive vision of a tomorrow where everyone – absolutely everyone – is an empowered changemaker. One-half billion dollars seems like a huge sum but it is peanuts compared to what must be spent to really bring about the Ashoka Changemaker vision of empowerment and innovation for humanity tomorrow. One-half a billion however marks an astounding milestone and represents a gargantuan step forward. Huge congratulations to the winning SME Fellows! Huge congratulations to Ashoka Changemakers, whose unbounded and tireless efforts are not to be undervalued or underestimated, and many thanks to the leaders of GE20 and especially President Obama for acknowledging and applauding this enormous but starting step forward towards an “everyone a changemaker” world.
See also http://smblog.changemakers.com/president-obama-honoring-the-winners-of-the-g