I Am Because You Are

Social entrepreneurs are not content to just give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry. -Bill Drayton, CEO and Founder, Ashoka Innovators for the Public

In under-resourced communities across the world, a new breed of change marker – the social entrepreneur – has been tackling issues of poverty and opportunity with bold ideas, innovative solutions, and dogged persistence. Yet their approaches are as diverse as the challenges they work on. As Jacob Lief shows in his new book, I Am Because You Are, the field of social entrepreneurship has evolved into a global movement, shunning traditional development models and investing in new thinking about best practices of effective and enduring social change.

Join New America NYC and the Program on Profits & Purpose in conversation with four extraordinary social entrepreneurs for a discussion on their own work and the state of the field: Cheryl Dorsey, President of Echoing Green, a global organization seeding next-generation talent to solve the world's biggest problems; Liz Luckett, President of the Social Entrepreneurs' Fund, a fund focused on early stage equity stakes in impact-oriented companies in underserved markets; Karim Abuelnaga, President and CEO of Practice Makes Perfect, an organization targeting the achievement gap in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the U.S.; and Jacob Lief, Founder and CEO of Ubuntu Education Fund, an organization providing comprehensive services to vulnerable children living in the townships of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Copies of Jacob Lief's I Am Because You Are: How the Spirit of Ubuntu Inspired an Unlikely Friendship and Transformed a Community will be available for purchase. Follow the discussion online using #NANYC and following @NewAmericaNYC.

Participants:

Jacob Lief
CEO and Founder, Ubuntu Education Fund
Author, I Am Because You Are: How the Spirit of Ubuntu Inspired an Unlikely Friendship and Transformed A Community

@Ubuntujakes

Cheryl Dorsey
President, Echoing Green
Vice Chair, President's Commission on White House Fellowships

@cheryldorsey

Karim Abouelnaga
Founder and CEO, Practice Makes Perfect
Fellow, Echoing Green

@KarimAbouelnaga

Liz Luckett

President, The Social Entrepreneurs' Fund

Georgia Levenson Keohane
Senior Fellow and Director, the Program on Profits & Purpose, New America
Author, Social Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century: Innovation Across the Nonprofit, Private, and Public Sectors
@GeorgiaKeohane