Social activist and entrepreneur Lisa Dacanay is the first Asian to win the World Economic Forum (WEF) Social Innovation Thought Leader Award.
Dr. Lisa Dacanay, President of the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA), was honored as one of the nine recipients of the inaugural Social Innovation Thought Leader award given by the Schwab Foundation in recognition of their innovative approach and potential for global impact.
Dr. Dacanay joins a prestigious list of a total of 40 awardees for Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Public Social Intrapreneur, Corporate Social Intrapreneur, and Social Innovation Thought Leader. They were awarded during the Opening Plenary of the Sustainable Development Impact Summit 2019 of the World Economic Forum in New York, USA held on September 23, 2019.
Marie Lisa Dacanay, a student activist at the University of the Philippines and eventually a human rights and civil rights champion, was the only Asian awardee of the Social Innovation Thought Leader award.
“The award is an affirmation of the pioneering multistakeholder initiatives that ISEA and the social enterprise sector in Asia are doing to accelerate the reduction of poverty and inequality towards sustainable development in Asia, a region that is home to 2/3 of the world’s poorest. Social enterprises have and are demonstrating innovative pathways in transforming the lives of the poor and need to be better supported by governments and the business sector to scale up for greater impact,” said Lisa Dacanay in an ISEA report.
François Bonnici, Head of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, praised the awardees, saying, “The 2019 Schwab Foundation awardees represent a new ecosystem of leaders who are driving change and shifting organizations and systems towards a more just, inclusive, sustainable future.”
“Not only do they demonstrate alternative models that better serve our society and planet, but they also show that mobilizing and transforming society is possible by instilling innovation into the levers of policy, finance, and research for greater inclusion and sustainability,” the WEF Schwab official said about the 2019 awardees.
ISEA and Schwab Foundation notes that Dr. Dacanay is a pioneer in social entrepreneurship education and research in Asia. She is a coach and mentor of social entrepreneurship practitioners and resource institutions and a bridging leader promoting dialogue and collaboration between social enterprise sector with government, business, civil society and academe to achieve greater impact.
Dr. Dacanay and ISEA are credited in the research and convening of stakeholders that resulted to the Poverty Reduction through Social Entrepreneurship (PRESENT) Bill.
Dr. Lisa Dacanay also led the research of social enterprise best practices in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam that resulted to the development and building of a platform promoting of a set of Benchmarks for Transformational Partnerships and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Agricultural Value Chains (BTP-WEE in AVCs) to be launched in March 2020 in Bangkok, according to ISEA.
Lisa Dacanay joins the growing list of Filipino innovators who have received worldwide recognition including environmental scientist Janice Lao, work from home technology innovator Gina Romero, global Pinoys of PH Time is Now, and the Forbes young gamechangers.
SEND congratulations in the comments below to Lisa Dacanay and her ISEA team for helping reduce poverty through social entrepreneurship education and research!
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