Some of History’s Social Entrepreneurs

The Who Cares? film features 18 of the world’s successful social entrepreneurs of the century, but long before Bill Drayton, CEO and founder of Ashoka, and one of the film’s featured Changemakers, coined the term “Social Entrepreneur,” men and women all over the world understood the impact one could have by combining entrepreneurial spirit with a desire to change society. Some of history’s most influential social entrepreneurs, according to Ashoka, whose social innovations completely revolutionized their respective industries include: Susan B. Anthony, a leading civil rights activist, Vinoba Bhave, an advocate for the redistribution of land to India’s marginalized communities, Dr. Maria Montessori, an physicist who revolutionized early childhood education, Florence Nightingale, a nurse to whom modern nursing is attributed, John Muir, an environmentalist who established the U.S. National Park System, and Jean Monnet, an economist whose work after WWII laid the foundation for the European Union.

Although each of these social entrepreneurs came from different places, different times, and affected change in different fields, each of them shared the common understanding that they truly could bring about change in society. Each of them answered “I care” to the question Who Cares?

For more on the definition of “Social Entrepreneurship” and each of these early Changemakers, check out this article by Ashoka.