Social Entrepreneurship Panel (HD)

At the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C., the Academy of Achievement presented a panel discussion with social entrepreneurs who have founded nonprofit organizations to provide quality education or nutrition to disadvantaged youth. The panel includes Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp, as well as Mike Feinberg, Kirsten Lodal, Jon Schnur and Billy Shore. Wendy Kopp was still an undergraduate at Princeton when she created a plan to build a national teachers corps -- drawn from the top students in our best universities -- to teach in some of our neediest communities. Today thousands of members of Teach for America are working where their talents and education are needed most. Mike Feinberg was a Teach for America volunteer who remained in Houston, Texas to found a new kind of college preparatory academy in the inner city. His Knowledge is Power Program – KIPP -- soon spread to 20 states and is now operating 99 locally run college preparatory schools in low income communities. As a sophomore at Yale, Kirsten Lodal founded the National Student Partnerships, the nation’s first year-round student-led volunteer service organization, mobilizing students to staff drop-in social service resource centers in low income communities, providing assistance with job training, housing, health care, child care, and transportation. Jon Schnur is the founder and CEO of New Leaders for New Schools, a national nonprofit organization that has placed hundreds of principals and assistant principals across the country. Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength, the nation's leading organization working to end childhood hunger in the United States. The discussion was led by David Gergen, Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. An adviser to presidents of both major parties, Mr. Gergen served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.