Skoll World Forum Opens: Bloggers Launch Coverage

March 30, 2011 by Eddie Scher

The 2011 Skoll World Forum kicked off Wednesday evening at the New Theatre with a musical performance by Senegalese Great: Baaba Maal. Stephan Chambers, Chairman of the Skoll Centre Standing Committee, Saïd Business School, served as gracious host and Master of Ceremonies. Jeff Skoll– Founder & Chairman, Skoll Foundation, Participant Media and Skoll Global Threats Fund–spoke on The Power of the Collective, introducing special guest Archbishop Desmond Tutu and congratulating founder Bill Drayton on Ashoka’s 30th Anniversary. Ngaire Woods–Professor of International Political Economy and Academic Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University–spoke on Globalization, Governance, and Large Scale Change. And a panel of three microfinance experts discussed Large Scale Change in Action: Microfinance in the Balance. •Jonathan Lewis–Founder and Chair, Microcredit Enterprises •Alvaro Rodriguez–Chair, Compartamos Banco •Roshaneh Zafar–Managing Director, Kashf Foundation Streaming video of the entire opening plenary can be found below: This is what some of the bloggers covering the Forum had to say about the opening plenary: Petra Kroon: Measuring impact gives raison d’être social entrepreneurship One of the important issues being addressed at Skoll World Forum is the measurement of impact. On Thursday alone there are at least 5 sessions about this topic, varying from a session about working with governments to deliver high impact solutions to a network session about storytelling for impact. I think it is very good that there is so much emphasis on measuring impact. For the individual social enterprise as well as for the whole sector: If you can show as a social entrepreneur what your impact is on the social problem you are trying to solve, it gives your organisation its raison d’être. Sean Holt: Opening SWF from viewpoint of a current Skollar Having had the privilege of attending Skoll World Forum as a delegate in years past, and now the luxury of attending as a ‘family member’ of the Skoll Foundation, I can attest to the ridiculous fashion in which I’ve grown from the support and wisdom of Jeff Skoll, Sally Osberg, Pamela Hartigan and others who’ve transformed the Said Business School at Oxford University into one of the most magical places to put transformative ideas into action. It’s hard to describe the astonishing caliber and diversity of people attending the Skoll World Forum, and it’s humbling to hear directly from Jeff Skoll that we – Skoll Scholars and Fellows past and present – are seen as future leaders within this thriving community. Michael Collopy: Talent, content and experience – Skoll World Forum 2011 Last night was the inaugural reception for the 2011 Forum at Christ Church College in Oxford. Meanwhile, the depth of talent and experience at the Forum is starting to emerge across the web as people prepare and link material relating to the the enormous range of issues and themes that we’ll be exploring. Steve Song: What is a Social Entrepreneur? This week I’m attending the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. Thanks to their kind invitation, I’ll be blogging this week about my experiences here. Having recently left my fellowship at the Shuttleworth Foundation and embraced the world of social entrepreneurship, it seems worth talking a little bit about what exactly a social entrepreneur is. http://www.skollfoundation.org/skoll-world-forum-opens-bloggers-launch-coverage/