Mark Sultan Gersava is tackling pervasive challenges like plastic pollution, deforestation, conflict, and poverty through sustainable innovation in the Philippines. As founder of BAMBUHAY, a climate-tech social enterprise, he champions a circular economy by creating eco-friendly bamboo-based products that prioritize both people and planet.

BAMBUHAY’s work extends beyond environmental impact by equipping Indigenous people, slash-and-burn farmers, former rebels, and women in poverty with training, fair wages, and entrepreneurial opportunities. The synergy of bamboo farming, enterprise development, and technology enables BAMBUHAY to deliver solutions that address environmental degradation and simultaneously advance equitable opportunity for some of the Philippines’ most vulnerable communities.

Location of impact: Philippines

Rui Mesquita is transforming lives and fostering economic empowerment in Mozambique through the widespread adoption of bicycles in rural and underserved communities. As co-founder of Mozambikes, Rui provides affordable, locally assembled bicycles that improve access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunities.

Mozambikes is breaking barriers caused by long distances and poor infrastructure, empowering marginalized groups like women, farmers, and micro-entrepreneurs to both literally and figuratively reach their goals. Under Rui’s leadership, the enterprise creates jobs, develops local skills, and builds stronger, more connected communities, demonstrating how low-tech, accessible tools like bicycles can serve as resources for lasting social and economic progress.

Location of impact: Mozambique (rural communities across the country)

Jody Mitchell is promoting more inclusive workforces and greater professional opportunities for neurodiverse people. As founder and CEO of Rebral1, based in the United States, Mitchell develops tech platforms that help people with autism and ADHD better leverage their strengths to meaningfully contribute to organizations — while also supporting organizations as they work to better integrate a range of neurodiversity in their workforce.

Rebral1 uses cutting-edge engineering, AI, and machine learning to help people understand their employability, identify the skills and goals needed to excel in their chosen field, and follow a personalized, actionable roadmap to gain the needed skills. Through Rebra1, Mitchell is innovating to help more people meet their potential, while also positioning employers to benefit from a highly motivated, skilled, and diverse workforce.

Location of impact: United States (Baton Rouge, LA)

An estimated 30-50 tons of waste in India is land-filled; at the same time, there are 1.5-4 million waste-pickers who live multidimensionally poor lives. As the founder of Without, Anish Malpani is redefining waste management and tackling poverty through pioneering upcycling. The social enterprise, based in Pune, India, is transforming “impossible-to-recycle” plastic waste, such as chip packets, into high-quality products using patented technology — while providing living wages and safe working conditions to waste-pickers in the area.

Combining cutting-edge recycling with a commitment to social impact, Without offers waste-pickers a path out of poverty and toward dignified livelihoods. Anish’s innovation demonstrates how technology and design can turn environmental hazards into opportunities, creating a model in India where waste is reimagined and poverty is alleviated.

Location of impact: Pune, India

Akshita Sachdeva is addressing critical barriers to education and employment that affect millions of people in regions where language, literacy, and print disabilities such as blindness, low vision, and dyslexia profoundly limit access to opportunities. She co-founded Trestle Labs, a tech company that specializes in intelligent document processing by using semantic, predictive, and interpretive AI to extract meaningful insights from unstructured printed and handwritten content.
Trestle helps make education and employment accessible for speakers of more than 60 languages, with a particular focus on those spoken in India and other countries in Asia and Africa, helping to bridge education and employment gaps for some of the world’s most marginalized communities.

Location of impact: India and other countries in Asia and Africa

With an estimated 80% of rural households in Malawi depending on agriculture, beekeeping provides an opportunity for farmers to diversify income sources and protect pollinators. As co-founder and managing director of Honey Products Limited, Mathews Dunga is leveraging commercial beekeeping as a tool to tackle the dual challenges of economic instability and environmental degradation in Malawi through social entrepreneurship.
Honey Products Limited’s innovative model empowers local communities by training beekeepers and establishing youth-led honey micro-franchises. Under Mathews’ leadership, the social enterprise has already trained more than 3,000 beekeepers, driving economic growth, supporting youth entrepreneurship, and contributing to forest conservation in some of Malawi’s most underserved areas.

Location of impact: Lilongwe, Malawi

Daniela Milosheska is using her experience working for high-end fashion designers to create economic opportunities for single mothers in North Macedonia. As the founder of Bastet Noir, a sustainable and zero-waste fashion label, Daniela is providing economic opportunity to women who are raising their children on their own — in a country where their average income is half of the average cost of living.
Through Bastet Noir, Daniela helps these women not only live above the poverty line but also grow their own businesses, fostering entrepreneurship and financial independence for women in need and enabling them to educate and support their children. The brand is size inclusive and minimizes its carbon footprint by sourcing materials from deadstock fabrics, the excess that other brands created for their own collections but didn’t use.

Location of impact: North Macedonia

Arun Agarwal is a biomedical engineer and entrepreneur who witnessed the dire state of maternal care in his community in India, setting him on a mission to transform maternal and neonatal healthcare. After visiting 100+ hospitals to understand the healthcare systems’ challenges, he identified a critical gap that he could address: the lack of continuous monitoring and timely interventions during pregnancy.

This led Arun to found Janitri, a biomedical social enterprise that produces wireless and compact fetal-maternal monitoring systems that are comfortable for the mother, while allowing for remote monitoring by doctors. Janitri is also innovating to help mothers in remote places in the post-natal phase, enabling greater connectivity between patients and doctors so they can make informed healthcare decisions when it matters most.

Location of impact: India, Africa

Eight-four percent of the workforce in the Latin-American beauty industry is women, and Angela Acosta believes that digital transformation is key to unlocking the sector’s full potential. As the CEO and Founder of Morado, she is empowering women entrepreneurs across Latin America through financial inclusion and technology.
Under her leadership, in 2024 alone, Morado financed more than $12 million USD of inventory for thousands of beauty entrepreneurs. Their inclusive credit scoring provides loans to beauty businesses that lack a financial history, and their AI-backed technology makes intelligent inventory sourcing recommendations based on seasonality, rotation, and market trends — helping with their cash flow, loan repayment, and ultimately, business growth.

Location of impact: Latin America, with a focus on Colombia

Pedro Carneiro is driving innovation and investment in Brazil’s startup ecosystem as the leader of investment initiatives at ACE Ventures, one of the country’s top early-stage venture capital firms. Under his leadership, ACE Ventures has run more than 100 accelerator programs, successfully invested in 150+ startups and exited 32 of them, contributing significantly to the growth of Brazil’s entrepreneurial landscape.
Pedro’s strategic vision and expertise in identifying high-potential ventures have helped shape ACE Ventures into a key player in the Brazilian startup scene. By supporting emerging companies, Pedro is fostering innovation and economic growth in the region.

Location of impact: Brazil