Xavier Helgesen, Chris Fuchs, and Jeff Kurtzman

Founders of Better World Books

Better World Books is an amazing example of a super successful social entrepreneurship venture. This organization was founded in 2002 by three graduates from Notre Dame - Xavier Helgesen, Chris “Kreece” Fuchs, and Jeff Kurtzman. The main motto of this enterprise is to develop the literacy rate around the world. The company reuses and recycles books through sales and donates them to schools, this company has managed to raise $12.1 million for literacy funding through 84 million volumes. They do not care about profits as the company attributes its success to using a triple bottom line business model.

Akhtar Hameed Khan

Pioneer in the Micro finance world

Khan is popularly known as the pioneer in the micro finance world, for all his contribution and services. He was also given a nomination for the Nobel Prize from Pakistan. He had two major projects during his life time - Comilla Cooperative Project and the Orangi Pilot Project. Though the Comilla project did not do well, Orangi Pilot Project was a great success; it solved problems of sanitation, housing, health including education and family planning through microfinance. You may still find some of his principles being used even today, in the areas of Karachi.