The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is a Swiss not-for-profit organization founded in 1998 that provides platforms at regional, national, and global levels to promote social entrepreneurship.Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship "About us." Retrieved: 2013-08-06. The foundation is under the legal supervision of the Swiss Federal Government. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. Each year, it selects 20–25 social entrepreneurs through a global "Social Entrepreneur of the Year" competition.
Over 950 million people in 190 countries are impacted each year by more than 500 social entrepreneurs it has backed.
History
In 1998, Klaus Schwab and his wife Hilde created the independent not-for-profit Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. Its mission was to promote social innovation. This new foundation was complementary to the World Economic Forum, founded by Klaus Schwab in 1971.
Pamela Hartigan, who joined in October 2000, was its first managing director, serving until 2008. The Foundation is financed from the initial endowment provided by the Schwabs plus grants and fees for services provided to individuals, foundations or companies.
Activities The Foundation identifies rising social entrepreneurs under the age of 40 through its Forum of Young Global Leaders and encourages the activists it recognizes to work together as a team. In this collaboration, ideas are shared and possible funding is attracted from companies, universities, or INSEAD. The activists may obtain support from corporations and political and academic leaders. The activists (260 people in 2013) serve on the Forum's Global Agenda Councils. Case studies on specific social entrepreneurs are provided to academic institutions to incorporate into undergraduate and graduate-level courses. Each year the Foundation selects 20-25 Social Entrepreneurs through a global “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” competition. Winners include Mikaela Jade, for innovation in indigenous edu-tech.
Schwab Foundation Awards
The foundation presents annual awards, announced each January at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, in partnership with the Motsepe Foundation. Awardees join a three-year programme of support and become part of the foundation's community of social entrepreneurs and innovators, which the foundation reported as numbering 510 members in 2026.
Awards are made in four categories:
Social Entrepreneurs – individuals using market-based approaches to address social issues directly. Corporate Social Innovators – leaders within established companies who embed social and environmental impact into core products, services and business models. Collective Social Innovators – people who bring organisations together to address problems that individual actors cannot tackle alone. Public Social Innovators – leaders in the public sector who apply social innovation through policy, regulation or public initiatives.
Eighteen awards were made in 2025 and twenty-one in 2026.
Recent awardees
The foundation has named awardees annually since 1998; those in recent years are listed below. A complete list is published by the foundation.
Year Category Organization Awardee(s) 2026 Social Entrepreneurs Tebita Ambulance Kibret Abebe eLiberare Ioana Bauer Sǎndescu Drinkwell Minhaj Chowdhury Onçafari Mario Haberfeld FabricAID Omar Itani Pad-Up Creations Olivia Onyemaobi Fundación Reimagina Ana María Raad Briz SaveLIFE Foundation Piyush Tewari 2026 Corporate Social Innovators Safaricom Karen Basiye VEJA François-Ghislain Morillion Reckitt Hamzah Sarwar 2026 Collective Social Innovators Arab Network for Environment and Development Emad Adly; Ghada Ahmadein Beyond100K Talia Milgrom-Elcott; Maya Morales Garcia Movilizatorio Juliana Uribe Villegas; Mariana Díaz; Lina Torres 2026 Public Social Innovators Ministry of Microfinance and Social and Solidarity Economy, Senegal Mamadou Ndiaye Laboratorio de Gobierno, Chile Orlando Rojas Institut Keusahawanan Negara, Malaysia Viviantie Sarjuni 2025 Social Entrepreneurs CareMessage Cecilia Corral Vineet Singal Sommalife Christina Mawuse Gyisun Safe Motherhood Alliance Muzalema Mwanza Belterra Agroflorestas Valmir Ortega ANA Care Manuel Rosemberg NaTakallam Aline Sara Avanti Fellows Akshay Saxena 2025 Public Social Innovators Tatkraft Islam Alijaj Agency for Enterprise Development, Viet Nam Trinh Thi Huong 2025 Corporate Social Innovators Tencent Caitlyn (Juhong) Chen Northwell Health Eric Cioè-Peña Google Health Fred Hersch 2025 Collective Social Innovators Buddha Institute; Responsible Coalition for Resilient Communities Ved Arya Population Foundation of India Poonam Muttreja Aga Khan Foundation Apoorva Oza Africa Sustainable Commodities Initiative Abraham Baffoe Community Health Impact Coalition Madeleine Ballard
Allegations of employer misconduct and harassment at WEF On June 29, 2024, The Wall Street Journal published an article, authored by staff reporters Shalini Ramachandran and Khadeeja Safdar, stating that WEF Founder Klaus Schwab is accused by former WEF employees of having engaged in two instances of sexual harassment. The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is a wholly separate organization from WEF and is neither mentioned or the subject of the published Wall Street Journal article.
Board of directors , the organization's Board of Directors consisted of: Hilde Schwab (Chairperson, Co-founder) Pascale Bruderer, Founder, Chairwoman, Swiss Stablecoin AG Mirai Chatterjee, Chairperson, SEWA Cooperative Federation, Self-Employed Women's Association Ernest Darkoh, Founding Partner, BroadReach Group Charly Kleissner, Co-founder, Toniic Johanna Mair, Professor of Organization, Strategy and Leadership, Hertie School Queen Mathilde of Belgium Subi Rangan, The Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court Endowed Chair in Societal Progress, INSEAD Nicole Schwab, Co-Head, Nature Positive Pillar; Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum Geneva Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Director, Thorning Schmidt Global Ltd
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