2024 Awardees and Impact Report

The 2024 Awardees and Impact Report by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship highlights the role of social innovators in driving systemic change toward a more inclusive and sustainable world. It profiles the 2024 awardees across social, corporate, public, and collective categories and provides data on the community's reach, including the direct impact on 891 million people. The report emphasizes a theory of change based on building trust-based communities, amplifying innovative models, and facilitating cross-sector partnerships to mainstream social innovation.

• The Schwab Foundation's community of social innovators has directly improved the lives of over 891 million people globally by implementing local sustainable solutions and transforming systemic challenges.
• Social innovation models are increasingly economically viable; 60% of the 64 organizations in the three most recent cohorts include a for-profit component, generating a combined revenue of $902 million at the time of joining.
• The community of social innovators employs diverse scaling and impact methods, with 77% reporting solid collaboration with external stakeholders and 56% expanding the reach and depth of their operations organically.
• Social innovators are increasingly utilizing advanced technologies to expand their reach, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things.
• Despite their impact, social innovation models are not yet sufficiently recognized by the mainstream financial system, with funding still primarily originating from philanthropic organizations and governments.
• The 2024 awardees include diverse leaders such as Xia Li of Shenzhen Power-Solution, who provided solar-powered light to nearly 50 million people, and the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, which aims to protect 35 million hectares of tropical rainforests in Ecuador and Peru.

APA

World Economic Forum (2024). 2024 Awardees and Impact Report. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Trusting_in_Humanity_The_power_of_people_to_lead_their_own_change_2024.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. 2024 Awardees and Impact Report. 2024. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Trusting_in_Humanity_The_power_of_people_to_lead_their_own_change_2024.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=2024 Awardees and Impact Report |date=2024 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Trusting_in_Humanity_The_power_of_people_to_lead_their_own_change_2024.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum20242024, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{2024 Awardees and Impact Report}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2024}, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Trusting_in_Humanity_The_power_of_people_to_lead_their_own_change_2024.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }