Entrepreneurs By Another Name: MacArthur Announces New "Geniuses"

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2009-09-22 08:26:00 UTC
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Each year, the MacArthur Foundation selects a handful of brilliant innovators as MacArthur Fellows. The award - more commonly known as the "Genius" grant - comes with a totally unrestricted $500,000, and perhaps even more importantly one of the single most powerful brands and platforms that a person can have. The foundation has just announced it's new crop, and as you might expect, the list if chock full of world changers.

I was particularly excited to see Rebecca Onie, founder of Project HEALTH honored. Project HEALTH is a young, health focused organization of the type I was discussing in last weekend's article "A New Approach to Health (Systems) Education." Their Family Help Desk program focuses on the so-called social determinants of health, giving physicians the ability to "prescribe" things like job training, food, housing, and more. Undergraduate volunteers who man the Help Desks then work with clients to help fill those prescriptions.

I think it's a great program, but I think it's also a tremendous validation of the notion that young, new ideas can change the world. When you're an undergraduate looking out to what you can do to make a difference, the only real asset you have is your fresh eyes, your creativity, and your ability to get your friends to help you out. To have the MacArthur Foundation recognize that that spark can create brilliant programs is awesome in the literal sense of the word.

There are many other new Fellows that also have a stake in solving the world's pressing social problems. MIT Economist Esther Duflo is trying to analyze cycles of poverty to better understand how to help people climb out. Filmmaker James Longley is trying to expose the human side of the Middle East conflict through intimate portraits of the people involved. Investigative Reporter Jerry Mitchell is unconvering new facts from unsolved and unprosecuted Civil Rights era violence. Physicians Jill Seaman is adapting modern medical techniques to address infectious diseases in South Sudan. The list goes on and on.

Few of these people call themselves "social entrepreneurs." But what they share is a capacity to think differently and look for creative solutions, and perhaps most important of all, an unwillingness to accept the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be. Read all their profiles on MacArthur's site.

(Photo: Myklroventine)

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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