Center for Social Innovation (CSI): Change lives. Change organizations. Change the world.

audio interview host Tim Zak

Each program we interview various species of Globeshakers who work across the world and across industries, using creativity and innovation to shake up the status quo.

Shakers work on the ground working for social change.
Movers use their star power and influence to build buzz for a mighty cause.
Big Brains reveal thoughts and theories that make a big splash.
Geeks for a Greater Goodharness the power of technology to change the rules of the game.
Policy Wonks have their ear to the ground, listening for the legislative drumbeat.
Grease Monkeys provide the bucks, talent, and other critical resources to create engines of impact.
Enlightened Corporate Hacks are true system-thinkers who jolt the marketplace by creating new language, fabricating sustainable business models, and working across traditional boundaries.

The program's host, Tim Zak, a former management consultant with McKinsey and Company, is currently Executive Director of Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy-Australia and Co-Director of the school’s Institute for Social Innovation.

Before heading up Heinz School-Australia, Tim was CEO of the Social Enterprise Accelerator, a private operating foundation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. When the Accelerator was launched in 2002, it initially operated out of the trunk of his car and in neighborhood coffee shops. Today, the organization, which operates like a venture capital firm for social innovations, works directly with a dynamic portfolio of social sector organizations bent on changing the world. It has been globally recognized for its impact on the emerging field of social entrepreneurship.

Our publication of this series was made possible by your membership dues and:

Hero for the Planet

Talking with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute argues that the United States can operate on a fourth of the energy it now uses, while still providing the same or better services. This may seem far-fetched, but Lovins has been accused of taking off on flights of fancy before, though time has a remarkable way of proving his assertions correct.

The Next Generation of Global Health Works

In 1982, ophthalmologist Oliver Foot founded Orbis Flying Eye Hospital, a unique mobile teaching facility housed in a DC-10 jet aircraft. In this audio interview With Globeshakers host Tim Zak, he discusses how his organization brings dedicated eye care professionals to the developing world to restore eyesight through surgery and other treatments.

The Promise of Biomedical Engineering

Robert Langer has been referred to as "a medical pioneer in the guise of an engineer" who has revolutionized the delivery of drugs and the engineering of human tissue. In this audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Langer reveals his tenacious nature and talks about what it takes to persevere in the face of public criticism.

Investing in Worldwide Social Change

In the early 1990s, Cheryl Dorsey got a fellowship from Echoing Green to launch the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic medical and outreach services to at-risk residents of inner-city Boston neighborhoods. Now president of Echoing Green, Dorsey talks with Globeshakers host Tim Zak in an audio interview about the challenge of building on the impressive track record of one of the world's leading investors and supporters of worldwide social change.

Urban Villages: Art as Social Innovation

Rick Lowe has given new meaning to the phrase "artist-in-residence." This Heinz Award winner and former Loeb fellow at the Harvard School of Design is the founder of Project Row Houses, an organization that merges art and architecture with social activism. In an audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Lowe describes how this experiment in "social sculpture" is redefining the role of art and artists in society.

Leadership in Global Health Technology Initiative

Ticia Gerber sits at the center of one of the world's important current debates: How do we keep people healthy without having it cost an arm and a leg? At eHealth Initiative and LIGHT, Gerber is working across three continents to bridge the public, private, and social sectors. She talks with Globeshakers host Tim Zak in an audio interview about the role of technology in the future of health care and what it means to create a dialogue between the developed and developing world.

Heinz Award Winner Series

Dean Kamen has literally changed the world by turning breakthrough ideas into practical products. In this audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Kamen discusses the power of technology to change society. He also talks about what it takes to persevere in the face of public and professional resistance toward inventions and technology that can actually make people's lives better.

Partners In Health

Recipient of the 9th Annual Heinz Award for the Human Condition, Paul Farmer is a medical doctor and a professor of anthropology at Harvard's Medical School. He shuttles between Harvard and Haiti, where he maintains a practice at Clinique Bon Saveur, a charity hospital he founded. Farmer talks in this audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak about the challenges and rewards of providing health care to the poorest of the poor, and the evolving, innovative models for getting drugs to those who need them most.

Globeshakers

David Bornstein is a leading expert on the global rise of "social entrepreneurism." In this audio interview, Globeshakers host Tim Zak asks how we would know a social entrepreneur if we saw one on the street. More important, why should we care? Who invests in social enterprise and what is at stake for our world if we don't?

Globeshakers with Tim Zak

As a technologist, Ethan Zuckerman has spent much time working with the new generation of African entrepreneurs, programmers, organizers, and young people who are hooking up their continent to the web. In an audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Zuckerman explains how these new netizens are changing the way villagers and urban dwellers learn, organize, network, and face the challenges of poverty, AIDS, political strife, and making a living.

The Future of Jazz

As executive producer of MCG Jazz, Marty Ashby works with musicians who often devote their proceeds to a community arts and vocational training center in Pittsburg, Penn. In this audio interview, Ashby charts for Globeshakers host Tim Zak his career from jazz musician to director of this philanthropic jazz performance and recording venue.

Globeshakers

On Pittsburgh's gritty north side, just down the street from where he grew up, Bill Strickland has created a youth development and adult training center like no other. In this audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Strickland talks about the environment he has melded over more than 40 years surrounded by stunning art, the sounds of jazz, beautiful orchids, and brilliant architecture, with programs that get kids into college and adults a job with a future.

Laughter in a Time of War

In 2005, marathoner, juggler, and unicyclist Zach Warren traveled to Afghanistan to help children recover from the traumas of war, as part of the Afghan Mobile Mini Circus for Children. In this audio interview, Warren shares with Globeshakers host Tim Zak his observations about what it takes to rebuild an entire country.

The Next Generation of Digital Craftsman

As "chief architect" of PixelCorps, Alex Lindsay created a guild for the next generation of craftsmen: digital craftsmen. In this audio interview, Lindsay describes to Globeshakers host Tim Zak how PixelCorps is currently transferring skills in digital imaging and animation to regions in the developing world so that their workforces can capitalize on the coming media revolution.

Pure Water 4 All

When people ask Don Gould how he knows that his product works, he answers: "Because babies stop dying." As part of a social enterprise consortium, Gould, who is both a product designer and ceramicist, helped to design and deploy simple, effective water filtration devices to the developing world. In this audio interview, he talks with Globeshakers host Tim Zak about both the traditional production techniques and the new economy models for collaboration.

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