Keynotes

Dean Karlan is a professor of economics at Yale University and the founder and president of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a nonprofit organization that creates and evaluates solutions to social and development problems. Karlan’s research focuses on microeconomic issues of financial decision making, specifically employing experimental methodologies to examine what works, what does not, and why in interventions in microfinance, health, behavioral economics, and charitable giving. In microfinance, he has studied credit impact, interest rate policy, savings product design, credit scoring policies, entrepreneurship training, and group versus individual liability. He received his PhD in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MBA and an MPP from the University of Chicago, and a BA in international affairs from the University of Virginia. He is also the co-author of More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty, which was co-authored with Jacob Appel.

Dan Morrison – CEO & Founder of Citizen Effect (www.CitizenEffect.org) a nonprofit dedicated to citizen philanthropy. He started his career as a innovation and brand strategy consultant at Kuczmarski & Associates before moving on to be an Engagement Manager at Prophet. He has worked domestically and internationally with such brands as Mitsubishi, Whirlpool, Windex, Raid, and NASA. Dan completed his Master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago in 2006. He then consulted with The Aspen Institute, Center for American Progress, The William J. Clinton Foundation, and others on Middle Eastern policy and
development. In 2008, Dan founded Citizen Effect. Since then, Citizen Effect has helped hundreds of citizens connect with and complete critical community projects in 15 countries around the world. He was an Aspen Ideas Fellow in 2011 and sits on the Council on Foundations’s Global Philanthropy Committee. Dan graduated with honors from the University of Notre Dame in History and was a member of the Hesburgh Program in Public Policy.

Jonathan C. Lewis is the Founder and Host of iOnPoverty.  iOnPoverty produces online videos about economic opportunity and justice careers.  Candid, filmed conversations with accomplished social entrepreneurs (called Pathfinders) catalyze young professionals and students by providing the information they need to advance careers combating poverty. He is also the Founder and President of the Opportunity Collaboration.  This strategic business retreat and networking summit for 300 senior level anti-poverty leaders occurs annually on World Poverty Day in Ixtapa, Mexico. Jonathan is also the Founder and Board Chair of MicroCredit Enterprises.  This innovative social venture leverages private capital to make tiny business loans to deeply impoverished people, mostly women, in 22 developing countries on 5 continents.  A rarity in the non-profit world, MicroCredit Enterprises is self-sufficient without donations or grants. Jonathan is a Lecturer at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, University of California, Berkeley.  He blogs regularly at the Huffington Post and the Skoll Foundation’s Social Edge.