The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World

FOREWORD

Thanks to this book and its catchy title, I imagine that we will soon see a host of people claiming to be “unreasonable.” If so, the world may end up better off. The characteristics of the “unreasonable” men and women whom John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan describe are exactly the characteristics that our world needs during times of profound transformation.

It is extraordinary how much this agenda has evolved. When my wife Hilde and I created the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in 1998, the notion of “social entrepreneurship” was almost unheard of in Europe and little known in the rest of the world, despite Ashoka’s pioneering efforts. Indeed, when we registered the Schwab Foundation in Switzerland, we faced the challenge ...