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Social Innovation Conversations Around the World
Innovation Sociale en Francais
Underwriters/Partners
Stanford Social Innovation Review

Sam Goldman

Cofounder and CEO, d.light design

Lighting the Way to Economic Development
35 minutes, 16.4mb, recorded 2009-09-08
Sam Goldman

More than two billion people around the world have no access to lighting or electricity, making life much harder for them and affecting their ability to make a viable living. In this audio interview with Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman, Sam Goldman talks about his mission to bring light to the darkest corners of the planet. He describes how his social company, d.light design, developed out of a class project at Stanford Graduate School of Business to become a viable social enterprise that is now setting up offices and distributing solar-based lights in various developing countries. He offers details on the technical design, marketing, and distribution of the products, as well as the impact they are having in the lives of those living in poor and remote areas.


Our publication of this program was made possible by the support of the following:
University podcast contributor: Stanford Center for Social InnovationStanford Graduate School of Business

Sam Goldman, chief executive officer of social venture d.light design, grew up in Mauritania, Pakistan, Peru, India, and Rwanda. After graduating with degrees in biology and environmental studies from the University of Victoria, Canada, he spent four years in Benin with the Peace Corps, founding and managing a for-profit NGO (GARPE-ONG), which runs a large rural agricultural training center. With GARPE, he built Benin’s first factory to process leaves from the nutritional plant, Moringa oleifera, in order to provide nutritional supplements to hospitals and health centers. Goldman earned an MBA from Stanford.

 

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This free podcast is from our Design For Change series.

For The Conversations Network:

  • Post-production audio engineer: Sheela Sethuraman
  • Website editor: Marguerite Rigoglioso
  • Series producer: Ashkon Jafari