1. Paul Polak was the co-founder and CEO of Windhorse International, a for-profit social venture with the mission of inspiring and leading a revolution in how companies design, price, market and distribute products to benefit the 2.6 billion customers who live on less than $2 a day.
Paul Polak is best known for his work with Colorado-based International Development Enterprises, a non-profit he founded in 1981 which is dedicated to developing practical solutions that harness the power of markets and attack poverty at its roots.
Paul Polak's family fled the country in 1939 when Paul was only six-years-old to escape the Nazis in World War II, arriving in Hamilton, Canada as refugees.
When he was twelve years old, Paul Polak learned that he could make five cents a quart picking strawberries.
Paul Polak received his certification from the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, in 1968.
Paul Polak had a wide and varying career in medicine, which included a stint as a deputy coroner and as a medical officer in Melrose, Scotland.
Paul Polak wanted to compare the way psychiatrists, patients and their families looked at the problems they were dealing with.
Paul Polak found that patients and their families described the issue in the same way, typically ascribing the problem to interpersonal conflicts between members of the family.
Paul Polak wondered what would happen if psychiatrists actually listened to their patients and treated the problems they were describing.
Paul Polak's ideas have spread around the world and his techniques are widely used, especially in Britain, where it is one of the models used by the UK's National Health Service.
In 2007 Paul Polak founded Windhorse International; a private company based on his ideas that business could benefit the bottom billions.
Paul Polak was a mentor of The Girl Effect Accelerator, a two-week business accelerator program that aims to scale startups in emerging markets that are best positioned to impact millions of girls in poverty.
Paul Polak's writings include business at the bottom of the pyramid, operations of social enterprise, poverty and international development.
Paul Polak wrote more than a hundred papers and articles on water, agriculture, design, and development, as well as in the field of mental health.
Paul Polak was the subject of articles in print media such as National Geographic, Scientific American, Forbes, Harpers, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.