![]() In 2015, Goldman gave a presentation on d.light to President Obama at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya. In 2014, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship named Goldman and the d.light team “Social Entrepreneurs of the Year,” and d.light earned a place on the World Economic Forum’s “Social Entrepreneurs of the Year” list and was top ranked among B Corporations for high social and environmental impact. He was recognized by Forbes magazine as one of the “World’s Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs in 2011.” He was honored as a “Next Generation Leader for Africa” by the African Leadership Network and received the Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Assistance from the National Peace Corps Association in 2011. In addition to being selected as the 2014 recipient of the Charles Bronfman Prize, Goldman is an Ashoka Fellow and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. During his tenure as CEO, he fundraised more than $11 million, started the India sales and marketing division, and oversaw multiple product launches, including the award-winning S250 and S10. During the class, the team built prototypes and conducted extensive research with partners in Myanmar and Cambodia validating their earlier research into lighting needs in West Africa.ĭ.light was incorporated in 2007 and Goldman served as the company’s founding CEO. While earning his MBA, he participated in a course at the Stanford design school called Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability, where he met the team who became the co-founders of d.light. ![]() In 2006, he returned home and enrolled at the Stanford Graduate School of Business to understand how to leverage business for social and environmental good. Kerosene, which produces a low-quality light, is expensive and dangerous, and releases both noxious fumes and carbon emissions into the air. When a neighbor’s son nearly died in a kerosene accident, he began to research the benefits of bringing safe, clean power to the world’s 2 billion people who still rely on kerosene for light. The idea for d.light was born during Goldman’s time in Benin. He also worked with local villages to improve public health and sanitation by introducing improved latrines, rainwater catchment cisterns, solar cookers, and other low-cost high-impact technologies. He founded a local non-governmental organization (NGO) working with women’s groups to grow and sell the miracle tree Moringa Oleifera as a nutritional supplement to local health centers and hospitals. Here, Sam worked to merge environmental solutions with economic development. While in Benin, he lived by the light of kerosene in a remote village that had no electricity, no running water, and no phones. Agency for International Development (USAID), which instilled in Sam a passion for economic development while he was growing up in Cameroon, Mauritania, Pakistan, Peru, India, Rwanda, Canada, and Hong Kong. Goldman’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions continues today as d.light’s solar lanterns have prevented more than 23 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, reducing humanity’s carbon footprint.įrom 2001 to 2005, Goldman served as an Environmental Action Peace Corps Volunteer in the West African country of Benin, continuing a family tradition of working abroad for greater equality. After university, he participated in the Climate Change Caravan, bicycling across Canada and providing communities along the way with practical solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent. In college, he received a grant from Conservation International to protect the golden monkey by training populations that bordered Rwanda’s Nyungwe Forest National Park in resource-management skills. While in high school in New Delhi, India, he started the school’s first recycling program which benefited a neighboring slum. Goldman has always been a passionate advocate for the environment.
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