Network Insights - July 12 2024

Weekly impact, news, and predictive insights from the world's largest social entrepreneur network.

Global – Currently, more people globally are over age 65 than under age 5. See this July forecast from the UN with other notable demographic shifts and breakdowns, including: due to expected longer life spans (and hopefully longer health spans) coupled with declining birth rates, the global population over age 65 is predicted to reach 2.2B by the 2070s, outnumbering children under 18. (Noted exception: Africa.) Social entrepreneurs innovate ahead of demographic shifts, and one area of focus: building mindsets and institutions that support intergenerational collaboration and lifelong learning. In the US, for example, Marc Freedman has been part of creating a new entry in the field of “encore education” – a six-month opportunity at Yale University that will welcome its first cohort of mid-career changemakers in January 2025.

India – This week, Nobel Peace Prize laureates the Dalai Lama and Kailash Satyarthi, a lifelong child rights advocate, announced a joint new book on compassion. Kailash also started a movement earlier this year to cultivate compassion-in-action and elevate the compassion quotient globally. Kailash is one of four Nobel Peace Prize laureates in the Ashoka community – others are Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh (global microcredit), Jerry White in the US (as part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines), and Carlos Nobre in Brazil (as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 

Plus, a few more – Kyle Zimmer’s organization First Book has distributed 225M books (since 1992) to educators in lower resource school communities in the US and celebrates distribution of 10M books via the American Federation of Teachers; Laura Zommer in Argentina was announced this week as a 2024 winner of the Cabot Prize (oldest journalism prize); and in more book news: James Thronton has a new book out (Nature, My Teacher) with reflective essays on how to be alive in a world under threat, and John Marks has a new book coming in September on building peace, resolving conflict, and creating change for the common good (preview here).