12.06.2006 - 12:24pm ET

(CSRwire) ARLINGTON, VA., December 6, 2006-- On its 25th anniversary, Ashoka, a global organization supporting social entrepreneurship worldwide, announced a landmark project which has brought together people from around the world to subtitle films in up to 100 languages on social entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus.

"The media describes Yunus as an economist, professor, or banker, but really why the Nobel Committee selected him is because Yunus is the quintessential global social entrepreneur. His brilliant microcredit strategy is based on unleashing the potential of every person to change his or her life. He embodies Ashoka's vision that everyone in the world is a changemaker," said Susan Davis, Chair of Ashoka's Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship.

Dr. Yunus, a founding Member of Ashoka's Global Academy, shares his story in 3 films produced by the Academy and available for viewing at http://www.ashoka.org/100translations, which detail his unique approach to eradicating poverty and next steps for a global microfinance revolution.

To honor Yunus as one of the world's greatest social entrepreneurs, Ashoka's global network including 1800 Ashoka Fellows in over 60 countries has joined efforts with several organizations to ensure that millions of people have access to understanding the remarkable work of this year's Nobel Prize winner.

To support Ashoka's efforts, Visa International helped underwrite the project. "Increasing understanding of Dr. Yunus' work and of the potential of microfinance is an immensely worthwhile endeavor" said John Elkins, EVP of Visa International and member of the UN Advisors Group on Inclusive Financial Sectors. "Dr. Yunus has demonstrated how people's lives can be transformed by giving them the opportunity to pursue their innate entrepreneurial capabilities."

Ashoka is collaborating with dotSUB ( http://dotsub.com) to translate and subtitle three films on Dr. Yunus and one film on Bill Drayton, Founder and CEO of Ashoka, who explains the rise of social entrepreneurs. Through dotSUB's innovative, browser-based subtitling technology, people from around the world helped translate and subtitle the web-based streaming videos from English into countless other languages, from Arabic to Zulu.

Other partners supporting the project included ProZ.com, who supplied professional linguists to help subtitle the films ( http://www.proz.com/employers), and Translators Without Borders, created by Eurotexte to provide free translations to humanitarian organizations ( http://www.translatorswithoutborders.org).

The films on Yunus and Drayton are part of Ashoka's Global Academy Social Entrepreneurship Series, the first-ever DVD collection on social entrepreneurship. To purchase the complete 16-part Series, please visit http://www.dvd.ashoka.org.
Footage of Yunus is available for the media at http://www.thenewsmarket.com/ashoka.

To participate in this ongoing global translation collaboration, please visit http://www.dotsub.com/nobel.

About Ashoka

Ashoka is the global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs--men and women with system-changing solutions for the world's most urgent social problems. Since 1981, Ashoka has elected over 1,800 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries. Working with these social entrepreneurs, Ashoka builds communities of innovators who work collectively to transform society and design new ways for the citizen sector to become more productive, entrepreneurial and globally integrated. For more information, please visit http://www.ashoka.org

About dotSUB

dotSUB is a young company that has developed a suite of simple, easy to use, browser based tools for subtitling video from one language into any other language in real time. The goal of dotSUB is to increase the power and relevance of video by making it available to viewers in languages that are most familiar to them. dotSUB encourages community and user involvement in a 'wiki-type' model to enable it to reach film and video content at both ends of the "long tail" to become available in any language.

About VISA
Visa connects cardholders, merchants and financial institutions through the world's largest electronic payments network. Visa products allow buyers and sellers to conduct commerce with ease and confidence in both the physical and virtual worlds. Visa is committed to the sustained growth of electronic payment systems to support the needs of all stakeholders and to drive economic growth. For more information, visit http://www.corporate.visa.com

About ProZ.com

With more than 160,000 translators, interpreters and linguists, ProZ.com is by far the leading enabling and sourcing portal for language professionals worldwide. ProZ.com provides its vast network of linguists with a host of valuable member resources - enabling members to more efficiently perform their demanding work. For more information, please visit http://www.proz.com/employers

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