Social Venture Network (SVN), the country's leading peer-to-peer network of socially responsible entrepreneurs and investors, has announced the most impressive social entrepreneurs and business leaders to watch over the next year. The winners of SVN's 2011 Innovation Awards are using groundbreaking approaches to drive sustainability and community development while creating employment opportunities for underserved communities including US veterans, Native Americans and African war survivors.

A panel of 19 judges determined this year's winners, including pioneer of socially responsible business Ben Cohen, social finance expert Esther Park and green business expert Joel Makower. Winners were chosen based on their innovation, impact, and ability to scale and included Chid Liberty, vanguard of the African fair trade movement; Karlene Hunter & Mark Tilsen, founders of a natural food company fighting poverty and obesity in the third poorest US county; and Eric Greitens, creator of a socially innovative non-profit supporting returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

To support their growing enterprises, Innovation Award winners will receive a free SVN membership, publicity, and partnership with SVN leaders who will serve as mentors. Each of the following winners will be honored at SVN's 2011 Fall Conference, to be held October 27-30 in Philadelphia, where they will present their pioneering work to an audience of over 250 socially responsible business CEOs, investors and social entrepreneurs. Winners include:

Chid Liberty, Liberty & Justice: Liberty & Justice partnered with Liberian women to launch Africa's first Fair Trade Certified apparel factory. By developing local African factories and connecting them with international retailers and consumers, Liberty & Justice has created jobs for women who are working to rebuild Liberia after its civil war, tackling unemployment and poverty rates that hover around 80%. It is currently expanding from employing 58 women to 900 women after signing agreements to produce over 6.5 million pieces per year.

Peter Frykman, Driptech: Driptech's mission is to alleviate poverty by creating affordable, water efficient irrigation solutions for the 500 million small-plot farmers in developing nations. Available water per person in developing countries is 20% of what it was fifty years ago. In these same places, agriculture accounts for 81% of total freshwater usage. Use of Driptech's innovative irrigation system allows farmers to grow year round while conserving water, labor and time and increasing crop yields by 20 to 90%.

Karlene Hunter & Mark Tilsen, Native American Natural Foods: Native American Natural Foods' mission is to heal the people and Mother Earth by innovating new food products based on traditional Native American values. Based on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota (with a 72% unemployment rate, it is the third poorest county in the US), the company is on track to earn over $2 million in revenues in 2011. It is committed to providing employment for the reservation's youth (local tribal members form 95% of its staff) and to the return of the buffalo to Native people.

Jason Aramburu, Re:char: Re:char empowers subsistence farmers in the developing world to enhance their crop yields and supplement their income, while trapping carbon and enriching depleted soil. Re:char has found that by pyrolyzing plant waste before it decomposes, it is able to re-route solid carbon into a carbon-rich soil amendment, ensuring that plant carbon (and greenhouse gas) does not return to the atmosphere. Its technology currently serves 750 farmers in Kenya.

Katherine Lucey, Solar Sister: Solar Sister is a social enterprise that eradicates energy poverty by empowering women with economic opportunity. Using an Avon-style business model, Solar Sister Entrepreneurs create vital access to clean energy technology. The women use their natural networks of family, friends and neighbors to provide the most effective distribution channel to rural and hard to reach customers. Solar Sister combines the breakthrough potential of solar technology with a deliberately women-centered direct sales network to bring light, hope and opportunity to even the most remote communities in Africa. It currently works with women in Uganda, Rwanda and Sudan.

Eric Greitens, The Mission Continues: The Mission Continues is a national nonprofit organization working to build a nation where every veteran can serve again as a citizen leader. The organization challenges post-9/11 veterans to continue their lifelong missions of service by being leaders in our communities, enabling them to combat a loss of purpose in their lives that often occurs when they leave the military. The Mission Continues aims to reshape the way we welcome home our veterans by showing that these men and women are tremendous assets, not charity cases, whose strengths and leadership can be used to improve communities here at home.

Deb Nelson, SVN's Executive Director, says, "SVN's 2011 Innovation Award Winners clearly demonstrate that business can solve our most pressing social and environmental problems. We are thrilled to be honoring these incredible leaders."

About SVN
Since 1987, Social Venture Network (SVN, www.svn.org) has been at the forefront of the socially responsible business movement, connecting, leveraging, and promoting a world-class community of more than 500 innovative entrepreneurs working to change the way the world does business and the way that business affects the world. SVN connects the leaders of socially responsible enterprises to share lessons and resources, form strategic alliances, and explore new solutions that build a more just and sustainable economy.

Social Venture Network

Social Venture Network

Since 1987, Social Venture Network (www.svn.org) has been at the forefront of the socially responsible business movement, connecting, leveraging, and promoting a world-class community of more than 500 innovative entrepreneurs working to change the way the world does business and the way that business affects the world. SVN connects the leaders of socially responsible enterprises to share lessons and resources, form strategic alliances, and explore new solutions that build a more just and sustainable economy.

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