Bill Drayton Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 2011

At its meeting in Oviedo, the Jury for the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, made up of Mr. Pedro Alonso Fernández, Ms. María Jesús Álvarez González, Mr. Enrique Barón Crespo, Mr. José María Bergareche Busquet, Ms. Eugenia Bieto Caubet, Ms. Silvia Escobar Moreno, Mr. Jorge de Esteban Alonso, Enrique Fernández-Miranda y Lozana, Duke of Fernández-Miranda, Ms. Gloria Fernández-Lomana García, Mr. Luis Lada Díaz, Mr. Teodoro López-Cuesta Egocheaga, Mr. Ricardo Martí Fluxá, Mr. José María Martín Patino, Mr. Luis Javier Navarro Vigil, Mr. Yago Pico de Coaña y Valicourt, Mr. Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Mr. Rafael Sánchez-Barriga Fernández, Mr. Luis Sánchez-Merlo y Ruiz, Mr. Gustavo Suárez Pertierra, chaired by Mr. Antonio Garrigues Walker and with Ms. Alicia Castro Masaveu acting as secretary, has decided to bestow the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation on Bill Drayton, who in 1981 founded the organisation Ashoka, for his fundamental role in the development of the social entrepreneur as a driver of the social and economic transformation of countries. Ashoka has provided funding and professional support services to more than 3,000 social entrepreneur leaders in over 70 nations.

Bill Drayton fundamentally supports people and coined the term ‘social entrepreneur’ to describe those individuals who combine the pragmatic goal-oriented methods of business with the aims of a social reformer.

With Bill Drayton’s statement that “we can all change the world”, the Ashoka Foundation began working in Spain in 2005, where it currently has 25 projects that have supposed a sustainable alternative for the third sector.

The Jury has prized, above all, the novelty that applying economic sustainability criteria to projects to promote social change designed by young, creative entrepreneurs supposes. Ashoka employs a rigorous selection process to choose these social entrepreneurs through the exhaustive examination of their projects for innovation and change, their potential impact on society and their motivation and ethical character.

Oviedo, 8th June 2011