Keynote Speakers
Anne Hastings
Anne Hastings has been the Executive Director of Fonkoze since May 1996. Under her leadership, the institution has grown from 2 volunteer employees to over 750 full-time employees and is now the largest Microfinance Institution in Haiti.
Before coming to Haiti, Anne had fifteen years of experience in providing strategic management services to executives and in managing young organizations for high performance and steady growth. Anne holds a PhD from the University of Virginia. She completed research fellowships at the Brookings Institute and the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, both in Washington, DC.
Anne is the recipient of other awards, including the 2005 Pioneer in Microfinance Award of the Grameen Foundation USA. In 2006, she was honored in the First Annual Chiapas Project Recognition Dinner in Dallas, Texas. In May 2007, she received an honorary Doctorate in Business Leadership from Duquesne University.
John Hatch
John Hatch is the founder of FINCA, one of the world's leading microcredit institutions with programs in 23 countries and over one million low-income families assisted since its inception in 1984. John is also known as the father of "village banking", a group loan methodology now replicated by over 800 micro-credit programs in 60 countries.
John previously served in Colombia as a community development volunteer for the Peace Corps, and then became a Peace Corps regional director in Peru. He continues to serve as co-founder and executive committee member of the Microcredit Summit global campaign to reach 175 million of the world’s poorest mothers with self-employment loans by the year 2015.
Paul Polak
D-Rev: Design for the Other 90%
Paul Polak isn’t your everyday global poverty fighter. He’s a 75 year-old former psychiatrist who believes that the world’s poorest people, most of whom are farmers living on less than $2/day, are capable entrepreneurs and consumers. Because of this belief, he started two non-profit organizations, a for-profit venture, wrote a book, all aimed at harnessing the market to tackle poverty. His non-profits, International Development Enterprises (IDE) and D-Rev, sell affordable income generating technologies to the poor and have moved over 17 million $2/day farmers out of poverty. His for-profit venture, Windhorse International, launched just this year and will demonstrate the impact big business can make in the fight against poverty. Dr. Polak has outlined what he’s learned is effective in combating poverty in his book Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail. For his work, Dr. Polak has received many awards including the Scientific American Top Fifty Award (2003), the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award (2004), the Technology Museum of Innovation’s “Accenture Economic Development Award” (2004), an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from the University of Western Ontario (2008), and the Monito del Giardino Prize in Italy (2008).
Dr. Stephen C. Smith
Dr. Stephen Smith is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University, Director of the Research Program in Poverty, Development, and Globalization, and a member of the Institute of International Economic Policy. His work focuses on economic development, with a special focus on solutions to extreme poverty.
He also researches economic development strategies and the economics of participation. Dr. Smith is the author of Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works, Economic Development, 10th Edition (with Michael Todaro), and co-editor of NGOs and the Millennium Development Goals: Citizen Action to Reduce Poverty.
Dr. Gregory Stanton
Dr. Stanton is the founder and president of Genocide Watch, the founder and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project, and the founder and Chair of the International Campaign to End Genocide. He is also the current President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
Dr. Stanton served in the State Department (1992-1999), where he drafted the United Nations Security Council resolutions that created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Burundi Commission of Inquiry, and the Central African Arms Flow Commission. He also drafted the U.N. Peacekeeping Operations resolutions that helped bring about an end to the Mozambique civil war.
