Westmo Student Speaks at Social Entrepreneurship Forum in Oxford, England

Each year, nearly 1,000 distinguished delegates from the social, finance, private, and public sectors convene in Oxford for three days and nights of critical debates, discussions, and work sessions aimed at innovating, accelerating, and scaling solutions to social challenges.

The event, known as the Skoll World Forum, is put on by the Skoll Foundation, a social entrepreneurship foundation based in Palo Alto, California. The Skoll foundation was created by Jeff Skoll, the first president of Ebay, with the mission of driving large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and other innovators dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing problems.

This year, Westminster College freshman Joseph Opoku ’18 (above), a Transnational Studies and Entrepreneurship major, was invited to attend and speak at the Forum.

Joseph has a wide range of experience promoting youth development in Ghana, West Africa. He has worked with the West Africa Civil Society Institute, Curious Minds, and the Springboard Roadshow Foundation, among others. He also organized youth-oriented programs supporting career advancement, entrepreneurship, and investment. He founded the Youth Impact Workshop to help build the capacity of young people in Ghana to design, prototype, and implement social enterprises at school and in their communities.

Joseph with African Leadership Academy founder Fred Swaniker

Opoku is an alumnus of the African Leadership Academy and currently a MasterCard Foundation Scholar. He also serves as a member of the MasterCard Foundation Youth Think Tank, a platform he is using to research on youth engagement issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. At Westminster College, he is a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, the Westminster Poverty Initiative, Student Ambassadors, and Westminster Service Corps.

Joseph presented as a member of a panel for a session titled The Age Before Impossible: Young Voices, Big Dreams. The session focused on how young leaders can use their vision to find solutions to social issues when others can only identify problems.

Joseph with Asheshi University founder Patrick Awuah

Westminster College is proud of Joseph and all he has done to change his world.

Information provided by the Skoll World Forum and Skoll Foundation websites.