Social entrepreneurs dare to change the world

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of CNN Opinion pieces on people who are finding new ways to help solve the world’s biggest problems. The founding president of eBay, Jeff Skoll is a philanthropist and founder and chairman of the Skoll Foundation, Participant Media and the Skoll Global Threats Fund, organizations aiming to help build a sustainable world of peace and prosperity. Sally Osberg is President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, which produces the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

(CNN) — Motorcycle racer Andrea Coleman and her journalist husband, Barry Coleman, couldn’t forget what they saw during a trip to Somalia in 1986: hemorrhaging patients being carted to clinics in wheelbarrows, rusting vehicles abandoned by the side of the road, community health workers making their rounds by foot.
What all this signaled to the Colemans was a delivery system in deep disarray. It wasn’t simply the medical supplies that were lacking — vaccines, for example, or bed nets — but more mundane basics such as oil filters and lug nuts, along with the mechanics and maintenance protocols required to ensure transport that was fully functional.