Martin Fisher

Biographical Information
"Martin Fisher co-founded KickStart-International after working in Kenya for 6 years, including 5 years with ActionAid. KickStart designs affordable moneymaking tools and mass-markets them to poor entrepreneurs and farmers, who buy the equipment and use it to establish highly profitable family businesses. As of March 31st, 2010, local entrepreneurs and farmers have used KickStart equipment to start over 95,000 highly profitable local businesses, generating over $95 million dollars per year in new profits and wages. Fisher has won numerous awards and recognition for his inventions and work as a social entrepreneur, including the IDEA Design Gold Medal, TIME Magazine's 2003 European Hero award, 2005 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the Schwab Foundation's "2003 Social Entrepreneur of the Year" award. In 2008 he was named Engineer of the Year by Design News magazine and received the prestigious $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability for his achievements in transforming the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor Africans though invention and innovation. Fisher earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University, followed by an M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical design and theoretical and applied mechanics from Stanford University."

Affiliations

 * Advisory Board, One Acre Fund