What would you do if someone handed you $500,000 with one directive: Change the world? For Kiah Williams, co-founder of SIRUM, that question is now a reality. She competed against five other social entrepreneurs at the Forbes Under 30 Summit in Philadelphia Tuesday — and won.
Luckily, Williams has a plan.
Here are a few facts you may not be aware of: 50 million Americans skip their meds every year because they can’t afford the prescription. Meanwhile, $5 billion worth of unexpired medications are incinerated every year by pharmacies, hospitals and nursing homes when patients no longer need them.
Kiah Williams, co-founder of SIRUM, receives the grand prize at the $1 Million Change the World Competition. (Mehrunnisa Wani for Forbes)
Williams, 29, and cofounders Adam Kircher and George Wang, have built a platform for matching unopened, unexpired surplus medication to people in need. So far they have distributed prescriptions $4.7 million worth of meds and are working with 200 donor organizations. They will use their winnings to scale up. The goal? By 2019 they want 1,000 donor organizations donating $19 million worth of drugs.
The judges were won over in part by the efficiency of SIRUM’s model. The company spends about $2,700 to recruit and train parters. Partners then donate $6,000 worth of drugs annually on average, meaning in five years SIRUM gets $30,000 worth of drugs. All that with just a five person staff.
“I am looking for an idea that is scalable but also achievable,” said judge Hugh Evans, founder of The Global Poverty Project and a 30 Under 30 alum. The other judges were Mike Perlis, CEO of Forbes Media, and McKinsey and Company Principal Lynn Taliento, who runs the consulting firms social innovation program.
The audience was taken by Williams’ personal story. “I grew up in West Philadelphia, one generation out of poverty. It was five miles from here but worlds away from this stage,” she told the crowd of 1,500 young movers and shakers. She knew mothers who had to pick between paying for rent, groceries or their blood pressure medication. Decisions like that, Williams says, are “unconscionable” in a country where we spend $3 trillion a year on healthcare.
Williams was the day’s big winner but the five finalists will receive $100,000 for making it to the final round. The $500,000 grand prize is $250,00 in cash and a $250,000 media grant from Forbes. The group was selected from 2,506 applicants. The competition was open to both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations, with the only requirements being that entrepreneurs be under age 30 and trying to do some good in the world. Total prize money? $1 million, making it the largest-ever competition for young social entrepreneurs.
The other finalists included:
- Heather Concannon and Elizabeth Nguyen, two 27 year-old clergy members and founders of the Unitarian Universalist Community Cooperatives. Their organization runs the Lucy Stone Co-Op house in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
- Paul Duan, 23, founder of Bayes Impact, is using big data to help governments and non-profit organizations operate more efficiently. First up? The French national unemployment agency – Pole Emploi.
- Amara Humphry, 27, is co-founder of Gooru. The four year-old nonprofit helps teachers and students improve educational outcomes through data and tech-enabled personalization.
- Daniel Yu, 22, who founded Reliefwatch, which works with health centers in the developing world to manage inventory using simple mobile phones. The World Health Organization estimates that 40% of the 1 million such centers are stocked out of supplies or medications
- Govinda Upadhyay, 27, founder of LEDsafari, which distributes cheap solar LED lamp kits so kids in developing countries can both learn about physics and have an electric light to study by.
Partnering with Forbes for the competition are: The Schusterman Family Foundation, Case Foundation, Pratt Foundation, Keywell Foundation, and Bob Duggan.
For more on all six finalists see: Meet The Six Social Entrepreneurs Competing To Change The World And Win $1 Million
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