Among the companies that presented were: MANA Nutrition, a Charlotte, N.C.-based enterprise that sells ready-to-eat, therapeutic peanut butter to UNICEF and other organizations for distribution to malnourished children around the globe; Nairobi, Kenya-based Eneza Education, which uses mobile phones to deliver educational content to rural Kenyan students and teachers; and Prospera, a Guadalajara, Mexico-based venture that helps poor women develop food-related microbusinesses to support their families.
To date, 82 enterprises working in 37 countries have received over $27 million in funding since being selected as fellows of the Unreasonable Institute, which takes its name from a George Bernard Shaw quote: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”