Society

Before we came to market, everything in retail was about how cheaply you could pay your employees- and unfortunately, particularly women. There was an attitude in retail that said, '... well, your female employees are just going to get married, have children at 23 and leave, so why invest in them?' The reality of the world was that 60% of university graduates were women- and most women were having children later, entering professional careers.

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

Fighting crosses demographics. You can come to one of our gyms and find a barrister rolling with a security guard. If you go to the polo club, it's usually a single demographic.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

Knowledge isn't always used to make people better off, of course. It can be used to make more lethal weaponry and more effective militia and armies – so we must couple knowledge with humanism, with universal sympathy, for it to be a force for good. Without knowledge, however, all the sympathy in the world would be impotent – they must exist together.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

Our news outlets could report the fact that 137,000 people escaped from extreme poverty yesterday, every day for the past 30 years – but they never ran that headline, with the result that over a billion people escaped poverty and nobody knows about it.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

There's so much bullshit and deception out there- and most of it comes out of defensiveness and fear- not from evil intent. Most of the time- it's because they're scared and don't know how to tell the truth. You have to draw people out of the position of fear to really understand them- flat-out asking people if they're liars will never help you.

Former FBI Hostage Negotiator & Author of "Never Split the Difference

I've been teaching for most of the last 40 years, and I've not come across a generation as dedicated to public service and the common good as my current generation of students. They will inherit the future, and I have great confidence that they know what they must do.

Labor Secretary & Economist; Leading Voice on Inequality

When social distrust mounts- when people feel like the game is rigged against them- they are especially vulnerable to demagogues who come along and want them to channel their rage, anxiety and distrust toward scapegoats who have nothing to do with the underlying problems.

Labor Secretary & Economist; Leading Voice on Inequality

America has a class system, and it's becoming more rigid all the time. As inequality widens the damage spills over to children, and the ladder becomes so long that you have little hope of getting too far up it in your lifetime.

Labor Secretary & Economist; Leading Voice on Inequality

Inside each of us are monsters and angels- there are no divisions between good and bad people- and I've seen how those times of insecurity can make us do terrible things to each other.

Founder of Acumen Fund & social entrepreneur focused on global poverty alleviation

We cannot focus only on the material aspects of poverty- we must address the poverty of spirit that's present in every one of our broken institutions: health systems, economic systems, criminal justice systems, and food systems. If we are going to solve the toughest problems we face as a world right now, we're going to need new operating principles that are compatible with a deeply interconnected world.

Founder of Acumen Fund & social entrepreneur focused on global poverty alleviation

wrote a brilliant report about entry to the Bar and how professional structures historically operated to exclude swathes of people, not just based on ethnicity and 'race', but on gender, sexual orientation and a range of non-traditional backgrounds.

People are not born homophobic – or racist or misogynist. That's learned behaviour. This is why the current bid for LGBT-inclusive education in schools is so important.

Human rights activist & campaigner for LGBTQ+ equality and justice

Backlash is sadly an intrinsic part of social progress. When oppressed people make their claim for justice, they trigger a response – a fightback by those who want to maintain the status-quo.

Human rights activist & campaigner for LGBTQ+ equality and justice

I am hopeful that we, in Western countries, are on the path towards a post-homophobic society. I was very gratified a couple of years ago to see a survey of 16-24 year olds. When asked about their own sexuality, 49% said they would not define themselves as 100% straight.

Human rights activist & campaigner for LGBTQ+ equality and justice

LGBT+ identity came into existence as a defence mechanism against those who were attacking us. We were being targeted because of our sexual behavior and our love. We had to defend ourselves – that is why we claimed, and asserted our LGBT+ identity.

Human rights activist & campaigner for LGBTQ+ equality and justice

The way an orchestra is normally structured is cast in the image of what people in the 18th century thought society should look like. It's very top-down, a hierarchical power structure… reflecting the vision of society at the time. I wanted to subvert that by creating a new orchestral structure that reflected how society could be so it came through the musical DNA.

Renowned composer known for film scores and electronic classical music