Social innovator (role model).

I have chosen Jamie Oliver as my role model in social innovation. He was the 2010 winner of the TED prize. The TED prize is awarded every year to an individual with an exceptional vision to make a positive impact/change in the world. The winner recieves $100 000 to fund the initiative.

Jami Olivers vision is to, with the help of society, create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.

The CDC states that one in four Americans are considered obese. It is estimated that 43 percent of Americans, or 103 million people, will be obese by 2018. The cost of this epidemic, anticipated to reach $344 billion per year. It currently accounts for almost 10 percent of the yearly US health care costs, and that rate will rise to 21 percent by 2018. WHO’s latest projections indicate that globally in 2005 approximately 1.6 billion adults were overweight and projects that by 2015, that figure will rise to 2.3 billion.

The British celebrity, Jami Oliver, has made it his mission to make people less reliable on fast foods, believing that if they learn to cook more nutritious foods, they will start to prefer eating healthier. The pleasure in eating a home-cooked meal has been the core of his career from the start, and as he has matured, it has turned into a platform (Witchel,2009).

In an official speech of the TED prize winnings, Jami Oliver said he will use his winnings to:

• Establish a good-nutrition foundation with funding, office space and facilities;
• Find partners to create a traveling food theater troupe to teach kids about better eating;
• Sign up education experts, graphic designers and writers to help him produce teaching materials that kids will use to help them eat healthier;
• Hire Web designers to create a Web site and social media campaigns to build an international movement to fight global food giants for healthier food;
• Invite corporate partners to invest in food preparation education for their customers and to help champion his movement, and start an “honest food labeling” program

It is amazing to think that Jami is on a mission to build a social movement big enough to try change the way a nation eats for the benefit of individuals, especially the youth aswell as to realise the positive impacts this can have on the US Health care costs.