The Woodbury School of Business and Entrepreneurship Institute are pleased to honor Gabi Israelsen with the Young Social Entrepreneurship Rising Star award, and Dean and Lynn Curtis with the Stephen and Bette Gibson Social Entrepreneur of the Year award.

“I think there are generally four kinds of NGO leaders,” said Steve Gibson. “There are those that say little, and do little. There are those that say a lot, and do a lot. There are those that say a lot, and do little. And then we have the kind that we’re honoring with this award. They do a lot, but they don’t say much about what they do.” 

Gabi Israelsen is currently attending UVU as an English major, and is the co-founder of SAY International. Gabi and her co-founder Caden Hall began the organization in order to promote critical and creative thinking skills utilizing a teaching methodology called Inside Out Learning—created by Gabi’s mother, Dana Israelsen. Gabi’s considerable volunteer experience includes time in Ghana, Africa working in the schools and orphanages, as well as three months spent serving in Fiji. By age 19, Gabi had traveled to six of the seven continents. She served a mission for her church in Ecuador, and in the last few years has traveled to Hong Kong, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, and Columbia.

“I became passionate about Inside Out Learning because it made total sense to me,” said Gabi. “A lot of times you do humanitarian work and you think you have to go build a house or an orphanage, and you feel like you need to give something. IOL is all about going and teaching people how to build their own schools, how to be self-reliant, how to be creative, and how to be critical thinkers.”

“I’m grateful for this opportunity and this award, and especially my business partner Caden. We did this together, and we’re excited for the future,” Gabi concluded after receiving the Young Social Entrepreneur Rising Star award.

“We are proud of Gabi and her ability to make a difference in the world,” said Dean Norm Wright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dean and Lynn Curtis are the co-founders of Interweave Solutions, an international nonprofit organization specializing in moving people from poverty to prosperity through self-reliance groups. They help individuals earn a Master’s of Business in the Streets (MBS) to start and grow their own micro-businesses. Their program teaches the six p’s of business: have a plan, product, process, price, promotion, and get your paperwork in order.

“Thank you very much, it really is an honor for me,” said Dean Curtis. “Interweave Solutions came from Lynn and I trying to interweave our solutions. I was a business background and I had sold a business, and Lynn was a community development person and he was going all over the world trying to teach people literacy. Slowly but surely we [interwove] our philosophies and we call it ‘charity with a bottom line, and business with a heart.’ That’s been our slogan as we’ve gone along.”

“We believe in the power of groups,” said Lynn Curtis. “When people work together, come together, and assist each other, there’s new strength—there’s new power. That’s what Interweave Solutions is all about. To bring together people, ideas, programs, and resources that haven’t been together before. We bring them together into something wonderful. We move people from poverty to posterity through neighborhood self-reliance groups. These are groups that counsel together to make great things happen. If [people] are really going to become self-reliant, they need to do the serving themselves. I’m so very grateful for the opportunity to see people work together and create miracles in their lives. This award belongs to a whole lot of people, so thank you very much.”

“When we got involved 20 years ago, we looked for heroes, and at that time Lynn and his literacy program was one of our heroes. Then when Dean sold a business, he made a move that I wish more entrepreneurs would make. Instead of starting another company, which he could’ve done, he decided to spread what he knew by joining with his brother and giving of that wealth to those that had no wealth. The other thing that’s getting rare is to find two brothers like this that work together and love each other. We have great respect for both of them who expect so little,” said Steve of the Curtis brothers.

“In 20 years when I’m still dean of the business school, I’ll probably be giving a lifetime achievement award to Gabi,” Norm remarked. “Good to see the Curtis brothers with their years of wisdom and truly bringing different perspectives together to create a more holistic solution. Diagnosing the needs of the people they’re serving and taking them one step at a time to where they need to be is truly magnificent. We care about social entrepreneurship and social impact in the Woodbury School of Business.”

“When we put this award together in conjunction with the Gibsons, one of the things that we wanted to do was to create a truly memorable piece that could sit with pride in the living room or office,” Norm explained to attendees. “We contracted with an artist by the name of LeRoy Transfield who has done work all around the world, and as we shared our idea with him, what we wanted to share was this idea of self-reliance. It’s the concept of teach a man to fish: you give a man a fish, he eats for a day; you give a man a fishing pole and teach him how to fish, he’ll probably eat for a lot longer. With that in mind, we wanted to put a twist on that, because having a guy with a beer can and a fishing pole didn’t seem like a very good statue. Steve and I first met each other in Hawaii, so we have that background in common. The statue is a Pacific Islander with a throwing net, which is one way of fishing in the Pacific Islands. That’s what the award and statue represent, and we’re proud to present it to the Curtis brothers.”