2014 Prize Laureate
Sam Goldman
d.light, Founder + President
“In Hebrew, the phrase ‘tikkun olam’ means ‘healing the world.’ For me, that healing has two paths. I feel very connected to, and in awe of, natural ecosystems, so I work to protect and preserve them. At the same time, I have a strong belief in social justice and equality, and in my family we’ve consistently worked to provide more people with better opportunities and quality of life.”
Sam Goldman is the Founder and Chief Customer Officer of d.light, a social enterprise and certified B Corporation that delivers affordable solar-powered solutions to people in the developing world without access to reliable energy. The idea for d.light was born during Goldman's service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin from 2001 to 2005, when a neighbor's son nearly died in a kerosene accident, inspiring him to research the benefits of bringing safe, clean power to the 2 billion people who rely on dangerous kerosene for light. After enrolling at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2006, he co-founded d.light in 2007 and served as founding CEO, fundraising over $11 million and overseeing multiple product launches. Through offices in Africa, China, South Asia, and the United States, d.light has supplied more than 12 million solar light and power products to 62 countries, enabling 26 million school-age children to study more productively, saving customers cumulatively over $4 billion in energy expenditures, and offsetting more than 23 million tons of carbon dioxide. In 2020, d.light achieved its goal of reaching 100 million people.
A passionate environmental advocate since high school in New Delhi where he started his school's first recycling program, Goldman has worked across the globe—growing up in Cameroon, Mauritania, Pakistan, Peru, India, Rwanda, Canada, and Hong Kong as the son of USAID workers. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and an MSc in Biology & Environmental Studies from the University of Victoria, Canada. His exceptional work has earned him the Charles Bronfman Prize, an Ashoka Fellowship, recognition as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and inclusion in Forbes' "World's Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs." In 2014, the Schwab Foundation named Goldman and the d.light team "Social Entrepreneurs of the Year," and in 2015 he presented to President Obama at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya. Goldman recently founded Skyward, a company preventing lightning-caused
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