Who Owns Poverty?

Dr. Martín Burt is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fundación Paraguaya, a non-profit devoted to the promotion of social entrepreneurship and economic self-reliance to eliminate poverty around the world. He is a pioneer in applying new poverty metrics, microfinance, micro-franchise, youth entrepreneurship, financial literacy and financially self-sufficient agricultural technical vocational methodologies. Dr. Burt is currently a board member of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship at the World Economic Forum, the Global Foodbanking Network, and Teach A Man To Fish. He is Co-Founder of the Bertoni Environmental Foundation, Asociación Paraguaya de la Calidad, Paraguay Educa, Club Universitario de Rugby de Asunción, Sistema B Paraguay, and the Mbaracayú Forest Foundation. In public service, he has served as Chief of Staff to the President of Paraguay, was elected Mayor of Asunción, and appointed Vice Minister of Commerce. Dr. Burt has written books on economics, development, municipal government, poetry and education. He has received awards from organizations including Avina Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Schwab Foundation, Synergos, the Eisenhower Fellowship, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Innovation Summit for Education, and Nestlé. He is a graduate of the University of the Pacific and George Washington University. He holds a PhD from Tulane University, and is a Visiting Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at University of California, Irvine. Dr. Burt was born in Asunción, Paraguay in 1957 where he resides with his family.