Paul Polak is president of International Development Enterprises (IDE), a nonprofit, poverty alleviation organization he founded in 1981. IDE pioneered the development and marketing of affordable technologies within developing countries. The Technology Museum of Innovation named IDE-International a Laureate for its development of "Easy Drip" a truly affordable micro-irrigation system for the rural farmers in developing countries. In 2004, Paul was awarded Ernst & Young's "2004 Entrepreneur of the Year" award in the category of social responsibility. As a result of technologies like "Easy Drip" and facilitated market entrance, IDE families have increased their net annual income by more than $200 million annually. Recently Polak was honored by Scientific American as one of the Top 50 innovators in 2003 for his work pioneering poverty alleviation worldwide. In 2007, Polak founded D-Rev, an organization created to design affordable technology for dollar-a day customers and developing markets where they can be sold profitably and sustainable at a fair market price. Paul Polak received his MD from the University of Western Ontario and practiced psychiatry for 23 years.
It's not a rational process. It's ... there are two or three threads but I'm a psychiatrist by training and a physician and a psychiatrist but I also am an entrepreneur. So while I was working as a psychiatrist I ran an oil company, my own oil... small ...(Full transcript available to logged in subscribers.).
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