New Video! AIDG's Cat Lainé Talks Social Entrepreneurship

Posted by Chris Flanagan on April 29, 2010

Social entrepreneur Cat Lainé was in the house on April 13th to talk about her recent work bringing disaster recovery relief to the people of Haiti. A former BIF storyteller, I've always been impressed with her passion and conviction. She doesn’t shy away from the underside of life, a personality trait that led to her decision to leave academia, where she was studying infectious disease epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.  Today, as director of AIDG (Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group), Cat is trying to solve some of our world’s most pressing problems by helping individuals and communities in developing countries get affordable and environmentally sound access to electricity, sanitation and clean water though a combination of business incubation, education and outreach. 

In this interview, BIF intern Elicia Welch sits down with Cat to talk about AIDG's latest work, her views about social entrepreneurship ("my goal is to put myself out of a job"), the apocalyptic experience that was Haiti, and her advice for would-be world changers looking to get started.

Thanks to Cat and her fabulous partner, AIDG founder and executive director Peter Haas, for spending an afternoon with the BIF community.

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Read more about Cat in our "Keeping Things Gritty" profile

Check out Cat's BIF-4 Summit talk, named by TED as one of “Best of the Web” in 2009

Visit Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group