Celebrating Ashoka Fellows who Have Won the Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize this year went to an Ashoka Fellow. She is the fifth Ashoka Fellow to be honored with the Prize in 20 years. This is extraordinary. 

Ashoka helps launch the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Three-quarters of these Ashoka Fellows have changed national and/or international policy within 10 years of joining the Fellowship. The Ashoka community then multiplies their individual impacts by thinking and entrepreneuring together. Ashoka Fellows are the ultimate role models in today’s world. 

All Ashokans work to ensure that everyone has what a good life requires: the power to give. In a world whose reality is now defined by ever-accelerating change, that requires that everyone be a changemaker. 

Please let us introduce you to the five Ashokans honored by the Nobel Committee. 

Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela 

In 1997, Maria Corina Machado was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship for supporting young people in the most extreme situations of risk on the streets and in the institutions of Venezuela. The National Institute for Minors failed -- leaving the nation’s children even more vulnerable. Maria Corina reimagined social service delivery by anchoring it in public/private partnerships and volunteerism.

In 2011, she decided she needed to help her country escape an undemocratic performance trap and entered into politics. 

While respecting Fellow’s political ambitions, Ashoka requires them to step down from their Fellowship while engaging in partisan politics. This policy protects us as a community that is open to people of all ideas and perspectives. It also ensures the safety of all Fellows and members of the community.  

On October 10, 2025, Maria Corina was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela. 

Kailash Satyarthi, India 

Kailash Satyarthi is a renowned leader in the global movement against child labor. He was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 1993. He fights the use of child labor by creating domestic and international consumer resistance to products made by bonded children, as well as with direct legal and advocacy work. Kailash directly rescues children held in bonded labor, slave-like conditions, and helps children sold to pay their parents' debts to find new lives and serve as agents of prevention within their communities.  

Today, in addition to his trademark organization Rugmark (now known as GoodWeave International), Kailash heads the Global March Against Child Labor, a network of 2000 social-purpose organizations and trade unions in 140 countries. 

In 2014, Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai were named Nobel Laureates for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education 

Carlos Nobre, Brazil 

For nearly fifty years, Carlos Nobre has played a leading role in bringing public and political attention to the importance of the Amazon and influencing key scientific and policy advances for their protection. He was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 2021.  

Carlos pioneered breakthrough research that demonstrated the tipping point beyond which the Amazon would dry out, and then moved to create the scientific, political, and civic infrastructure needed to avert this scenario. Recognizing sustainable pathways for development exist in the Amazon, he proved that it is feasible to develop a new model of decentralized bio-economy to turn the region into a hub for high-tech innovation. He brings mobile co-creation labs with advanced technologies to the heart of the rainforest, building capacity in local communities to harness traditional knowledge to develop competitive products. Carlos is shifting markets away from destructive industries such as livestock and towards an inclusive bio-economy. 

In 2007 Carlos was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work as a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report that created a global action framework upon which countries agreed to adopt measures to address climate change. 

Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh 

Muhammad Yunus, an Ashoka member and also a member of its World Council, pioneered Grameen Bank, a Dhaka-based organization that spread microcredit and microfinance globally. Grameen Bank has distributed nearly 40,587 million USD to 10.75 million borrower members, 97% of whom are women. Now replicated globally through the Grameen Foundation and local Grameen Banks, his work has created new economies, and therefore, new jobs and businesses. He has shown the citizen sector how to bring an innovation to scale across the world. 

Dr. Yunus has given those disenfranchised by society pathways to become independent actors and ensure they have a peer group on their journey towards financial wellbeing. He is celebrated globally for these transformations. As of August 2024, Dr. Yunus was appointed as the head of Bangladesh's interim government. 

Dr. Yunus has made significant contributions to economic development and poverty alleviation through his innovative approach to financial inclusion and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in 2006. 

Jerry White, United States 

Jerry White was elected an Ashoka Fellow for his work creating a world where survivors of war and conflict recognize their agency and are supported to become leaders and changemakers. Jerry’s Survivor Corps is a worldwide peer-to-peer support network for those citizens, soldiers, and veterans who have been impacted by casualties of war, like landmines or cluster munitions. Survivor Corps offers new mental frameworks for their network members, encouraging them to face facts, choose life, reach out, get moving and give back. It encourages survivors to create action plans for personal recovery and then pay it forward through outreach and relationship building with other survivors. 

Jerry is creating powerful communities of people who turn their survivorship into leadership. With collaborations among other social sector organizations, national governments, and international organizations, Survivor Corp members are positioned to play a central role in preventing violent conflict through advocacy and civic participation. 

Prior to joining the Ashoka Fellowship, Jerry organized his network to create the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize-winning treaty to ban landmines from all future conflicts, eventually working towards a future in which they do not exist altogether.