Do One Better with Alberto Lidji in Philanthropy, Sustainability and Social Entrepreneurship

Five billion people on this planet have no access to safe surgery. It’s one of the largest health inequities in the world, and unlike treating a disease with a pill, there is no simple fix: surgery needs a working operating theatre, safe anaesthesia, trained nurses, functioning equipment, and a surgeon who can be there not just once, but every single day. In this episode, Alberto sits down with David Kulber, MD, co-founder and president of Ohana One, a plastic and hand surgeon who set out to understand why years of short-term surgical missions to resource-scarce countries kept producing the same problems, no matter how many times he came back, and built something different in response. Why does David argue that closing the surgical gap has almost nothing to do with flying in more foreign surgeons, and everything to do with the infrastructure already on the ground? How did a pair of borrowed Google Glasses end up transforming two local surgeons’ entire careers, succeeding where years of in-person missions had not? Why might keeping one doctor from leaving a resource-scarce country for Europe matter more to closing the surgical gap than training a brand new one? A general surgeon was moments from amputating a teenage girl’s injured leg when he called David for a second opinion. What alternative procedure did David talk him through, live and step by step, that saved her leg instead? This episode is for anyone who wants to see how one surgeon’s frustration with the limits of short-term missions grew into a network spanning more than 60 countries, more than 300 surgeons, and 13 medical specialties, and who wants to understand why 5 billion people still lack access to safe surgery, and what it will actually take to change that. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 400+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. 

As a little girl growing up amid poverty in a community much like the ones she now serves, she once asked her mother why some people rode the bus while others rode in cars. Decades later, she is running an organisation built to answer that very question. In this episode, Alberto sits down with Sazini Mojapelo, CEO of Village Enterprise and the first Africa-based leader in the organisation’s history, to explore the Poverty Graduation Model that has reached 2.5 million lives across seven African countries, and what it actually takes to turn government ministries, rural households and a one-off injection of capital into a lasting exit from extreme poverty. What exactly does Village Enterprise look for when it identifies a single household to work with, and why does that targeting process take months rather than days? Why did this incoming CEO describe her first six months as “a baptism of fire” rather than the honeymoon period most new leaders expect? What actually transforms a rural woman with no business experience into an entrepreneur still running a profitable enterprise a year later? Why can it take up to 18 months to secure a single government ministry’s sign-off on a poverty programme, and what does it genuinely take to earn that signature? What did growing up watching her own family run small enterprises just to get by teach Sazini about what ending poverty really requires? Press play to hear how a tri-sector leader, shaped by government, corporate and NGO experience alike, is scaling an entrepreneurship-first model built to reach millions more. This episode is for everyone who believes real poverty alleviation starts with entrepreneurial opportunity rather than charity, and wants to understand what it genuinely takes to build an exit from extreme poverty that lasts. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 400+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. 

His teenage son had one question for the family: are we hoarding money that should be helping people right now? In this episode, Alberto sits down with Martin Dunn, a US-based philanthropist and founder of the Blue Sky Social Justice Fund, about a question sitting at the centre of his own giving: whether wealth meant to do good should be deployed now, on the problems directly in front of us, or preserved in an endowment for someone else to decide on later. Why didn’t explaining the reasons for holding onto wealth, reasons that were all technically true, actually answer his son’s question? What does it mean to treat your own net worth as a private scorecard, even when giving it away was always the plan? Why have his own children pushed back not just on personal wealth, but on the idea of saving philanthropic money for the future at all? Is there such a thing as an “enough number” when it comes to wealth? What actually gets lost when a foundation chooses to exist forever instead of choosing to deploy all its funds now? Press play to hear why one philanthropist decided the problems of today cannot wait for tomorrow’s wealth to solve them. This episode is for everyone who cares about whether money meant to do good should be spent now, or saved for later. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 400+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. 

Neither of them ever studied at Oxford or Cambridge. Now they each run a college there. In this milestone 400th episode, Alberto sits down with Professor Beth Breeze, Principal of Harris Manchester College, Oxford, and Girish Menon, President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, to find out how their two colleges have become genuine engines of social mobility inside Oxbridge — as Brits refer to Oxford and Cambridge — institutions many people still assume were only ever built to welcome one particular kind of applicant. How does one Cambridge college end up with one of the highest proportions of state-school students in the university’s history, without lowering its entry grades? What happens to a bright student who’s told, after a single open day, that he should probably just “settle” for somewhere closer to home? Why did it take a teacher noticing “a spark” — not a family connection — to get one student through the gates at all? What’s actually covered, and what isn’t, once a scholarship pays for tuition but a student still needs a bike, a set of academic robes, or rent? Can two heads of college who never earned an Oxford or Cambridge degree themselves see something the system’s own insiders can’t? Press play to hear exactly how two unlikely college heads are rewriting who gets to belong at two of the world’s best universities. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 400 case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. 

In 1714, Britain's Parliament passed the Longitude Act, offering a cash prize of up to £20,000, worth well over £2 million today, to anyone who could solve a problem that had defeated Galileo and Isaac Newton: how to measure longitude accurately at sea. Tris Dyson, Founder and Executive Director of Challenge Works, runs an organisation built on that same core idea, using big incentive competitions to accelerate breakthroughs in fields ranging from space exploration and agri-tech to urban innovation. But as Tris explains, a modern challenge prize is rarely just about the money: getting the incentives right can mean building in access to data, accelerated regulatory pathways, and new partnerships alongside any financial reward. One of the problems Challenge Works is currently taking on is also deeply personal for Tris. Three and a half years ago, he was diagnosed with ALS and told he had three to five years to live. In this episode, he joins Alberto Lidji to talk about challenge prizes more broadly, and about the prize he's helping build that could change the odds, for himself and for millions of others living with neurodegenerative disease. Tris explains what it actually takes to design a challenge prize that works, drawing on examples from the original Longitude Prize to today's hunt for solutions to antimicrobial resistance and even extracting drinking water from lunar rock, and what has to be in place, the right target, the right incentives, the right enabling environment, before a single team ever starts competing. Neural implants are already restoring movement in people with Parkinson's, and showing early promise for memory too. Tris also talks about "brain twins" that could let scientists test new treatments without ever touching a real brain, and why he believes the biggest obstacle standing in the way of curing these diseases isn't the science, but the bureaucracy sitting on top of it. This episode is for anyone who believes in the power of ambitious thinking to drive breakthroughs. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 350+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. 

Every year, the International Rescue Committee publishes an Emergency Watchlist predicting the twenty countries most likely to face a major humanitarian crisis in the year ahead. For the past three years, the country at the top of that list, Sudan, has received comparatively modest media coverage next to crises like Ukraine, despite being, by the numbers, the world's largest humanitarian emergency. In this episode, Flora Alexander, Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee UK (IRC UK), joins Alberto Lidji to explore why some of the world's most severe conflicts struggle to make the headlines, and how donors can be confident that the money they give actually reaches the people who need it. Founded in 1933 at Albert Einstein's urging to help Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, the IRC today works across the full arc of crisis — from Ukraine to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and from resettlement programmes in the UK to frontline health clinics around the world. What determines whether a humanitarian emergency becomes a story the world can't look away from, rather than one that quietly falls off the agenda? And if you wanted to help the people of a country whose leadership you have every reason to distrust, without a penny of that money ever touching the regime itself, what would it actually take to ensure your donation got to where it was needed? Flora succeeds David Miliband, the IRC's global President and Chief Executive, who was a guest on the Do One Better Podcast in 2021, and Laura Kyrke-Smith, her predecessor as IRC UK's Executive Director, who appeared on the show in 2023 before being elected as a Member of Parliament in the UK. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 350+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. 

Charles Li spent over a decade running one of the world's major stock exchanges and chairing JP Morgan China before turning his attention to an entirely different challenge: bringing institutional capital to small businesses — franchise owners, landlords, and local shopkeepers — that Wall Street has traditionally struggled to reach. In this episode, Charles, Founder and Chairman of Micro Connect, joins Alberto Lidji to explore how institutional capital might finally find its way to the small businesses that need it most. This conversation was recorded at the PBC 2026 Forum — Philanthropy for Better Cities 2026 — in Hong Kong, and forms part of a special series made possible by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, marking the forum's 10th anniversary, convened by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, in association with the Institute of Philanthropy. What does it take to convince Wall Street investors to back a business model built on the transparency of everyday transactions rather than traditional balance sheets? How does artificial intelligence change what's possible when it comes to assessing risk at that scale? And what can decades spent inside the world's biggest financial institutions teach us about building something entirely new for the world's smallest ones? Charles also reflects on his own path, from working on an oil rig, to Columbia Law School, to the top of Hong Kong's stock exchange — and what that journey tells us about reinventing yourself as the world around you changes. About Charles Li: He was appointed Chairman of JP Morgan China from 2003 to 2009. He joined Merrill Lynch in 1994, where he served as President of Merrill Lynch China from 1999 to 2003. He holds a BA in English Literature from Xiamen University, an MA in Journalism from the University of Alabama, and a JD from Columbia Law School. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 350+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. 

Across Asia, philanthropy takes markedly different forms — from mass individual and faith-based giving to corporate mandates and state-led funds. Brian San, Secretary General of the Institute of Philanthropy in Hong Kong, sheds light on twelve playbooks the Commission on Asian Philanthropy has identified as proven models: built in one market and ready to travel to others. In this episode, Brian joins Alberto Lidji to unpack what's actually working in Asian philanthropy, and why. This conversation was recorded at the PBC 2026 Forum — Philanthropy for Better Cities 2026 — in Hong Kong, and forms part of a special series made possible by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, marking the forum's 10th anniversary, convened by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, in association with the Institute of Philanthropy. Brian discusses the Institute of Philanthropy's work co-convening the Commission on Asian Philanthropy alongside the Asia Philanthropy Congress, set up by the Nippon Foundation, bringing together thirteen of Asia's most influential foundations, and their interim report, published in September 2026, "Strengthening Asia's Philanthropic Ecosystems for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth by 2050," with a final report due in Tokyo in December 2027. Brian explains why each giving model's real value lies beyond the money itself, in the technology, supply chains, and community trust that different actors bring to bear, and why understanding a model's underlying objectives and constraints matters more than assuming a single shared goal across the sector. Useful link: Commission on Asian Philanthropy Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 350+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. 

Helen Clark served as Prime Minister of New Zealand for three consecutive terms and went on to become Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme for two terms, one of the most senior roles in the entire UN system. In this episode of Do One Better Podcast, Alberto Lidji sits down with Helen for a wide ranging conversation covering her grassroots political beginnings in New Zealand's anti-apartheid movement, the state of global progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and the fragile state of the international order. Helen and Alberto discuss the importance of building pragmatic coalitions and cross sector collaboration, the role philanthropy can play amid shrinking development aid, the future of Asian philanthropy on the world stage, and her work chairing Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. They also explore the powerful role sport and volunteering play at grassroots level in building stronger communities. This conversation was recorded at the PBC 2026 Forum (Philanthropy for Better Cities 2026) in Hong Kong, and forms part of a special series made possible by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, marking the forum's 10th anniversary, convened by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, in association with the Institute of Philanthropy. It is a candid and ultimately hopeful conversation about how each of us, whatever our platform, can choose to do good. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 350+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. 

James Cowan, CEO of the HALO Trust, joins Alberto Lidji on the Do One Better Podcast to explore what happens when the fighting stops, but the dangers of war remain. The HALO Trust has been working since 1988 to save lives and restore livelihoods in communities affected by conflict. Today, it operates across 32 countries with around 10,000 staff, clearing landmines and other explosive remnants of war, while also tackling small arms and light weapons. James shares his perspective on the lasting impact of conflict and why landmines can continue to threaten civilians, often children, decades after a war has ended. He explains how HALO is using new technologies, including AI, satellite imagery, drones, robotics, ground penetrating radar, and magnetic resonance, to make clearance faster and safer. The conversation also looks at the people behind the work, the importance of employing and empowering local communities, and the role of governments and philanthropy in addressing the enormous scale of the challenge. They discuss mine risk education, the changing nature of conflict, the growing use of drones, and how humanitarian action can contribute not only to saving lives, but also to restoring livelihoods and helping countries move towards greater stability. And despite the sobering realities of today's conflicts, James leaves listeners with a powerful message: there is hope. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 350+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship.