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Helping to End Poverty

Freshman Earns $10,000 Award from the S.E.VEN Fund

(Spring 2008 Newsletter)

In its inaugural national essay contest, the Social Equity Venture Fund—S.E.VEN Fund—has chosen Thomas Aquinas College freshman Luke Bueche as one of three undergraduate winners for his entry on the topic of "Reversing the Cycles of Poverty: Including the Poor in Networks of Productivity." The award is accompanied by a $10,000 prize. The other winners are enrolled at Columbia University and Mount Allison University.

The S.E.VEN Fund is a virtual non-profit entity recently established by entrepreneurs Michael Fairbanks and Andreas Widmer through a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Their strategy is to "markedly increase the rate of diffusion of enterprise-based solutions to poverty by targeting investment that fosters thought leadership through books, films, and websites; role models…in developing nations; and shaping a new discourse in government, the press, and the academy around private-sector innovation, prosperity, and progressive human values."

The essay competition spotlights important work that aligns with the Fund's mission to advance international efforts to help end poverty by connecting all people to networks of productivity. Winners were selected through a competitive review process that included a jury of leading business executives, development experts, and academics.

Essay winners addressed the question: "Poverty can be regarded as a matter of exclusion from networks of productivity, and not simply as having an unequal portion of what is imagined to be a fixed number of economic goods. In that sense, ending worldwide poverty is serious business. Describe enterprise-based solutions to poverty in this context."

Says Mr. Widmer, "This competition regards innovators and future thought leaders who understand that ending global poverty is serious business. The recipients have all taken an integrative approach to look at poverty from many different angles."

The abstract of Luke's essay states:

Poverty, traditionally seen as a shortage of economic goods, is in reality the exclusion of the poor from business and profitability. Foreign aid, dedicated to reversing a shortage of economic goods, is a fallacious solution to poverty. The true solution to poverty will integrate the poor into productive networks. The most efficient and viable solution at present is enterprise-based microfinance institutions. Proven to be successful, microfinance institutions empower the poor, exploit their ingenuity, and dignify their state of life while introducing them into productive business networks. Therefore, it is the best means to reverse poverty and its effects.

Luke Bueche is originally from Shelby Township, Michigan, and was home-schooled through 12th grade. He has participated in speech and debate events, winning several awards, and played forward on his high school basketball team. He also studied Latin and was awarded two cum laude awards for his high scores on the National Latin Exam. Luke plays the piano, as well, and has ranked among the top performers in the annual testing run by the Michigan Music Teachers Assocation. At the College, Luke continues to be involved in sports and music, and aims to refine his thinking and rhetorical skills. He is also an acolyte and served as Master of Ceremonies during the Easter Triduum at the College.

-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2008