1990

Gregory Casagrande, the founder of MicroDreams and South Pacific Business Development Microfinance Network (SPBD), received a Social Innovation Park Fellows Award for his leadership in social entrepreneurship and innovation worldwide. MicroDreams is a Newark-based charitable microfinance acceleration fund working with emerging microfinance institutions in Latin America and the Pacific, and SPBD is the leading microfinance institution in the Pacific Islands region. Through SPBD and MicroDreams, Gregory has built the only financially sustainable micro-enterprise development organization dedicated to serving the needs of poor Pacific Island families. His organizations have directly empowered tens of thousands of poor families to start micro-businesses so that they can work their own way out of poverty.