Paul Polak is the co-founder and CEO of Windhorse International, a for-profit social venture that designs radically affordable, life-saving or income-generating technology to serve the poorest people in the world. In 2008, Polak founded D-Rev, a non-profit with the aim of designing and delivering medical products to people living on less than $4 a day

Polak was born in the Czech Republic and raised in Canada. He holds an M.D. degree from the University of Western Ontario.In addition to his social ventures, he has practiced psychiatry in Colorado for 23 years. Paul is also the author of“Out of Poverty.”

In this interview, Paul discusses: 

• Why improving livelihoods is so important to lift people out of poverty
• The only way to reach scale as a social venture
• Why social entrepreneurs need to continually ask questions
• Why impact investors need to take bigger risks
• The importance of big goals