George Soros
Founder and Chairman
Open Society Institute
A global financier and philanthropist, George Soros is the founder and chairman of a network of foundations that promote, among other things, the creation of open, democratic societies based upon the rule of law, market economies, transparent and accountable governance, freedom of the press, and respect for human rights.
As his financial success mounted, Soros applied his wealth to help foster the development of open societies. In 1979, Soros provided funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa. In 1993, Soros created the Open Society Institute, which supports the Soros foundations working to develop democratic institutions throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. His network of philanthropic organizations dedicated to building open societies has expanded to include more than 60 countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Despite the breadth of his endeavors, Soros is personally involved in planning and implementing many of the foundation network's projects. His visionary efforts have produced a remarkable record of successful philanthropy, including efforts to free developmentally challenged people from life-long confinement in state institutions, to provide palliative care to the dying, to win release for prisoners held without legal grounds in penitentiaries in Nigeria, to halt the spread of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, to create debate societies, to promote freedom of the press, and to help resource-rich countries establish mechanisms to manage their revenues in a way that will promote economic growth and good governance rather than poverty and instability.
George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. He emigrated to England in 1947, where he graduated from London School of Economics (LSE). In 1956, he emigrated to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through his investment activities.
While a student at LSE, Mr Soros became familiar with the work of philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his philanthropic activities.
Mr Soros believes that an open society is a society based on the recognition that nobody has a monopoly on the truth, that different people have different views and interests, and that there is a need for institutions to protect the rights of people to allow them to live together in peace. Broadly, an open society is characterised by a reliance on the rule of law, the existence of a democratically elected government, a diverse and vigorous civil society, and respect for minorities and minority opinions.
Mr Soros established his first foundation, the Open Society Fund, in 1979, and his first Eastern European foundation in Hungary in 1984. In addition to many articles on political and economic changes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Mr. Soros is the author of The Alchemy of Finance (1987), Opening the Soviet System (1990), Underwriting Democracy (1991), The crisis of global capitalism - Open Society endangered (1998), and Reforming global capitalism (2000).
