Azhar Aslam is a plastic surgeon with a practice in London and deep ties to his home country of Pakistan, where he is an active philanthropist. He’s also the developer of the Speed Literacy Program, which gives illiterate children the basics of reading and writing after six months of studying only a few hours per day.

Azhar came to the Antigua Forum with a problem: How to dramatically scale a tool that’s been proven to work with a few dozen children in Pakistan, when the country has twenty million young people and many of them are illiterate?

Working with a team of participants at the Antigua Forum, Azhar quickly realized that it would not be enough to simply hire teachers or raise funds. Azhar and team evaluated strategies and options, then developed an approach that focuses on strategic partnerships to achieve broad distribution at low cost, along with better tailoring of the program to meet the needs of users.

Since his participation at the Antigua Forum, Azhar has taken the Speed Literacy Program to new levels. Important design changes include modifications that make the curricula available to multiple audiences, including children who are not enrolled in school (the poorest families cannot afford for their children to study full-time) as well as children who are studying within existing schools in Pakistan (often with very limited resources).

Examples include an intensive program for largely illiterate children at a camp for Pakistanis displaced by the Taliban, where ninety-five students achieved elementary proficiency in a four-month period. To reach other children outside the country’s existing school system, Azhar’s program has built ten low-cost centers that teach literacy in the national language of Urdu, provide an introduction to English, and also teach basic life skills.

While these high-profile efforts help the neediest children, the Speed Literacy Program expands its reach most effectively through the use of strategic partnerships. Recently, Azhar signed a MOU with one of Pakistan’s regional governments for a program that will reintegrate children who have fallen away from school. Another regional government also is considering a similar proposal. In addition, Azhar and team are far along in talks with the country’s federal institute of Madrassas and the Pakistani Red Crescent to establish educational centers that would use the Speed Literacy Program to reach many, many more children.

Mickey Costa and James Schuler came to Antigua Forum 2014 with a project to transform how politicians and political causes get access to money, especially from smaller donors. They left with an idea for a project to transform how another group gets access to money—the billions of people across the world with no bank accounts and little if any credit.

At the Antigua Forum, these young entrepreneurs learned from experts about challenges facing the unbanked. They also learned about Bitcoin and had detailed technical discussions about the workings of digital currencies. They soon saw a chance to help a lot of people.

Back home, Mickey and James called on new friends and mentors from the Antigua Forum who were excited to help. Ruth Richardson, former minister of finance in New Zealand, provided regular advice along with introductions to executives in financial institutions and in regulatory agencies. Soon, Mickey and James had a working prototype of a Bitcoin-based debit card. John Chisholm, a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist who they’d also met in Antigua, helped them show the prototype to investors in Silicon Valley. By the fall of 2014, they had their first funding, from a prominent Silicon Valley VC they met through John.

Next, they called Michael Strong, another new friend and mentor from Antigua Forum, who introduced them to his wife, Magatte Wade, a successful entrepreneur from Africa. Mickey and James soon were testing a pilot in Magatte’s home country of Senegal. It was a big success.

Ebal Díaz almost didn’t make it to the Antigua Forum gathering in 2012. As the legislative secretary of the Honduran congress, he was a busy man. He was someone more likely to advise the politicians and make things happen from behind the scenes than be the face of a reform. He spoke English with a strong accent. But Ebal also was a fast learner and a good listener, with a keen understanding of what needed to be done in his country.

At the Antigua Forum, Ebal was introduced to a whole new way of thinking about issues that mattered deeply to him and his country, especially education. Jeff Sandefer brought experience as an entrepreneur who had built private schools and a reformer who had proposed huge changes in education. Jeff had a project to build schools that empower children to take responsibility for their own education. Ebal’s many conversations with Jeff and a few other participants, including Nobel Prize–winning economist Vernon Smith, were transformative.

When Ebal returned from the Antigua Forum, he told friends, “I’ve figured it out. I know what we have to do regarding education reform.” He assembled a team to craft a huge reform package, and brought in experts to help out in specific areas. Ebal’s core take away from the Antigua Forum was that in education, the rights of families come first, and that families should have a wide range of possibilities for educational methods.

Jason Heckathorn came to Antigua Forum 2016 as an entrepreneur with big challenges. As CEO of Forever Oceans, he was leading the transition of a sophisticated technology from a Fortune 500 defense industry giant into commercial mariculture. The firm was building a new type of fish farm focused on warm water species that could be autonomously farmed in the open oceans in an environmentally friendly way. The implications—increased food production, more economic development, lower environmental impact—were huge.

Jason connected with the Antigua Forum thanks to Art Chait, then-president of the event and a mentor at Stanford University’s StartX Accelerator. Jason was already working with Stanford’s StartX to spin off Forever Oceans from its Fortune 500 parent. In speaking with Art, it became clear that the potential global impact of Forever Oceans, and the political and economic challenges the firm faced, made it a great candidate for the Antigua Forum.

Jason needed advice. How to build a base of international finance partners? How to grow the business in a global market with political and economic risks that vary dramatically by country and region? How to sell the model to investors as well as host governments?

With help from his facilitator, Jason shared the firm’s business opportunity, its values of economic and environmental sustainability, and its challenges. The feedback came from many directions. Dan Grossman, an entrepreneur and board member at Atlas Network, pointed out that Forever Oceans had been focused on ventures in developing countries with warm waters, yet there could be value in pursing ventures in countries with strong rule of law. Along with other participants, they analyzed the politics and economics of business in regions as diverse as the South Pacific, South America, and Northern Europe. Then they dug deeper, conceiving and outlining a demonstration center for potential finance partners to see their innovative model without distracting on-going operations.

Rainer Heufers knew what he wanted to do well before he arrived at the Antigua Forum 2016 gathering. As a policy expert and former representative for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Asia, he understood how bad policies hurt good people. As founder of the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies, he knew what policies most hurt Indonesians, especially the poor and vulnerable.

Rainer pitched a simple message: Over a third of Indonesia’s population of 250 million live on $100 or less per month per family. Spending up to 70 percent of their income on food, they waste $20 per month—a fifth of their household income—on food prices that have been inflated by tariffs and quotas. Eliminating these tariffs and quotas would save these poor and vulnerable families up to $6 billion every year. Rainer asked for help to change this unjust system.

When Vidar Jorgensen attended his first Antigua Forum gathering, in January 2015, he hadn’t planned on bringing a project. As majority owner of three companies that manage over two hundred conferences annually, he was happy to simply contribute to others’ projects. But as co-founder of the microfinance organization Grameen America, he also was hoping to get ideas for a new venture to make both finance and health care available to low-income populations. He decided to pitch a project.

Vidar told the Antigua Forum participants how Grameen America has built upon Grameen Bank, which together with Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering efforts in microfinance. In the United States, Grameen America successfully provides loans to mostly poor immigrant women for income-producing activities. These same women and their families obtain health care at high-cost, low-quality clinics. Vidar and his team were in the process of establishing Grameen PrimaCare as a nonprofit that would serve this market in Queens, New York. The venture was early stage, with many questions.

The Antigua Forum participants worked with Vidar to come up with strategies and solutions. Digging deeply, it soon became clear that Grameen PrimaCare and Grameen America should have a common leadership that aligns the interests of both organizations. Participants also drew on lessons from other countries on how to support the health of low-income populations. These included strategies on how to blend health care with other valuable services, such as tips on where to find stores that sell day-old bread or reduced-price produce. Such services help attract new customers to the member-based clinic, and encourage them to come for care. Other recommendations focused on a number of low-cost activities, such as bottle collection, to help fund the project while building a sense of community. Vidar was surprised by how many ideas never would have occurred to him. Then he went home and implemented them.

At the Antigua Forum 2016 gathering, Luis presented IDEAS Labs – IMPACT Accelerator, a project designed to foster market-liberal public policy reforms. He leads this project through the Institute for Enterprise Development and Social Action (IDEAS), where he is president.

Prior to the Antigua Forum, Luis already had presented IDEAS Labs – IMPACT Accelerator to different groups, including Atlas Network’s Liberty Forum. His mentor from Atlas, Juan José Daboub, encouraged him to attend the Antigua Forum. Luis arrived with the outline for a simple yet powerful program: choose important policy areas; request proposals for reforms from a broad audience; choose the best proposals; develop strategies for these proposals to succeed; and then execute these strategies.

#RevoluciónCR has gained attention from government leaders, NGOs, academics, community leaders, and the press. Recently, Luis and IDEAS signed an MOU with Costa Rica’s Ministry of Commerce to help reform key policies. The country is applying for membership to the OECD and there are important requirements related to public policy reforms. Luis and team will help the government to develop reforms needed to meet the economic criteria for membership in the OECD, and to do this they will apply the IDEAS Labs – IMPACT Accelerator methodology.

Continuing his path of creative innovation, Luis will launch, by early 2017, Don Lucho, a new brand of beer that embodies the ideas of #RevoluciónCR. Don Lucho, which refers to someone who fights for what’s right, is expected to raise awareness for public policy reform.

Surse Pierpoint came to the Antigua Forum 2014 gathering with a big idea. A native of Panama and the general manager of the association representing the country’s free trade zone, he was witness to how markets and trade improve the well-being of people. He also was aware of the gut-wrenching poverty that characterizes the Colón neighborhood adjacent to the Canal Zone.  He asked the Antigua Forum participants to help him sell Panama’s political leadership on a free trade zone for one of the poorest areas of his country.

Surse left the 2014 gathering with a strong pitch to sell his idea to the presidential candidates from the country’s three main political parties. He went home and spent the next few months marketing his idea, and all three of these parties and their candidates heard him. In May of that year, the candidate who won was the first to embrace the idea and the most vocal about the need to do something for Colón. After he was elected, President Varela named Surse the co-chairman, with the minister of finance, of the committee to establish rules for a free trade zone in this area.

Soon faced with a new set of challenges—as the “dog that caught the bus” he now had to figure out what to do—Surse reminded himself of the questions that had been raised at the Antigua Forum for projects that were further along. Then he asked to return to Antigua Forum in 2015.

Once again working with a team of talented and committed participants, Surse and friends came up with a strategy to address the challenges his new project would face. In particular, multiple constituencies would have an opinion about the possible free trade zone, including leaders from the business sector and political, religious, and community leaders. How could the project come to fruition with a set of rules that would allow trade to flourish? Surse left the Antigua Forum with a strategy that he could put in place immediately, as well as lessons that he could draw upon in the months ahead.

In March 2016, the Panamanian congress passed, and the president signed into law, clear rules to establish the Colón Puerto Libre. Investment is now coming to this new zone.

Daniel Raisbeck came to the Antigua Forum 2015 gathering with an unusual and ambitious project. He wanted to decriminalize drugs in his home country of Colombia to break the decades-long cycle of violence and corruption. He left with a communications strategy as well as a better understanding of how to think like an entrepreneur to promote reforms.

Daniel returned to Antigua Forum in January 2016 and reconnected with Surse Pierpoint, who mentioned his role with the Bastiat Society, an international organization that connects business leaders with market liberal ideas. Daniel followed up and soon was in charge of launching the Bastiat Society’s chapter in Colombia, which he now leads.

In addition to public speaking, after the 2015 election Daniel also started writing for the PanAm Post, an online news and opinion magazine. Shortly before attending the Antigua Forum 2016 gathering, he learned that the magazine’s owners were considering a change in leadership and that they also wanted to include more high-profile interviews. Daniel used his participation at the Antigua Forum to interview influential and well-regarded participants.

Given his role as an experienced and principled political candidate, writer, and interviewer, the decision was made to appoint Daniel chief editor. In this role, Daniel says he’s applying what he’s learned at the Antigua Forum to run the PanAm Post as a sustainable business, regularly trying experiments to better communicate ideas. One year after becoming the new editor, he has the publication back on its feet with page views up from half a million to almost two million per month.