chairman of Soros Fund Management and well-known philanthropist, will call upon civil society to be more engaged in strengthening international institutions, rather than in destroying them. His challenge calls for a reform process which would empower these organizations to better deal with the problems of globalization.
George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. In 1947 he emigrated to England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics. While a student at the London School of Economics, Mr. Soros became familiar with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his philanthropic activities. In 1956 he moved to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed.
Mr. Soros currently serves as President and Chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, a private investment management firm which serves as principal investment advisor to the Quantum Group of Funds, a series of international investment vehicles.
Mr. Soros established his first foundation, the Open Society Fund, in New York in 1979 and his first Eastern European foundation in Hungary in 1984. He now funds a network of foundations that operate in over thirty countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Central Eurasia, as well as in Southern Africa, Haiti, Guatemala, and the United States. These foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society.
Mr. Soros has also founded other major institutions, such as the Central European University and the International Science Foundation. In 1996, the foundations in the network spent a total of approximately $362 million; in 1997, $428 million; in 1998, $574 million; and in 1999, $560 million. Giving for 2000 is expected to be maintained at a similar level.
In addition to many articles on the political and economic changes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Mr. Soros is the author of:
Mr. Soros has received honorary doctoral degrees from the New School for Social Research, the University of Oxford, the Budapest University of Economics, and Yale University. In 1995, the University of Bologna awarded Mr. Soros its highest honor, the Laurea Honoris Causa, in recognition of his efforts to promote open societies throughout the world.