(Picture from Namaste Direct)

I haven't done this for a while, mainly since we hardly ever seem to get people voting on the social entrepreneurs highlighted here. The purpose of these 'awards' is basically to highlight social entrepreneurs, some you may have heard about some you haven't. Please vote in the comment section for your favorite, or if you have any suggestions of people we should add, please send those in to michael@creative-weblogging.com

So for this round of the Audeamus Awards, Robert Graham of NamasteDirect once again advances on, making it to his third round in a row.

*Graham's NamasteDirect, a project of the Namaste Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that connects individuals who wish to fund small loans to first-time borrowers, primarily women, in some of the most marginalized communities in Central America. The organization was originally founded as the Katalysis Partnership (now the Katalysis Microfinance Network of Central America) in 1984 by California businessman Graham.

*Next up is Andrea Silbert, the first person we've had on here running for elected office, I believe. Silbert is currently in the running for Lt. Governor of Massachusetts. She was the co-founder and CEO of the Center for Women & Enterprise, the largest nonprofit enterprise training center for women in New England, serving over 12,000 entrepreneurs since its founding in 1995. If you don't vote Silbert here, maybe you should do so in Massachusetts.

*You could pick just about any of the social entrepreneurs and enterprises that Clare Mulvany has visted during the first few months of her ten-month journey around the world, but that would basically take over this blog. So I'll pick one at random and you can go see for yourself the many people Clare has interviewed during the first leg of her journey in Africa. We'll have an interview up here with Clare pretty soon. In the meantime I'm nominating Don Edkins, a documentary film producer working in Southern Africa who has founded two production companies, Day Zero and Steps to the Future, making films that focus among other things, on HIV/AIDS. Well, Clare can tell you much more at Exceptional Lives.

*And how about Wendy Kopp, founder and president of Teach For America. Teach for America is a nationwide nonprofit that recruits recent college graduates of all academic majors to commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become leaders in the effort to expand educational opportunity.

*In the global education arena there is also John Wood, founder of Room to Read a non-profit dedicated to bringing literacy to the developing world, mainly Nepal and Vietnam. Expansion plans are underway for Southern Africa, Latin America and elsewhere in Asia.

*This one is an interesting nonprofit: Harbor City Services. Founded by John Herron as a service for the psychiatrically challenged, getting people who are recovering from substance abuse or mental illness back into the workforce. There's a good story on this at the Baltimore Sun by Jay Hancock.

*Lastly is Laila Iskandar who recently won the Schwab Foundation honor of Social Entrepreneur of the Year for Egypt. Her Community and Institutional Development group (CID) has been working on innovative recycling projects in Egypt and to address issues such as gender, health, credit, adult literacy and the environment.

Now's your chance to vote. Who will it be? Graham again? Silbert? Edkins? Kopp? Wood? Herron? Iskandar? Please vote below.