New generation of social entrepreneurs transforming Americas

Panama City -- When Ernesto Argüello, a Honduran civil engineer, was 12 years old, he worked for his father for a month and used all his earnings to buy a pair of fancy sneakers on a family vacation trip. He was surprised his money didn’t buy more, but his father told him that some of the people he worked with had to support their families on the same wage. For Argüello, it was a transformative experience. Two years after graduating from the University of Miami in 2002, he and his brother founded HOLA Realty, a real estate development company that helps the poor buy homes for the equivalent of what they had been paying in rent as well as addresses education and other social needs to help them get ahead.