Bill Drayton may be the most important revolutionary you've never heard of. Twenty-six years ago, the former McKinsey consultant had a Big Idea: Just as entrepreneurs innovate in the business world, individuals, not governments, drive social change. He founded Ashoka, which sponsors "social entrepreneurs"—the Andrew Carnegies, Henry Fords, and Steve Jobses of the citizen sector. Ashoka has funded more than 1,800 Fellows—from a woman in Lebanon who launched a drug-rehab program to a lawyer in Thailand who helps people sue polluters. Silicon Valley philanthropists love Drayton (eBay's creators are funders); it takes an entrepreneur to know one. Drayton spoke with Condé Nast Traveler's Dorinda Elliott.

CNT: You say that people need to see problems, not walk past them. Why, while traveling or at home, do we often avert our eyes when we see poverty?

Drayton: If you present a problem without showing people what they can do about it, you create a short circuit. If a person feels he is powerless, he won't want to see. The thing that makes people happiest is helping them see problems and then giving them the opportunity and tools to solve them.

CNT: How does that apply to travel?

Drayton: If I were running a hotel in the developing world, I would know that my guests were seeing problems every time they stepped outside my door. I would not be able to make poverty go away, but I could facilitate the guests' contact with someone in the community who is trying to help—a social entrepreneur. If a traveler feels jazzed by that experience, he or she will take those new ideas home and spread them. For the industry, it's a great marketing opportunity.

CNT: How could the travel industry get involved?

Drayton: If hotels offer guests a discussion and a visit to a poverty-alleviation project, they see hope. It can be a life-changing experience.

CNT: Have you had an "Aha!" travel moment that changed you?

Drayton: When I was young, I visited a family in South India. They lived in one room, with no electricity and very little to their name. I learned that physical things didn't matter. That family was perfectly happy. When you travel, you get close to people and they are no longer statistics. I came back to the United States with a question: What am I going to do to close the income gap between the Northern and Southern hemispheres? I thought, the most powerful force is a big idea in the hands of an entrepreneur.

CNT: Can you give me an example?

Drayton: In Bangladesh, I visited a school run by an Ashoka Fellow where the kids sold candy and pencils and made candles; the bigger kids fixed pumps. They were highly motivated because they were in charge; parents who were tempted to take their children out of school didn't—because they would lose income. When the rich went to the poor kids' neighborhood to get their pumps fixed, the stereotypes came crashing down. That school was building a whole different culture.

CNT: What kind of society is least able to accept change?

Drayton: In high school, I visited Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and I saw societies where no one was a changemaker and everyone was afraid. It left me with a high level of hostility toward totalitarian regimes. They are destructive of everything we value.

CNT: Do you have a favorite trip?

Drayton: I have had so many. Being exposed to people making a difference in their communities is the best thing that's happened to me. I absorb a little of their genius every time I go, and it makes me a stronger, happier person.

Learn more about Ashoka at ashoka.org.