Hilary is an internationally acclaimed British social entrepreneur, recognised by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and named UK Designer of the Year in 2005. In 2006 Hilary founded Participle (www.participle.net) to design working exemplars of a new welfare state. Before her UK work she spent twelve years in Africa and Latin America, latterly as an urban poverty specialist at the World Bank in Washington DC. Her TED Talk: Social Services are Broken: How Can We Fix Them has had over half a million views. She lives in London.
Radical Help is the most important book I have read in the last decade. It is a must read for everyone - in the public, civic, or private sectors - who believes that we can indeed make a measurable and lasting difference in the lives of our fellow human beings, even those who may seem hardest to help -- Anne-Marie Slaughter Humane and beautifully written . . . there are powerful ideas here. This book should lie required reading for every politician, professional and manager who seeks to make the UK a better place -- Nicolas Timmins * Prospect * Packed with moving vignettes . . . Cottam's ideas could help transform the way we all live * New Statesman *