George Soros is a businessman and philanthropist, who has dedicated himself to the promotion of an open and flourishing civil society. George Soros is chairman and founder of Soros Fund Management and of the Open Society Institute and Soros foundations network, whose philanthropic organisations are active in more than 50 countries, building and supporting institutions for an open society. George Soros is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations and a founding member of The Phoenix Group, an organisation which supports the creation of left-leaning think tanks. George Soros has received honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Oxford, the Budapest University of Economics and Yale University, and is the author of many books – including The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (2003), Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000), and :The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered (1998). He has also co-authored a book on the philosophy of Karl Popper, whom he cites as an important influence on his life work. Soros’ first philanthropic efforts were in 1979, when he aided black students attending the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa; he has subsequently contributed to countless projects, including Georgia’s Rose Revolution and the campaign to defeat George W. Bush in America’s 2004 election.