By PAM GRAHAM
The best entrepreneur in Australia this year was a New Zealander.
David Bussau has received the Ernst & Young Australian Entrepreneur of the Year award for helping people in developing countries to set up small businesses.
"David Bussau is the ultimate entrepreneur," said Ernst & Young chief executive Brian Schwartz.
By providing the resources for others to become entrepreneurs he had positively affected millions of people.
It is the first time the award has gone to someone for non-profit work.
Bussau co-founded aid organisation Opportunity International and created Tear Fund's micro-enterprise development programme. Its projects can be as small as $25 loans to individuals to make food to sell in local markets.
Bussau, born in 1940, was abandoned by his parents and raised in the Sedgley Anglican children's home in Masterton.
After achieving business success of his own, he moved on to "marketplace evangelism".
He was travelling in Indonesia yesterday and could not be contacted.
In an Australian Story TV programme in 2001, he described how he wanted to take control of his life after growing up in an orphanage. His first business was a hot-dog stand, then a fish'n'chip shop and burger bar.
He moved to Sydney in 1965 and became a millionaire by the age of 35 through his businesses in the construction industry.
His disaster-relief work began in 1974 when he organised reconstruction work in Darwin after a cyclone.
Herald Feature: Entrepreneurs
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