His profit-making film company, Participant Media, is known for producing movies like “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Kite Runner,” which aim to bring greater public awareness to social issues, while his investment firm, Capricorn Investments, puts money into things like waterless urinals and developing sustainable seafood products.

The Skoll Foundation underwrites the work of social entrepreneurs like Connie K. Duckworth, who founded an organization, Arzu Inc., that provides health care and higher-than-market-rate compensation to Afghan women making rugs in exchange for their pledge to send their children to school and attend literacy classes themselves.

“What I’ve been aiming at all these years is to try and address these big social issues in the world,” Mr. Skoll said, “but in the last five years or so, certain issues have emerged very clearly that, if we don’t get ahead of them soon, all of the other things we’re trying to do, whether improving the lives of women or preservation of species or girls’ education, won’t really matter.”

Dr. Brilliant, who has given up his latest job as Google’s Chief Philanthropy Evangelist, said he hoped to leverage the work of the other organizations Mr. Skoll has supported in pursuing solutions to some of the most complex threats to humanity.

“They are tools in the tool kit,” he said. “We may be using the films and creative talent of Participant, or the social entrepreneurs whose lives and work can inform our work.”