Jan
15
Social Entrepreneurship ASB - Class Two
January 15, 2008 |
Tonight’s class was interesting and a bit of a bonding experience. I have high expectations for this class, especially since we will be spending a week traveling around visiting different socially entrepreneurial organizations, and getting to know one another even better will be extremely helpful when we start helping those organizations with random tasks. Tonight’s class definitely lived up to that expectation, and here is a quick overview of what we accomplished.
Organization Presentation
All of the students in the class were divided into pairs of two and had to perform research about six socially entrepreneurial organizations each. While some of them were doubles, there was a fair amount of uniqueness in the presentations. I was actually quite surprised by the number of organizations that are affiliated with Ashoka in some way, shape or form. A lot of the other ones were also from the Bay Area, and I got the impression that Silicon Valley is also a pretty important hub for social entrepreneurship as well.
I love my neighbor who…
The really fun activity we did in class today is very similar to many I have played in past summer camps and organizations. What happens is everyone gets in a circle, one person stands in the middle, introduces themselves, and then says, “I love my neighbor who…” and identifies something about themselves. Anyone who shares that characteristic then has to move from their spot and find an alternative spot where someone else was standing. The final person who doesn’t find a spot ends up introducing themselves and starting the process anew. We did this for awhile and everyone was much more lively when we were done.
Who’s responsible?
After the activity we had a discussion about some of the big questions facing society and the world at large, and most of this is in response to an interview of Van Jones that we had to read before class. Van Jones is a civil rights and human rights activist in Oakland, CA who is working to solve both social inequalities and environmental destruction at the same time. The interview we discussed can be found here, and below are a couple of the questions that we discussed.
- Do you believe that focusing on solving poverty is the most effective method of fighting global warming? What unique benefits or challenges come from trying to fight two social problems at once?
- Van Jones says that only those people who aren’t “low-income or marginalized” are the ones motivated to make changes in the world. He also claims that only those who revere life have the capacity to do good. To what degree is this true? Should the first problem tackled then be making everyone, even the poor, care about the world they live in?
- What sorts of awareness campaigns (if any) are presently in place to “convince” the poor that they also have a vested interest in seeing the emergence of a green economy? Is Oakland in any way unique in its ability to capitalize on a transition to a green system? If not, presumably many other poor areas in the nation could come under the impression that such a transition will return in a major turnaround for them . . . will there really be that many new jobs to go around and satisfy everyone sufficiently?
- What do you think should be the public/private balance or interaction when it comes to solving ecological problems? social problems?
- Who is responsible for solving social issues, and to what degree?
Martin Burt
The last 20 minutes of class were spent watching two videos, one of which involved Martin Burt and can watched here. As a quick summary, Mr. Burt is involved with microcredit in Paraguay, and in particular, helping teach these individuals how to be businesspeople. I found it rather insightful that he identified the problem not as a lack of resources or opportunities necessarily, but also a lack of education. For example, you could throw all of the fishing net at a person, but if they don’t have the education to use it, how can you expect them to be successful at catching fish? This paradox is exactly what Mr. Burt is working to resolve and from the video I think you will be inspired and amazed at the success he has achieved.
Victoria Hale
The other video we watched was about Victoria Hale and her work to eradicate health problems that pharmaceuticals perceive as unprofitable. She comes from the pharmaceutical industry and after some inspiration created by a taxi cab driver, she developed her own pharmaceutical company that takes on these unprofitable diseases and works to eradicate them from some of the poorest regions of the world. It is very cool to see how successful she has been especially in an industry that is considered very expensive in terms of R&D and development costs. Again, the short video clip can be viewed here.
Conclusion
Overall, class was very thought provoking and fun. We got to know each other a bit better as well as discuss some pretty deep issues. For a beginning class, that is a lot to receive! Again, I look forward to what the class has to offer and if it continues on the path it is taking, we will have an amazing experience together.