Every time I get depressed or down reading the news, with its endless warnings about global warming, hunger, dirty water, disease and terrorism, I find an article like this one in BusinessWeek that gives me hope for our future. Social Entrepreneurs, those who use market forces to drive scalable solutions to social problems, are endlessly creative and, well, enterprising. And their numbers are growing, and their impact is being felt around the globe.
Now some of the most inspiring and successful social entrepreneurs have been nominated as “America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs” by BusinessWeek. You’ve probably heard of nominees TOM’S shoes, founded by Blake Mycoskie, and Stonyfield Farm, founded by Gary Hirshberg, but here are some up and coming superstars:
Alex Mittal of Innova Materials says ”‘One of the biggest problems in the developing world is not just access to water but water quality.’ Back at Wharton, Mittal and a group of fellow engineering students devised their thesis project around developing a low-cost water pipe that kills water-borne bacteria using off-the-shelf equipment.”
Sam Goldman and Ned Tozun turned Goldman’s experience as a Peace Corps volunteer who witnessed the dangers of lighting households using dirty kerosene lamps into a market opportunity: “ a solar-powered LED lamp…for rural households without access to electricity.” The $15-$40 lamps are marketed to households making less than $5 and made affordable through a payment plan. The company, called D.Light Design, has not only succeeded in generating $5 million in sales but has had positive impacts on the income and quality of life of the families using their lamps.
You can review all 25 inspiring companies chosen by BusinessWeek and vote for your favorite until April 26th.
Training Future Social Entrepreneurs
I love the fact that so many of these entrepreneurs are young (23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 29, 31, 32) and finding success while making the world a better place. With capitalism looking like a soul-sucking enterprise these days, it’s no wonder that the folks who might have taken huge salaries on Wall Street five years ago are passing up traditional capitalism in favor of philanthrocapitalism. To this end, I’m proud to be a facilitator this weekend for the Global Engagement Summit hosted by Northwestern University. This bootcamp for budding social entrepreneurs provides exactly the kind of training to help make big ideas into successful ventures.
Some of BusinessWeek’s featured organizations grew out of graduate program assignments, including D.Light Design. It’s no accident that every major business school is starting a program on social enterprise. For example:
- Stanford University Center for Social Innovation
- Duke’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE)
- Harvard University’s Social Enterprise Initiative
- Columbia University’s Research Initiative on Social Entrepreneurship (RISE)
- and of course, the grandaddy of them all, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, you must check out the Social Entrepreneurship channel on Change.org. It will come as no surprise that the lead blogger there is Nathaniel Whittemore, who is the founding director of–yep–this weekend’s Global Engagement Summit.
