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A Forum Of Idealists?

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Is the Skoll World Forum just a gathering of idealists? Hardly.

“The Skoll World Forum seems to be just a gathering of idealists”. This was the comment made by a friend of mine, who is one of those very few in this town not charmed by the Forum yet. Well, he must be cursing himself for having said those words – I ended up lecturing him for half an hour on how ill-informed he was. It is probably true that most of the Forum’s delegates are idealists to some extent. But hey, it’s the Skoll World Forum. The crème de la crème of the Social Enterprise world is here. And most of them work on the ground on a day-to-day basis, at grassroots levels, fighting obstacles, finding practical solutions to problems such as poverty, social injustice and climate change. So, when someone at the Forum says ‘I am changing the world’, you better don’t dismiss it as an idealistic rhetoric. If you don’t believe me, then take a quick glance at the kind of people that I met at the Forum today – Jean-Philippe de Schrevel from Blue Orchard; Chetna Gala Sinha, who runs Mann Deshi Udyogini, a Business School for rural women in India; Peter Scheuch from Ennovent; John Goldstein from Imprint Capital Advisors; Kailash Satyarthi who leads the Global March Against Child Labour; my fellow Social Edge blogger, Kjerstin Erickson from Forge….and many more!

 
I attended a session on ‘Expansion Finance for Social Impact’ in the afternoon which was moderated by Imprint’s John Goldstein, with Jean-Philippe de Schrevel from Blue Orchard, George Overholser from NFF Capital Partners and Ashish Karamchandani from Monitor Group India being the other panelists. It was an insightful discussion about social finance for scaling up social enterprises and it revolved around topics such as the ‘conveyor belt’ model, for-profit versus non-profit investing and the importance of incubation in translating brilliant ideas into high-impact social enterprises. Ashish also mentioned about a report from the Monitor Group which includes a study of nearly 300 (!!) social enterprises in India, which attempts to unearth the ‘secrets’ behind successful (and unsuccessful) social enterprises. Each of the panelists stressed on the importance of for-profit models with Jean-Philippe from Blue Orchard being particularly vocal about it, giving further evidence about how far ahead the Forum is from being just a gathering of idealists.
 
The networking lounge setup for the Forum at the centre of the Said Business School annexe is always filled with people with many of them involved in intense conversations. From what I gather, several fund-raising/investing activities are happening on the sidelines of the Forum, much like a ‘mainstream’ business conference.
 
Just a gathering of idealists? Hardly.

 

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