Skoll Scholars 2009

Swf2009-37

By Susana Frazao Pinheiro

Larry Brilliant (Google.org) moderated a practitioner showcase entitled “Healthcare: early detection and prevention”. The panel included four other amazing speakers:

Bart Weetjen - one of this year’s Skoll Awardees – who told how the organisation he founded - APOPO - works to find ways to use rodents to detect landmines and early stage tuberculosis (see www.apopo.org);

Gene Falks from motheres2mothers (www.m2m.org) that offers a sustainable model to provide education and treatment to pregnant women and mothers living with HIV/AIDS;

Paul Farmer who with profound insight and a great sense of humour talked about providing direct health care services, research and advocacy on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty, a task that Partners in Health (www.pih.org) – the organization Dr. Farmer co-Founded – has been undertaking for over 20 years; and

Nathan Wolfe who has developed the Global Forecasting Viral Initiative (GVFI www.gfvi.org) one of the most innovative ways to warn about diseases that already exist and of new ones that might develop.

The high impact initiatives created by this panel provide innovative and sustainable ways for tacking early detection, prevention and education on many threatening diseases. The panel shared their powerful experiences with the audience, and discussed ways to overcome some of the past and present failures in the provision of healthcare to the most vulnerable populations, and globally.

Bart Weetjen trains HeroRATS to detect mines and TB; in 2008 53 HeroRATS were trained and in Mozambique alone over 100 landmines have been cleared. APOPO aims to become the Centre of Excellence in detection rat technology by providing an affordable means for demining techniques (approximately 1.2 dollars per m2) and for early diagnosis of tuberculosis. This is high relevant when once thinks that TB is highly prevalent in many regions. The model is based on the ability of rats to detect a smell that is characteristic of early stage TB; and they can screen faster than a lab technician. It has got the added advantage that the African Giant Pouched Rat can be found everywhere in Africa.

APOPO’s greatest obstacle to scale up: convert the method into standard technique requires further R&D (something that the Skoll Award can help make possible!).

Mothers2mothers came as a response to two related issues explained Gene Falks: the failure of medical systems in developing world and the obstacles that HIV+ women face during pregnancy. “As science and technology evolve there are unprecedented opportunities to save lives, but as we advance medical science there aren’t enough medics to help”. Pediatric AIDS is virtually non-existent in the developing world, but in sub-Saharan Africa from around 1.3million HIV+ pregnant mothers 1/3 will transmit HIV to their babies. Treatment is increasingly available, and one single dose can cut transmission rates by half, and further down to virtually zero.

Yet many women do not know that treatment is available, there is a lack of belief in its success, and fear and stigma are still a big impediment.

How can under-resourced systems do more? Mothers2mothers decided to take a different approach: mother talking to another mother (peer-counselling) – and creating a delivery network that supported this activity to multiply impact and provide intensive care all over. The model is replicable, scalable, and sustainable (women are professionalised: trained, paid, accountable and responsible).

Mothers2mothers has now grown to 500 sites and reaches 1.3M patients.

Paul Farmer illustrates the importance of innovative solutions to fight HIV/AIDS:

“In Lesotho there are communities where more than 30% of the young adults will have HIV; that is also a reason why TB is so difficult to control. It costs money to build systems that are catered to prevention. “ “There is a lot of money out there and the majority is not going to poor people, and there is no way to reach rural areas.” Partners in Health’s model is based on building a health care system by using community members as source of primary entry place back into community and healthcare. Partners in Health has started cycles that not only create jobs, but also strengthen health systems. “We make use of social entrepreneurship in the service of health-system strengthening”.

Nathan Wolfe explains how the GFVI works as an early warning of the next disease that is yet to make the jump to humans. Dr. Wolfe starts by posing the question “why if HIV existed since as early as 1929 did we go without identifying it?” Most efforts are focused in pandemics, and these are incredibly difficult to address. HIV, like other human viruses, came from an animal reservoir  (according to the most accepted views on the origin of HIV). The GVFI focuses on monitoring individuals that might be points of interface for new viruses to enter the population; hunters are one such group.  Through work with the local population, partnerships and monitoring sites and surveillance the GFVI has already discovered two new viruses.

The Q&A was equally lively. Considering that the focus of many of these initiatives is Africa, and resourced-limited settings, one inevitable question was with regards to the brain drain in these regions: can social innovation try to address this?

Paul Farmer mentioned that it is a political economy question – brain drain comes from the opportunity of greater payments elsewhere, but the major problem is that local and national health systems are failed, the work conditions are intolerable. We need to work on development and other forces beyond public health to stop a pandemic.

Solutions ought to be based in innovative approaches; the greatest innovation at all will be to provide commitment to high quality care for poor people. Besides community health care workers have to be paid to make it sustainable.

What impact might climate change have on the distribution of infectious diseases? Nathan Wolfe addressed this issue by mentioning human interconnectivity.  Climate change will alter the nature of how diseases work in the human population. “We are a single interconnected village and something can easily move. We must develop novel systems to address these challenges (the internet as a global immune system?). When there is an outbreak we will need solutions that function also in the economic context (low resources, local environments).

Paul farmer made a last remark on the need for global investment in health and the development of metrics.

Many interesting questions came up in this amazing discussion.

We will leave you with a take-away message: “At the end it is not that difficult. You just have to think in a way that is not the way the system works”.

Scale is something that social entrepreneurs haven't been able to achieve widely (yet). Perhaps the focus on the passionate, stubborn, driven social entreprenuer as  both the catalyst and conductor of these amazing projects and organizations, has limited scaling up to the hours in the day of that single entrepreneur.... Or perhaps the origins of each of the wonderfully successful social enterprises we learn about stem from a convergence of precise condition that are hard to recreate. How to bring social enterprises to scale is not a new topic (ie blueprinting social enterprises)-- but it is certainly still relevant (as scale, success and impact are often bundled together) and certainly a buzz word flying around the SWF...

That's what made me, a current MBA student, curious to check out this afternon SWF workshop session "A Sector Strategy to Scaling Your Social Enterprise..." along with around 30-40 other SWF delegates. Here are some highlights:

Why a sector approach?

The Global Social Benefit Incubator at Santa Clara University's Center for Science, Technology and Society mentors 18-20 organizations per year through intensive two week residential "boot-camps", which focus on achieving sustainability at scale. In this workshop session, however, James and Al weren't talking about boot camps. They talked about ways to scale up more rapidly through a different approach they call a sector strategy:

Suppose we recruited a number of enterprises all from the same sector and did some additional research- to foster cross learning and to benchmark the approach...

What could a sector approach look like in practice?

Let's apply this approach to one sector- the water sector, because a key part of what needs to happen for low income markets is to develop the infrastructure such as water.

Look at the sector coherently and identify key gaps. What are the:

• challenges and barriers (i.e. broken distribution and supply chains)
• technology alternatives and performance benchmarks
• different business models being used

• policy changes needed to create an enabling environment for private sector solutions

The Naandi Foundation was one of the four organizations GSBI looked at in this beta testing of the sector strategy approach. Operating in India, the Naandi Foundation was able to bring down the costs of clean drinking water to $18 /year for an entire family of six. The whole water project is designed for scaling because it's a business: water is provided through 'high tech' looking water service points and a  user fee ensures sustainability (even without subsidies).  Each location generates a surplus, which supports further growth: Nanndi plans to reach 9 million drinking water customers in 2010.

The big idea? Share some elements from sector leaders' models, such as the Naandi Foundation, in cross-learning and benchmarking to create a sector approach to scale .....

What are the benefits of the sector model?

• identify market needs and design alternatives
• explore high impact points of leverage
• identify social enterprise boundary conditions
• discover new organizational forms and strategy
• evaluate potential alliances and partnerships
• benchmarks solutions and catalyze access to capital
• assess social enterprise as development strategy
• improve investor portfolio efficiency
• potential scaling for the sector

'Sector strategy' or 'sector approach' reminds me of SWAps- sector wide approaches to development aid (read about it on DFID's website) which harmonizes high level direction of aid between donors. In contrast, the sector strategy approach presented here focuses on deliverables and on-the-ground impact. But questions linger:  how does one reach a harmonized sector strategy among a diverse set of actors? Which organizaiton or body holds to authority or presuasion to declare such a strategy? And where does the sector knowledge live? And who is its keeper? And what about the danger of suffocating healthy competition between social enterprises? (or is there such a thing?)

The session on “Investing for impact: Catalysing an emerging industry” was one of the most engaging sessions I have attended during the Skoll World Forum 2009. Toby Eccles from Social Finance Ltd. moderated a discussion on the development of this emerging industry: investing for impact.

Jessica Freireich (Monitor Institute) started the discussion by mentioning that as in any emerging industry there is a need for clarity in definitions; investing for impact is to actively seek environmental and social value. As such there is on one hand an opportunity to engage capital providers in doing this type of investment, and on the other side there is a growing recognition of broader solutions to the challenges we face (that simple philanthropy has not been able to meet). Interestingly, this is an activity that is moving into the core of financial institutions. Monitor has very elegantly segmented impact investors into impact first vs. capital first (see Monitor’s Report on Investing for Social & Environmental Impact at www.monitorinstitute.com/impactinvesting). What if there was a structure that allowed for a combination of capital from impact first and financial first investors? – that´s what Monitor has designated as “Yin-Yang deals”.

Pawan Mehra of Intellcap explained how often companies addressing low income markets allow for capital to come after seed funding, and how that gets organisations off the ground, and how more mainstream capital can leverage local rural production facilities, and community based solutions, generating wealth locally. 

The Calvert Social Investment Fund mobilises capital to make sure it reaches organisations that are doing important work at ground level. Shari Berenbach pointed out how market rules don’t quite apply to what we consider a social capital market. Importantly, “we should rethink assumptions about investment - understanding what kinds of return are being expected, and the type of risk and return being assumed is essential” (usually 1 to 3% rates of return are quite acceptable for investors in this space). A more enabling use of capital could be the expectation of softer returns in order to allow for the enterprise to have broader reach.

Toby Eccles started the Q&A by asking “If we were Skoll 2019 what would this space look like?” The conversation should be more about allocation and metrics. Entrepreneurs should now see this space as impact opportunity and financial return, by moving away from the doing it for the social good vs. profit making. The industry should also be discussing how to capture value. More of the market infrastructure of operating markets should have moved into the social investment space, with benchmarking, data, information, and all the things that help markets become more efficient.  A word of caution from our panel: for us to see actual impact in 10 years time the challenges have to be resolve and the financial crisis should not slow down our ability to do so – we must avoid expectation bubbles and green washing.

The session generated a lot of discussion and several other topics were raised by the audience and addressed by the speakers. The difficulty in sizing the market, Social Enterprise structure and how hybrid models can be legally established (a number of initiatives in different country settings are being developed, of which one example is the Community Interest Company (CIC) in the UK), the role of government in this industry and opportunities around regulation.

One other interesting question was on how to achieve maturity in this industry, and how it could be accelerated through collective action platforms for investors to work together (we suggest following the The Global Impact Investing Network at www.globalimpactinvestingnetwork.org).

Shari Berenbach points to other important issues to be addressed: liquidity, exit frameworks, types of returns, scalability, track records, business models by which value is being delivered (new business models and innovation), need for metrics (unless we can actually see what the benefits are it is not going to be as efficient as its potential).

To summarise, the discussing focused on the great opportunity that investors have to generate social and environmental impact, whilst still expecting some returns (and that these expectations must be managed and well-understood by all sides). But there are also risks. To seize this opportunity the sector must be closer to the field but “if we don’t get a cultural blend we risk not getting it done” Toby Eccles adds.

But what interventions are required to grow this space (and so that in 2019 we do see some real impact)? We must have a common vocabulary, more transparent benchmarks, and metrics around risk and return. The calibre of the capital needed should help the demand side, and for that to happen entrepreneurs should be working within low-income markets in this space.

A take-away message: financial returns and social and environmental impact are not in conflict; there is a great opportunity to create something new out of it (Especially if you don’t get sucked into short-term returns)!

Vinay has summarized the panel well in an earlier post, so I’ll stick to a few personal highlights and soundbites:

• When you place the tools of culture in someone’s hands, you put them on the path to empowerment.
• Storytelling as a project of cultural intervention
• The importance of understanding the difference between sympathy (audience moves on) versus empathy (audience moves in)
• I was particularly impressed with Greg Baker’s candor in acknowledging the level of manipulation inherent to the storytelling process. It’s a tough thing to discuss. Words like extraction, collection, manipulation don’t exactly feel warm and fuzzy, but I think the audience heard it in the spirit with which it was intended. Refreshingly honest.
• Greg also noted that stories often come from surprising sources, so ‘always let them take you over the next hill or around the next corner.’
• Note to self: bring tissues whenever Susan Collin Marks speaks. Her powerful and personal story about working in conflict resolution in the Middle East ensured that there wasn't a dry eye in the room.
• From the audience came the challenge to avoid the temptation of ‘making films for people who already agree with us’ and to figure out ways to engage audiences day in / day out.
• Amitabha Sadangi from IDE-India showed a two-minute clip (with requisite singing and dancing!) that drove home the importance of understanding your audience. Who knew low-cost irrigation technology could be so fun?
• As happened throughout the Forum in various sessions I attended, reference was made to Sundance Institute Executive Director Ken Brecher’s beautiful and moving Opening Plenary speech (watch it online to see a master storyteller at the top of his game). And as Cara noted at the end of the panel, Ken’s story was a reminder of our capacity for great cruelty as well as great transcendence.
  
  
   

Moderator: Paula Ellis, Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Speakers: William Drayton, CEO, Ashoka; Gregor Hackmack, Co-Founder, Parliamentwatch, NGO; Sasa Vucinic, Managing Director, Media Development Loan Fund.

We are witnessing the destruction of the old media order – and the noisy, thrilling invention of something new. Tectonic shifts in technology and human behaviour have changed forever the way we create, deliver and consume information. The result: a host of emerging models from around the globe that thrive on connection and community, promising previously unimagined opportunities to engage people as active, change-making citizens.

The session began with Paula introducing to the audience new and innovative media systems in the new order. William Drayton, speaking on the subject said that in this new order everyone is a contributor. Social Entrepreneurs had a more important role to play in a world where network effect has a scaling effect. Also, a lot of interpersonal relations are based on evolved human judgments. The challenge however is how the new media can be used to do the same. He said what was disconcerting was that the new society was moving away from openly discussing ethics. In a rapidly changing world where everyone is a changemaker it is incumbent that journalism helps frame the issues since it cannot be a solution provider.

Gregor has created an impartial online platform enabling direct, public dialogue between individual citizens, their elected representatives, and journalists--holding politicians accountable, giving citizens easy access to political information, and enriching media coverage. Through his two online gateways, Parliament Watch and Candidate Watch, Gregor casts light on the often hidden business of parliamentary politics by giving citizens opportunity to track the actions of politicians over time, giving access to speeches, contributions to parliamentary debates, and voting records—and creates forums for unaccustomed interaction between politicians and constituents. In sharing with the audience examples of the impact active citizenry has had in Germany, he said ‘code of conduct’ was an evolving process. Curators and Constitutional Judges on their committees have played a pivotal role in the moderation process and defining the code of conduct.

Susa Vucinic, in his ‘previous life’ as a journalist realized that there was a need for a world organization that could provide financial support to media companies. This was the thought behind the birth of Media Development Loan Fund. He introduced to the audience new terminology to our language in ‘Digital-native’ and ‘Digital-immigrant’ explaining today’s digital divide.

In summary,

• Traditional press has a structural bias against future. They are pressed for time and hence tend to ignore alternatives and also prefer not to be seen as advocating. That is one of the reasons they are losing out. If you look at blogs etc that restraint is withering away.
• The panel punctuated that information does not change behaviour. Our relations to that information changes behaviour.
• Trust, everyone agreed was a key issue. Unfortunately things have shifted in such a way that things need to be ‘true-enough’, ‘convincing-enough’ to sell. It has opened up a whole area for manipulation.

This session examined the levers of power in a world where everyone can be an editor – and demonstrate why. Far from mourning the demise of journalism, there’s a reason to celebrate a new generation.

A few years ago I read an interview of Bill Drayton in The Times of India. It resonated with my calling to be a social entrepreneur. To be able to speak to him today and share this was in itself a fulfilling experience.

“Everyone has the skills and confidence to be a changemaker. ”- Bill Drayton.

Development has transformed over the last decade. Social Entrepreneurs, philanthropists, celebrities, new NGOs and global advocacy networks have injected new energy and ideas into the sector. This creates new opportunities, as additional resources and attention are brought to bear on persistent development problems, but also creates new challenges around coordination and alignment. In this panel discussion, representatives from private and public organizations discussed the challenges and opportunities this new paradigm presents.

Moderator: Michael Green, Co-Author Philanthrocapitalism

Speakers: Jamie Cooper-Hohn, President and CEO, CIFF (Children's Investment Fund Foundation); His Excellency Jose Maria Figueres, Ex-President of Costa Rica; Walter Fust, CEO, Global Humanitarian Forum; Martin Fischer, Co-Founder and CEO, KickStart.

Jamie shared about CIFF and its aims to deliver large-scale, long-term transformational advances for children as evidenced by clear indicators for children to survive, thrive and mature successfully into adulthood. Working primarily in Sub Saharan Africa and India, CIFF strives to proactively and consistently deliver knockout results and leverage complementary capabilities and resources toward a shared goal.

Walter Fust is from Global Humanitarian Forum, a new international organization personally led by Kofi Annan working to build a stronger global community for overcoming humanitarian challenges of today and tomorrow. Their operational work includes policy debate and networking for collective solutions, advocacy and accountability promotion and mobilization of targeted capacity building. Walter was candid in his opinion when he said that in today’s development efforts everyone wants to coordinate and no one ready to be coordinated. He said that the key challenges were the struggle to keep promises, demography and population and climate change. He was unsure of how to stop social unrest in these times of multi layers of crisis and submitted that he had more questions than answers.

Jose, in zooming out and sharing his opinion on the challenges of the future said the whole development construct (western view) was that increased consumption was means to achieve progress. He said that the current times should be the beginning of the end of consumerism and a need for rethink whether increased consumption equates to progress, democracy and happiness as is being projected.

Martin Fischer from KickStart stressed on the need to solve the problem of poverty amidst all the other issues that we are tackling. Dealing with poverty is not about making the poor big consumers but to be able to provide access to nutritious food, healthcare, education and access to better living conditions. Innovation was the key for an inclusive development strategy he maintained.

In summary,

• Major changes in international legislation in recent times have come from grassroots changes.
• There were healthy debates on whether and if the western entrepreneurs are tinkering with the essence of society and its priorities in the eastern world.
• There is a need to address the spiritual, cultural and ethical dimensions in the new paradigm. It is not just the development paradigm.

Uncertain times like now calls for a need for additional capacity for conversation and interconnectedness to discuss the needs for a paradigm shift. There is a need for transformative impact rather than incremental.

Folks, here is my final piece from the Skoll World Forum 2009 in Oxford. It has been a humbling, inspiring, overwhelming, connecting and a fulfilling experience these last few days.

Pamela Hartigan, the Director of Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Said Business School was the hostess of the closing plenary. She began by telling us that the Skoll World Forum was 6th most twittered event in the world in the last couple of days. Hosting it at Oxford University, the oldest university in the English speaking world was illustrating the importance of it. She said that her vision for the Skoll center was to have Social Entrepreneurship as a harbinger of future systems and practices in this space. Skoll center has been awarding scholarships for MBA students that have worked on transformational change. So far, 25 Skollars (as the Skoll Scholars are called) are influencing ecosystems where they work and are the first line ambassadors of Skoll. This year there are more than 60 MBA students interested in this space and member of the Social Entrepreneurship OBN (Oxford Business Network). These students serve as infectious agents combining markets and meaning. She added that Skoll intends to contribute by convening researchers and practitioners. Skoll center is now actively pursuing the teaching fraternity at the B-school to introduce case studies on SE in subjects of Finance, Strategy etc. developing a business culture with a passion for social change.

Lord David Puttnam who spoke on “Citizens, Institutions and Shifting Power”, is a filmmaker and politician and a member of the House of Lords. He has spent recent years in the field of education that he says are the building blocks for children’s lives. Known for producing Oscar award winning movies like ‘Chariots of Fire’ he was drawing upon his rich know-how in various sectors. Quoting HG Well he said “History is a race between education and catastrophe.” He hopes in future Education triumphs. He said there was a need for a movie like Inconvenient Truth to stress on education. He held the world premiere of his new work by showing a 7 mins clip on education to the audience.

The present threat to our planet is inaction in the face of global challenges. This inaction will precipitate matters. Environmental costs he said have to be accounted for in all economic activity. The whirlwind of 200 years of economic and environmental inactivity will be catastrophic. He was glad that there was hope. He said he was confident to see that the social entrepreneurs in the gathering were well equipped to deliver on that hope.

Soraya Salti, Senior Vice President, MENA, INJAZ al-Arab, spoke of the golden age of Islam and the current state of the education system. She said this had created unprecedented rates of unemployment in the Arab world. She spoke of the need to invest in education for prospering. She quoted Khalil Gibran on Work “‘You work so that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons and to step out of life’s processions that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite…when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream assigned to you when that dream was born”. She told she came from the land of prophets and wanted to present a book to the ‘modern day prophet’ Jeff Skoll. The audience gave a standing ovation to Jeff Skoll as they witnessed this gesture. 

Jeff Skoll, summed up what a great forum we have had. Referring again to urgency and hope, the two issues of today he said “Both are on an upward path”. Charles Darwin, whose bicentenary Oxford is celebrating had impact on science, religion and society. Not until the DNA double helix model was discovered to provide hard scientific evidence to the work he had done on the Beagles journey; – Jeff said a similar process is in play in Social Entrepreneurship space; SE field has evolved, strengthened and been challenged over time. Now is the time for it to be on the main stream – economic crisis may solidify SE model to be THE model for social and economic change. Referring to the SE community he said “You are a keystone species in the social change architecture. Your role is strengthened by the economic crisis. We leave Oxford with a renewed sense of what is possible. Last year we said Social Entrepreneurs had arrived; now I say SEs are to take lead and show the way to the rest of the world. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

Colin Mayer, Dean of Said Business School gave the concluding remarks. Referring to the evolution of Kaizen in Japan in post World War II period, he said that institutional innovation was the need of this decade of the 21st century. Skoll Forum was a contrast to the gloom and doom in other conferences he has attended in recent times. Forum is an enduring innovation in its own right he added.

Pamela concluded with an Irish blessing:

“May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.”

The closing plenary was followed by a networking event called “Conversations - Leaders for the Future”. Current MBA students spend time speaking to practitioners and delegates discussing ideas revolving on various themes from Human Rights, Education to Youth empowerment and media.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Speakers
John Elkington, Founder & Director, Volans Ventures Ltd & SustainAbility
Peter Head, Director, Arup
Nancy Kete, EMBARQ Director, World Resources Institute
Josh Steinmann, Vice President, Global Development, Better Place
Ion Yadigaroglu, Managing Principal & Co-Founder, Capricorn Investment Group, LLC
 
John Elkington in his presentation stated that there 5 stages for the path to scale:

• Stage 1 – Eureka
• Stage 2 – Experiment
• Stage 3 – Enterprise
• Stage 4 – Ecosystem
• Stage 5 – Economy

   
Discussion started with the fact that most of the evolved social entrepreneurs today are in the ecosystem phase (stage 4) and haven’t been able to enter in the economy phase. Social entrepreneurs like Muhammad Yunus have now impacted multiple stakeholders in stage 4 and have solidified their position. Early stage social entrepreneurs are pretty much in the enterprise phase (stage 3).
  
Nancy Kete, EMBARQ Director, World Resources Institute
 
Nancy spoke about how transport today is scaling and becoming big because it  is not considered a micro problem. Effective and scaled up transport solutions solves the problem of a “mobility divide” – access to urban centers which can dramatically improve the standard of living. So today transport solutions have to be scaled up. The benefits of this scaling helps in time savings which can be monetized in dollar terms and generates tremendous social value. With addition of newer transport solutions there is significant reduction in Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions thus adding in confidence to the investors and philanthropic donors.

New transport models have radically changed the way we travel and right now  we are in stage 4 where they are impacting the ecosystem but now need to venture into the economy phase where the fundamental shifts and systematic change will happen.
 
Josh Steinmann, Vice President, Global Development, Better Place
 
Josh discussed the solution to the problem of effective scalable transportation system within the context of the following features (this could be used for any model that wants to scale):
 
Available to all countries – highly replicable but      needs some adaptation
Economics have to work, otherwise there is no point. Infrastructure is the first and one of the most important things to get right. Scaling gets faster if the infrastructure is in place.
 
For scaling it is a good idea to localize the solution and then adapt for different places. To develop localized solutions it is critical to adapt and learn from the best of local knowledge.

Words deceive me to express how inspired the space was at the Skoll awards ceremony this evening. Set at the magnificent Sheldonian, the awards was a tribute to the indomitable courage and energy that takes a social entrepreneur in any part of the world to be a catalyst and bring about change.

The evening began to foot tapping performance by KT Tunstall, a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. In introducing her Sally Osberg, President and CEO of Skoll Foundation said that KT has been contributing to the cause of Climate Change by taking buses on tours that run on bio-diesel. I knew little about her but thanks to Wikipedia I am now enlightened on this amazing performer.

Sally Osberg rightly said that the Skoll Forum was convening in exceptional circumstances when the old order was collapsing and the challenge to create and morally justifiable and sustainable world was in front of us. She likened Social Entrepreneurs to ‘scouts’ in ant communities that go out in search of new sites. “Social Entrepreneurs are humanities scouts. – signally there is something out there that is hopeful. Skoll amplifies such signals.” Follow her address were three shortfilms on healthcare and it footprint, Rootcapital and their transformative work with Tanzanian farmers and one on the use of IT education to bridge the digital divide in marginalized youth communities in Brazil.

R.K.Pachauri, Nobel Peace Prize winner and chair of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  delivered the key note address. He praised Social Entrepreneurs as missionaries of a fair and just society who are today fashioning a new development paradigm in tune with grassroots realities. “Social Entrepreneurs also provide a form of powerful governance.” He shared an anecdote of Mahatma Gandhi while stressing the importance of sustainable use of natural resources. I paraphrase it here – Once, a British friend of Gandhi asked him if he did not want India to proposer like Britain. Gandhi paused and said that if Britain needed half the resources in the world to be what it was, then imagine what would happen if India wanted to be as prosperous as Britain. Climate change he said was only a subset of the dangers of unsustainable development. The most affected in any catastrophes are the poorest of the poor. This he said was an inequitable impact. While giving the shocking statistic that there are 1.6 billion homes without access to electricity in the world, he shared his dream of lighting a billion homes.

This was followed by the Skoll Award distribution to 9 awardees. The audience was inspired and were on their feet applauding the significant impact each of these awardees had on their communities. More than $5 million was given as grants to these people.  The evening concluded with a few more songs by KT and a reception at the Examination Schools at High Street.

In all, an enthralling evening, great fellowship, bright ideas, uncommon heroes and common good!!!

Moderator: John Goldstein, Managing Director, Imprint Capital Advisors.

Speakers:

• George Overholser, Founder and Managing Director, NFF Capital Partners
•  Jean-Philippe De Schrevel, Founder, Bamboo Finance / Blue Orchard
• Ashish Karamchandani, CEO, Monitor Group

Philanthropy has too often remained trapped in the ‘small is beautiful’ world of social innovation – while for-profit-investors have striven to avoid any taint of compromising returns for social impact. A growing set of trailblazers is mobilizing significant pools of capital to deploy for social impact. In the process they are reinventing the way philanthropic and for-profit capital is used for social and environmental benefit.

Jean while speaking of stages in fund raising, asked social entrepreneurs to look for angel investors that believe in the ideas and are willing to invest ‘small sums’ of money – use the initial successes and then leverage to make larger claims. He asked people to speak to private banks and private investors after reaching a scale that can attract investments – that is how you get access to large pools of capital. He said growth by franchising was an option to scale enterprises. This is a plausible business model everyone must look at.

George has raised money from for-profit pool for investment in non-profit world. He resonated on the challenges social entrepreneurs face and asked the audience to look for funders that can stay for long term and incrementally support ventures. He emphasized that the scale of impact is more important than the scale of the organization. Social Entrepreneurs need to not just have a programme but an enterprise around it.

Ashish said that helping organizations in the non-profit space was a challenge. He could not stress less that the fundamental element of social enterprises was the business model. A model for revenue generation that can cover all the costs to begin with. Speaking of the benefits of micro-finance he said it was fundamentally a different business model to deliver the same product - a personal loan. Commercial viability, robustness  and replicatability were attributes of such a model. He also said that a paradox is that sometimes the organizations may need to be small to build viable models in the low income groups.

In recent times, there are growing number of investors who want to diversify their portfolios and be connected to projects that make grassroots impact. This change has come about with a sudden interest in the well-being of the world given the current financial crisis.

John, in summary said that there is a great payback for people who take risks when there is an absence of clarity.

Moderator: Cara Mertes, Director, Documentary Film Program, Sundance Institute.

Speakers: Amitabha Sadangi (CEO, International Development Enterprises, India), Greg Barker (Director, Silverbridge Productions), Susan Collin marks, Senior Vice President, Search for Common Ground.

Story telling is a fundamental human expression. It is a narrative that all of us are familiar with and were fascinated as children and many a times even today. Story telling is more important to social entrepreneurs is an opinion that everyone on the panel of this discussion shared.

To kick start the session, each of the panelists told a compelling story. Greg shared that he likes stories that forces him to think how he would have reacted in a particular situation. Speaking of Rwanda’s genocide and the crisis, while weaving it to another narrative of an encounter with an interesting person from Red Cross, Greg said stories begin in the unlikeliest of places.

Amitabha, was one of the very few students to go to college from his village in those days. He told us how when he went back to his village, he was asked to tell stories of movies he had seen in town. His saga of ‘story telling’ that began then continues to be an inexpensive means to change lives. The short films that IDEI has been instrumental in producing give messages through stories of love and romance sometimes in the inimitable Bollywood style. They use people from real life so that villagers can relate to it and feel connected. Susan told compelling stories of human emotions from the war torn Israel-Palestine region. As she passionately told these she was ‘shaking and crying’. She told that on a community radio programme in war-torn Rwanda people were asked to share stories of generous acts of tribal communities saving each others’ lives although they were enemies. This she said was a catalyst to discover more stories from Congo and Rwanda and connect people.

There were many film makers from Sundance that were willing to share expertise with the audience. Compelling clips from movies of Central Africa, Iraq enthralled the audience. Amitabha showed clips of movies from India and one of these was in Kannada (my mother tongue) ! These were short song and dance clips that were used to convey powerful messages. Audience received copies of Sundance produced movies and the social change movies from IDEI.

 ‘Story telling’ are large projects of social intervention. The ‘Hope gap’ can be filled by very good story telling because it reaches and resonates in our hearts. Secondly it prods the listeners to tell their stories. Everybody has a story ! The dilemma is in closing the circle of telling and listening.

Social Entrepreneurs have to do more than present compelling solutions. They need to change long-standing beliefs in favour of new ways of thinking and being. This session looked at different ways of that film and media can take positive messages to mass audience with the goal of influencing strongly-held attitudes and behaviours. Speakers offered expertise, case studies and lessons learned regarding how popular culture and a well-told story can accelerate social transformation.

The distinction between sympathy and empathy is important when you ‘listen’ to a story – if the audience is sympathetic, they feel sad and move on. If they are empathetic, they are moved and move-in. The latter is more important to create a movement of social change.

Communities empowered through individual transformation

Moderator: Ian Goldin, Director, James Martin 21st Century School

Speakers: Ron Grzywinski (Chairman, Shorebank Corporation), Jeremy Hockenstein (CEO and Co-Founder, Digital Divide Data) and Marcia Odell (Director, WORTH, Pact Institute).

Each of the speakers on the panel was a social entrepreneur and had against all odds invested their effort, energy, dreams and money in ideas they believed and transformed communities in various parts of the world.

Marcia, while sharing passionately about her work at WORTH said that women can be successful bankers and successful entrepreneurs. The sources of income for these women from low-income groups at the end of the programme are not just their own social enterprises, but also their village social banks. She said that literacy was crucially important to providing access to information and that it was the fundamental capacity for their development. The women who she has worked with are now literate and have transferred these values (read importance of literacy) to their children thereby ensuring inter-generational transfer. Communities are collectively taking action around social issues of child marriage, dowry system, etc. It has created a ripple effect in communities.

Ron, spoke on how they had to change the psychology of individuals in the process of rebuilding community confidence. He made a distinction between sourcing clean capital that can support self-sustaining communities vis-à-vis capital from establishments that have ulterior motives in providing assistance. In the days of officially sanctioned discrimination on the basis of race and income, ShoreBank was created to demonstrate that a regulated bank could be instrumental in revitalizing the communities being avoided by other financial institutions. In 2000, ShoreBank expanded its focus to include environmental issues, believing that communities cannot achieve true prosperity without also attaining environmental well-being.

Jeremy is a co-founder of Digital Divide Data. DDD is a social enterprise providing education scholarships to handicapped and disadvantaged employees in Cambodia and Laos. Featured in Thomas L. Friedman's The World is Flat as an example of socially responsible outsourcing, the not-for-profit provides data entry, digitization and other IT outsourcing services to one hundred and fifty clients worldwide. Speaking of DDD he said that their biggest challenge was to continue having DDD as a ‘non-profit’ while continuing to make it sustainable. Merit based approach to recruiting and training people has been a corner stone of DDD’s operations. Referring to the gaps that Jeff Skoll had urged to fill in the plenary address yesterday, he said for social entrepreneurs it is as much creating opportunity as much as seizing one.

In generating or raising funding for development work one has to confront the cynicism of people providing assistance. There were some in the audience who disputed this and said that Social Entrepreneurs should bypass development assistance to be true to the principles of social ideas. One of them argued that to seek funding from such quarters is a compromise with the ‘aid community’. Also it is a choice between choosing to seek funds from communities that ‘throws food from airplanes’ rather than working with people at grassroots.

There were conversations on what it takes to be ‘Practical Idealists’ especially for today’s youngsters. Ron in his response summed it up that social enterprise is the means to pay a new ethical order in the world. Business schools are the breeding ground to mould such catalysts. B-schools are a place to help create the first little step for budding entrepreneurs. The audience were enthralled to listen to these individuals who are on the frontlines and doing amazing work. Ripple effect indeed.

Moderator

• Kirk Hanson, University Professor of Organizations and Society and the Executive Director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University

Panelists

• Wendy Kopp, Founder and CEO, Teach for All
• Ann Cotton, Founder and Executive Director, CAMFED
• Eric Schwarz, President and CEO, Citizen Schools

Ann Cotton (CAMFED): Focus on engaging constituencies at national and communal level. Engage community to stress responsibility of the community to educate children. Partner with local governments, health care providers, parents, etc. to create a partnership to seize the school system.

Eric Schwarz (Citizen Schools) – Education is stuck in a box. Schedule is based on agrarian-era needs, kids learn while sitting, and the teacher pipeline is limited by certification barriers. Teach for all and citizen schools are working on this from different angles. CS tries to bring in adults from outside the traditional education system. Instead of having students hang out in front of TV, they get additional afternoon sessions with practical inspiration taught by professionals, artists, etc. Sport coaches, art and music teachers already provide the majority of education in their respective sectors. Can’t we use this approach also for the sciences? Their apporach is inspired by Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen ("Disrupting class"): Innovation gets killed by the dominant system. Innovators emerge at a different plane of competition.

Wendy Koll (Teach for All): Teach for all is configured as a network of independent local networks like Teach First, and Teach for America. Teach for All gathers and shares best practices across its membership organisations. T4A has established a continuous feedback loop, and takes a very data-driven approach to evaluate impact, ie the academic gain of a class. The selection criteria for new teachers are heavily influenced by the results of the performance evaluation. The evaluation has shown a clear pattern of the personal characteristics required to achieve educational impact: Successful teachers share many features with successful leaders. As result T4A has developed the "Teaching as leadership" framework. Set clear goals and figure out plans to achieve this goal, get students and parents invested to achieve this goal.

Question and answer session

Q: Why do you focus on the after-school market?

A (ES): The risk is that you get eaten up by the culture of the school, therefore we focus on the after-school market.

Q: What about career development for teachers? Best teachers are leaving, how do we support them and keep them in teaching?

A (WK): There is some really interesting thinking coming up. It is unclear if the being a teacher for 30 years model is necessarily the only solution. Another approach could be: Teach for 3-8 years with strict annual performance reviews. Keep only most talented teachers and rethink compensation.

Q: What role can technology play?

A (AC) – computers have to be embedded in the context. I have seen so many rooms filled with broken computers, and people are deeply disappointed.

Q: Were you glad if your model would have been replicated?

A (WK): I wouldn’t have assumed that our model of change would have made sense in any other country or context. We were just surprised to figure out that SE in other countries are engaging in the same mission. So I came to believe that there is so much to be transferred.

A (ES) – I believe that solutions developed for one place do not necessarily translate into different contexts. We are now entering a new age, where change is accelerating. Therefore we need to develop an open source approach to capture the best practices and spread them. Some will be implemented poorly, some even better. But it shouldn’t prevent growing our core organisation.

 

Moderator:

• Dr. Maximilian Martin, Global Head & Managing Director, Philanthropy Services, UBS

Panelists:

• Samuel Azout, CEO, Carulla Vivero; Chairman, Fundacion Futbol con Corazon
• Bill Drayton, Founder and CEO, Ashoka
• Gillian Caldwell, Campaign Director, 1SKY
• Estela Villareal, Founder, Unidos Somos Iguales

Max Martin opens the panel with a short impulse on different modes of leadership. Leadership is about influencing intangible processes. Effective leadership consists of three elements: Charismatic leadership (requires an engaging leader, who motivates and aligns her or his team), engineering leadership (by formal hierarchy found in most businesses, setting of proper incentives), and enlightenment leadership (everybody can be a change maker, instilling leadership at all levels of an organization or society). Each of the elements are not sufficient. Enlightenment leadership does not work without institutions.

The key question for the panel is therefore to share their insights on what kind of leadership strategies have been effective in their experience?

Web 2.0 entrepreneurs are shifting power dynamics from institutions (governments and NGOs) to end-users (donors and aid recipients) by creating new online marketplaces. These three social entrepreneurs are having a positive impact on development goals but each follows a different business model: online micro-lending for Kiva, online giving for Global Giving, and online investing for MyC4. Join them in the conversation.

• Tom Watson, Managing Partner, CauseWired Communications
• Premal Shah, President, Kiva.org
• Mari Kuraishi, President, GlobalGiving
• Mads Kjær, CEO & Co-Founder, MYC4 A/S

Highlights from the panel

• Doing live loan to Ugandan org through www.myc4.com. Dutch auction style site. Average return 12.9%. Avg loan 2.5K
• Kiva - nice to hear someone talking about failures
• Kiva apps starting to appear externally to kiva...good sign of traction (see: iPhone, Twitter, Facebook)
• Transparency & collaboration! Kiva has ppt on its currency risk online. www.kiva.org/about/inside. Input from once a month community calls
• Global Giving likes getting input from customer. When making a case for strategic decisions, instead of "I want to do it this way" you can say "the customer wants this"
• Questions from the audience - why don't you three merger?
• GLobal Giving - fundraising side is biggest challenge. "We're a west coast organization stuck in DC" - all funders are on west coast of U.S.
• Q: How many people here are currently seeking capital? A: 80% of hands in the room went up, including panelists
• Premal of Kiva: In short, crowd-sourcing innovation works much better for nonprofits than forprofits
• Mads Kjaer, MYC4: Our aim is to create a company owned by the world, 3.6bn shareholders
• Mads' example of iron horse--> train, horseless carriage-->car. innovators create new vocabularies (just hopefully not jargon)
• Interesting to see - in this panel and across SWF09 - Barack Obama's "presence" here. He's mentioned a lot, in context of social entrepreneurship, crowd-sourcing, paradigm shifts
• Things got very "meta" when Sellaband.com was mentioned - crowd-sourced example (e.g. from the audience) of a commercial site crowd-funding indie bands to make records

Jessica Shortall.

Twitter @jessicashortal

Social entrepreneurs may have comparative advantage in generating new ideas or innovations, but may struggle with execution and control. Is it possible to build innovative institutions that are around for the long haul without crowding out the charismatic element of social entrepreneurship? Can visionaries build high-performing teams, and if so how? In a climate of increased expectation around legitimacy, transparency and measurement, how can one get the balance right? Join leading practitioners and thought leaders for a candid discussion on this vitally important success factor.

Maximilian Martin. UBS.

There are 3 basic models for leadership:

    • Epic. Based on charisma. Able to do things other can´t.
    • Engineering. Institutions and incentive systems that reward desired behaviour throughout organizational pyramid.
    • Enlightment. Catalyzing leadership action across all levels of an organization empowering people at all levels.

Control systems over the life time of a social enterprise.

    • Small start up -> Informal.
    • Growing phase -> Functional organization. Market based profit centers.
    • Mature -> Product / Regional / Customer groupings.

Bill Drayton. Ashoka.

The world of dinosaurs is crashing around us (mammals). Conventional concept of management “few people managing lots of them” is out.

We are seeing geometric growth of change in the citizen sector / social enterprise, and this is a “world of teams”. Productivity is based on that we work with others.

The fundamental skill is being EMPATHY. You can´t fake it. Skill and at the same time, who you are.

Example1: Jesuits. Attracts the best people, great identity and clear mission: do the best you possible can. Are you doing enough?

Example2. Google. Collection of people like doing change and working in teams.

Faith. Pretty basic point. Every body can be a change maker.

Risks.

    • Search for Safety.
    • Look for big changes.
    • “Time for the entrepreneurs giving up to the managers”. Easier to learn management skills than empathy and teamwork.
    • For investors: control is not appropriate for social entrepreneurs.
    • Don´t listen to the dinosaurs.

Estela Villarreal Junco. Institutionalization: the art of

I´ve found three tensions, conflicting forces in social entrepreneur work.

    • Creating your own vs sharing control.
        • Leave solitary work and share with a board. Consensual work.
    • Involvement vs non involvement in structures.
        • SE tend to get bored with day to day and ingore the present. Release control. Move on to new challenges. Think in the future.
    • Inspirational and entrepreneurial.
        • Spirit vs Body. The role of the founder. Give unity, commitment, infect spirit and translate philosophy into principles.

Risks.

    • Social entrepreneur as only the starter.
    • Release complete control.
    • Feel the only one in tune with idea.

Samuel Azout.

Social Enterprise needs scale and sustainability.

The preferred leadership model is Engineering leadership, that focus on execution.

4 key elements.

Focus.

    • What is your uniqueness?
        • Reality of Pablo. Lack of mentors. Too much free time. Exposed to domestic violence.
        • Risks. Guerrilla.

Clear Mission. Help build safe and peaceful communities in Colombia by implementing soccer for peace methodology.

            • Gender. First goal is that of a women
            • Play with no referee.
            • According the rules before the game. Coexisting.
            • Evaluation post game.

Professional management

    • Corporate governance. Board of directors.
    • Team. Empathy. Commited. Proactive. Enthusiastic.

Efficient operational management

    • Soccer fields.
    • Soccer for peace.
    • Workshops.
    • Nutrition.
The model is get a cookie cutter to expand indefinitely.

Growth strategy.

    • Partnerships.
        • Jacobs Foundation.
        • Govmt Colombia.
        • MBA without borders.
    • Cross subsidies. In high income schools.
    • Massive fundraising.

Gillian Caldwell. 1Sky.

6 key factors for success.

    • Clear and compelling vision.
    • Clear strategy.
    • Team. Staff + board + advisors. Talent.
    • System for impact evaluation.
    • Deep emphasis on relationships. Empathy. Not only internal. Desing a system to development of relationships.
    • Outreach. How do you communicate in and out?

Money comes after doing the 6 things right.

When moving from Witness.

    • Succession plan and leader / successor. (previously hired for the board!)
    • Senior team.
    • Financial based.
    • Clarity with donors about leadership.

The need to “Let it go!!!”. It´s hard but necessary.

We need more creativity AND more control.

Now blogging live from "New Approachs in the Arab World" panel

Panelists

• George Khalaf, Director, Middle East and North Africa Region, Synergos
• Kamal Mouzawak, Founder, Souk el Tayeb
• Aref Husseini, Director, Alnayzak for Scientific Innovation
• Raghda el-Ebrashi, Chairperson, AYB-SD; Assistant Lecturer, The German University in Cairo

First off, I'll apologize for the format of this blog. I've been Twittering a lot at the forum so am starting to think entirely in 140-character bite-sized pieces. Below - the live feed as the session develops:

- Kamal just spoke about food as the core of their work. It goes beyond nourishment, can be an "expression of tradition", bring people in conflict together. Great term: "gastropolitical awakening".

- Aref now talking about the power of technology. Even simple tech can enliven an entire village.

- Raghda on microcredit for women in Egypt: women need to know the basics of financial management. (Until a borrower asked for it) "we didn't think of them as women entrepreneurs who wanted to build their businesses"

- George: "What are the biggest challenges you encounter working in Palestine?" Aref: "Besides occupation?"

- Aref: capacity-building is not always the right strategy. sometimes we have to replace.

George sparked a conversation on the theme of identity. What does it mean to be Arab?

- Kamal: Is being "Arab" geographical, language, being Muslim (not all Arabs are Muslim)?

- Raghda: Should Egyptians have allegiance to Africa, Middle East, Egypt, Mulsim world globally? "The human identity is most crucial"

Q&A

1. Digital inclusion - Rodrigo Baggio, CDI - what are the trends in digital inclusion in the Arab world?

Raghda - in Egypt, a lot of it is taking place through mobile phones

Aref - in Palestine, for many who can't come & go, the internet is the only way to connect with the outside world

George - most applications are handwritten and mailed, faxed, or even hand-delivered

2. State of innovation in the Arab world

Aref - Trying to find a way to connect with universities and innovation centers globally.

3. Challenges. Does unrest break down bureaucracy and allow you to maneuver more?

- Kamal - Lebanon has challenges of being "neither this nor that" - not a catastrophe site, not a "normal" place where things work well

- Raghda - Red tape. Volunteer culture is not strong: "every volunteer wants to volunteer once per week, or once per life".

- George - initial funding came from USAID (room fills with groans)

- George - color choice was a challenge - different colors associated with different causes/groups

4. Impact Measurement

- Raghda - # of students who come to them to "do something" that = change, not charity or community service

- Kamal - "it's just finally about DOING. every act is an adoration."

- Raghda - not just numbers. what did i do, how, and what did we do afterwards?

- Kamal - "it's not always about scale. sometimes it's enough to just contribute something"

5. Impact of radicalization

- Raghda - in Egypt, religious is more pressing than political radicalization

- Aref - Palestine is the focal point of radicals. There are always tools to deal with the system. Hamas controls the strip - "we have to deal with the system in our daily work".

- Aref: In science field, most teachers tend to teach science through religion. "Everything comes from God." Easiest way, especially for low-trained science teachers. "It's very hard to go to the Minister of Education and say, 'ok, tomorrow I will teach Darwin.' They want science to serve the interests of politics."

In all, great to hear perspectives from people with some shared challenges but much diversity in an often-lumped-together part of the world.

Jessica Shortall.

@jessicashortall on Twitter

Though typically not a Social Edge blogger, I've been let loose on this site to help provide coverage of the different sessions over the next three days. I'm looking forward in particular to hearing Mary Robinson speak, as well as to a talk on Friday morning by Michael Green, co-author of Philanthrocapitalism. Having reviewed the book a bit critically in the November 2008 issue of the Spectator magazine, I am open to revising initial perceptions of the book, and what I viewed at the time as Matthew Bishop and Green's rather overly fawning praise for some of the philanthrocapitalists they profile. 

My concern in general with 'philanthrocapitalism' is that the conflation of philanthropy with market-oriented strategies might at times exacerbate the social inequalities that philanthrocapitalists purport to be tackling. My views are likely to be more in the minority than the majority at this forum, so I'm looking forward to learning more about the "spirit of the new social entrepreneuralism," to paraphrase Max Weber on the spirit of capitalism, as well as chat with as many people as possible for an ongoing research project, carried out at the Said Business School, on the (at times adverse) influence of new philanthropic players on global health governance.