Today, governments worldwide recognize the importance of SMEs and their contribution to economic growth, social cohesion, employment and local development.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / PRURGENT

No one has doubt that even a small business, or for that matter any business, can indeed invent the future by staying true to their own vision with the customer in mind. Established in 1983, NIESBUD – The National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development and presently under the Ministry of Micro, Small Medium Enterprises – MSME, Government of India, is an apex body for coordinating and overseeing the activities of various institutions / agencies engaged in Entrepreneurship Development particularly in the area of small industry and small business. NIESBUD mission is to Promote, Support and Sustain Entrepreneurship and Small Business through Training, Education, Research, Consultancy and other interventions throughout the Globe.

Located in Pilani which is in the heart of the Shekhawati Region of Rajasthan, Shridhar University has been partnering with NIESBUD for conducting for conducting various training programs. In March 2011, the University conducted Social inclusion training programs in Mobile Repairing, DTP etc for scheduled caste candidates in and around Pilani. Presently a Housekeeping Hospitality Training Program which was inaugurated on 10 February 2012 is in progress.

On 27 Feb 2012, another set of training programmes covering the areas of welding, draftsmanship and electrical gadget repair was inaugurated in the Lecture Theatre of Shridhar University. SDM Chirawa Mr Narayan Singh Seshma who was to inaugurate the program as Chief Guest could not make it due to last minute exigencies. Prof Natarajan Pro Vice Chancellor welcomed the participants as well as trainers and gave an overview of the importance of SMEs and the stellar role played by NIESBUD in promoting entrepreneurial culture especially among rural youth. The e lighting of the ceremonial lamp was appreciated by one all present.

The inaugural ceremony concluded with Prof Natarajan reiterating the statement “To be top ranking in the global arena, what India today needs is a breed of successful entrepreneurs who can invent the future by providing novel solutions to address the many large issues that communities across the nation strive to cope with.”

Article source: http://www.prurgent.com/2012-02-28/pressrelease227892.htm

Six student teams were chosen last Friday to form the inaugural class of a startup accelerator called Brown Venture Labs. Over the course of the 10-week program, the teams will be provided with mentors, office space and $4,000 of seed funding each to help them develop their nascent businesses. The finalists were competing with 16 other teams for spots in the program. 

An extra $1,000 will also be awarded at the conclusion of the program to the team that best establishes itself through channels like social media, said Adrienne Tran ’14, who is running the program. The funding for Venture Labs comes from the Brown Venture Launch Fund, formed last year from a $100,000 anonymous donation intended to foster student entrepreneurship on campus, Tran said.

Among the mentors who will be participating are Hyun Kim ’01, founder of Mama Kim’s; Charlie Kroll ’01, founder of Andera; and Walker Williams ’11, founder of Teespring and co-founder of Jobzle. The teams will meet with mentors at a mentorship speed dating event March 4 and then communicate with them through weekly blog posts, dinners and regular meetings. They will also attend workshops on pitching, prototyping and finance.

This spring marks Venture Labs’ first semester, but if all goes as planned it should return in the fall, said Elizabeth Weber ’14, co-president of the Brown University Entrepreneurship Program. Weber said she hopes Venture Labs will grow to accommodate up to 20 or 25 startups each semester. The entrepreneurship program, which is overseeing Venture Labs, is a student-run umbrella organization for entrepreneurial activity on campus and is supported by an advisory board of faculty and alums.

Tran, who is also the in-reach vice president of the entrepreneurship program, came up with the idea for Venture Labs last summer. She wanted to create a more communal place for startups to develop than the options Brown already offered. “I felt like a lot of people were working in isolation,” she said. “There’s a lot that can be gained by putting those people together in the same physical space.” Tran said she also wanted to make it easier for startups to access the University’s resources by putting their founders together in one place.  

Tran worked to set up Venture Labs with Andrew Antar ’12, a Herald editorial cartoonist, who had come up with a similar idea. In the fall semester, they were advised by Alan Harlam, director of social entrepreneurship at the Swearer Center for Public Service, who said he was looking for ways to support recipients of Venture Launch Fund grants. 

Harlam said he was “trying to find a structure that could be mostly student-run to support the grantees with mentorship and a strong, peer-learning community.” He added that Venture Labs could play this role, emphasizing that it would create an opportunity for “entrepreneurs to thrive in a community of other entrepreneurs.”  

Applications for the program were due Feb. 17. The application asked teams to explain the novelty of their ideas, their plan for connecting with customers and how their companies would be socially and environmentally responsible, among other questions. The teams were also interviewed by a selection committee, composed of members of the entrepreneurship program and its advisory board. Tran said the committee based its final decisions on the teams’ potential to succeed and also their collective personalities, motivations and drive. 

The six teams participating in Venture Labs this semester represent a range of different industries and ideas. Fanium, a sports-focused Twitter aggregator run by a team with summer experience at Amazon and Microsoft, aims to provide “the best second screen for watching sporting events,” said CEO Grant Gurtin ’13. Fanium feeds users relevant tweets from players, sports commentators and other viewers as they watch sports games.  

Gurtin added that the organization has a working website — which operated during the Super Bowl — and is currently developing an application for mobile devices. Fanium is already backed by two venture companies, Social Leverage and Venture51, and has raised $150,000, Gurtin said.

Another team aims to create a social network for musicians and music fans, through which users could organize into bands, discuss music and buy and sell songs. The team calls its project Hearo.fm and said it is “90 percent complete,” according to Antar, one of its co-founders. The team also has plans to provide a ticketing service for concert venues and is creating a system it calls Hearo Causes that would allow bands to allocate a portion of their profits to charities. Antar said the team hopes to launch its site in the next couple of weeks. 

A third team is working on a children’s watch that would combat obesity by incentivizing exercise. The watch, called Exersaur, would feature a dinosaur on its face that would light up as a child exercises, said Shawn Medford ’12, co-founder of Exersaur. It could then be connected to a computer, so that on the Exersaur website, children would be able to spend exercise points on growing and personalizing their dinosaur avatar. Medford characterized the project as part Neopets, part Pokemon. The team has yet to develop a prototype of the watch. 

Other finalists include SquareQuote, Bodyrox and NBA Math Hoops, Tran said. 

Article source: http://www.browndailyherald.com/program-fosters-student-entrepreneurship-1.2708542

A group of Yale MBA students will travel to Cape Town, South Africa during spring break to provide pro bono consulting services to social enterprises.

The 25 students are classmates in Global Social Enterprise (GSE), an elective course and student-led club at the Yale School of Management (SOM).

Founded in 2004, GSE provides students with a hands-on opportunity to design and engage in pro bono consulting projects for clients in developing countries. In the course, the students work remotely with their clients while completing coursework focused on learning about Cape Town and South Africa, entrepreneurship in developing countries, social enterprises, and business planning. The spring break trip allows students to work on-site with their clients for one week.

This is the second time that GSE has chosen to work in South Africa. “South Africa is a country that continues to experience intense income inequality, but also hosts a thriving social entrepreneurship sector,” said Katy Davis, one of the three co-leaders of the GSE Club who also serve as teaching assistants for the course. “In addition, there is a wide and growing interest in Africa among the student body at Yale SOM.”

Working with five social enterprises

This year, the group is working with five social enterprises: the Indalo Project, a nonprofit that connects professional designers and a seasoned marketing team with local craft producers; LEAP Science and Maths Schools, which focus on teaching excellence in math, science, and English to students with potential in high-need communities; Nexii, an investment and advisory firm that helps connect social and environmental initiatives with investors; Open Africa, an enterprise that works with communities to create tourism travel routes supported by a network of local businesses; and Township, an organisation that provides women with the training and business skills to create independent sewing cooperatives.

While in Cape Town, the students and their clients will discuss the Global Social Enterprise course and their projects during a networking event hosted by the African Social Entrepreneurs Network (ASEN) and the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. The UCT business school is a member of the Global Network for Advanced Management, an international network of business schools recently convened by the Yale School of Management. One objective of the Global Network is to facilitate collaborations among students of member schools.

Article source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201202290511.html

Lynn Holland, a professor of International Political Economy at the University of Denver, called for labor laws to be relaxed to decrease human trafficking worldwide at a Living and Learning Community teach-in in Cherrington Hall last Tuesday.

“Anything we can do to strengthen labor internationally can help decrease human trafficking,” said Holland. “There are countries that need labor, that need help.”

Approximately 40 students attended the event, which discussed the trafficking of individuals, specifically in Africa, to work on chocolate plantations. The event was the second teach-in hosted by the Living and Learning Communities and the first one conducted by the Social Justice LLC.

There are five Living and Learning Communities at DU, with residential groups of about 25 freshmen who focus on a certain theme, such as creativity and entrepreneurship or social justice. The Social Justice LLC allows students to study social, political and economic injustices and become active in fighting them, according to their website.

Claude d’Estree, director of the Human Trafficking Clinic at Korbel, said human trafficking is a huge problem.

“There are more slaves now than in any other time in history,” said d’Estree.  

The meeting started off with a 20-minute screening of the documentary “The Dark Side of Chocolate,” which followed an undercover journalist as he visited Mali and Cote d’Ivoire, tracking the path of human trafficking.

According to the documentary, children are often whisked away at bus station by men on motorcycles and taken to chocolate plantations.

“It can take several days to get to many of these plantations,” said d’Estree. “The ability to monitor all these plantations is quite frankly impossible.”

Even if children are rescued, chances are they will seek out traffickers again, said d’Estree.

“In agricultural societies, the reason you have children is because you’re producing workers,” said d’Estree. “If the family can’t provide for itself, it sends the children out.”

Steps have been taken to reduce the child labor supply chain in the chocolate industry.

In 2001, the Chocolate Manufacturer’s Association, part of the National Confectioner’s association, whose mission is to foster industry growth by promoting manufacturer and consumer interests, signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol.

The protocol outlawed child labor in the chocolate industry beginning in 2008. They also formed the International Cocoa Initiative, which works with villagers and the NGO to help them decide their futures. It is unclear if these measures have been successful.

Emily Lafferrandre, development coordinator for the human trafficking clinic at Korbel, was quick to dismiss the Harkin-Engel Protocol.

“The Harkin-Engel Protocol has no teeth,” said Lafferrandre. “We have no form of verification that chocolate is produced in a responsible manner.”

Michael Graf, co-director of the Not for Sale campaign, Denver chapter, agreed accountability has been a problem. The Not for Sale campaign’s mission is to abolish slavery worldwide.

“It would be great if you went to the store and there was a label that says ‘zero slaves touched your chocolate while it was being made,’ but that’s not there,” said Graf.

During the panel discussion, Graf asked students to take out their cellphones and look up the app “Free2Work,” which rates companies based on how much slave labor is involved in their production. Nestlé, which has head offices stationed in Cote d’Ivoire, received a D rating.

“Nothing’s going to be perfect, but this [app] can be a start,” said Graf, whose company works with Free2Work. “It gives consumers a way to fill in the knowledge gap.”

Annaken Mendoza-Toews, the program manager of the Colorado Organization for Victim’s Assistance (COVA), works alongside victims of human trafficking in the Denver area.

“We provide case management and act as an advocate for that person,” said Mendoza-Toews. “We help them navigate social services.”

Despite their assistance, international victims face additional troubles when they arrive in the United States.

“International victims are not applicable for many visas,” said Mendoza-Toews. “Many of those visas tie them to one specific employer. In order to escape their situation, they need to lose their immigration status.”

Be the first to comment on this article!

Article source: http://www.duclarion.com/mobile/news/llc-addresses-chocolate-slavery-1.2799037

Nick Vaidya is the latest media entrepreneur to get into trouble for producing a publication about entrepreneurship and having the audacity to use the word entrepreneur in the title. Like others before him who’ve tried the same thing, Vaidya was hit with a lawsuit from Entrepreneur Media Incorporated (EMI), which owns Entrepreneur magazine and Entrepreneur.com.

Turns out that EMI loves entrepreneurs (the “little e” kind) but not Entrepreneurs (the “big E” kind, especially when related to the media). This is not the first time EMI has aggressively defended its brand, and anyone in the future who attempts to use the word entrepreneur in the wrong context will likely find themselves in a similar predicament.

“They go after those who can’t or won’t fight and are a threat to them in the business of engaging with and educating entrepreneurs,” Vaidya told Portfolio.com. He had been the chief executive officer of what was known as CEO Entrepreneur Magazine, which, since the suit, is now called 80 20 Strategy.

“Can a doctor tell another doctor not to use the word doctor? What about [a] teacher or a lawyer? How many lawyer magazines are there? Should they sue each other?” Vaidya asked Portfolio.com in an email.

According to Vaidya, his company has been in business since 2008, but until recently wasn’t generating enough traffic to be considered a threat. “We started showing up in search engines for the word entrepreneur,” he said.

To be sure, there are uses of a big-E Entrepreneur that are not owned by EMI. The global accounting firm Ernst Young runs an Entrepreneur of the Year contest. Bloomberg LP last year held an event in New York called the Bloomberg Empowered Entrepreneur. A quick search on Google reveals dozens of organizations using the word in their name.

But some of these groups are mindful of EMI’s reputation. “Part of what we’d like to do,” said an executive of one group that uses entrepreneur in its title, “is to stay off their [EMI's] radar.”

From EMI’s perspective though, the company is simply doing what any entrepreneur with a good brand should want to do—protect itself.

EMI corporate council Ron Young described the Entrepreneur brand as a “distinct and protectable trademark” and said that the courts have many times supported EMI’s right to the word in certain contexts. According to Young, what brought Vaidya and CEO Entrepreneur Magazine to EMI’s attention wasn’t any uptick in search engine results, but an attempt to register the name on January 6.

“You can use entrepreneur all day long,” Young said. Just don’t use it in print or online titles.

Young told Portfolio.com that “entrepreneur has become a very cool and useful word.” But back in 1978, when EMI got its trademark, it was almost exclusively a French word and often mispronounced by English users.

Young related a hypothetical example of someone trying to trademark CEO Time Magazine, citing what he called the popular news magazine’s readily apparent rights to the Time title. Again, Young said, “you can talk about ‘time’ all day long,” but it better be about watches.

Vaidya, on the other hand, said his lawyers gave him the option to fight back—something they estimated would cost anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000. The legal counsel told him he had a chance to win, but only by being willing to go “all the way,” which just wasn’t something Vaidya was willing to do.

“I need to focus on growing my company and not on a battle that for sure will take me off focus,” Vaidya said.

According to the disgruntled CEO, when EMI realized it wasn’t going to make any money on the suit, the two parties came to a compromise.

“Within three months, I have to remove all references to the word entrepreneur from all my title material or remove those videos and articles,” said Vaidya. “I am personally liable if I fail to do so.”

For now, the matter is closed, assuming Vaidya follows through with the necessary changes, though Vaidya’s venture is not.

In a message posted last week on the LinkedIn group FastTrac Leadership, also run by Vaidya, the CEO addressed its members, explaining that although the group has been “quiet,” they were preparing for a full relaunch, and in the meantime were determined to continue with the work.

He then asked for sources on a new article to be published at another “major” business publication.

And the lesson for startups looking to use the word entrepreneur in their title? Think very carefully before moving forward, or hire a lawyer.

Article source: http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/2012/02/28/entrepreneur-media-in-legal-dispute-with-80-20-strategy

Students from the eight Ivy League universities learned about practical approaches and effective tools to fulfill their leadership roles at their respective undergraduate institutions at the 12th Ivy League Leadership Summit this weekend.

Student organizers said that this annual summit, which was held at Harvard this year, is part of an effort to increase collaboration and communication between Ivy League universities.

“Our overall goal is increased Ivy League interaction,” said Kathy Bui ’12, president of the Ivy Council from Brown University. “We want to bring together all the Ivy League schools so we can pool our collective resources and make students aware of how much support they have.”

The conference featured a series of keynote speakers including social entrepreneur Bill Drayton ’65, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology lecturer Andrew Berry, and John W. Coleman, a Harvard Business School alumnus and co-author of “Passion and Purpose.” All three spoke about personal experiences that imparted valuable lessons on effective leadership.

“The goal for this conference was to increase Ivy League interaction with an emphasis on personal development,” said Teddy O. Tiab ’12, who organized the summit as Harvard’s Ivy Council head delegate. “I wanted each student to walk away either with a new perspective or a new skill, which is why we chose a varied list of guest speakers.”

Students also had the chance to attend a series of workshops on Saturday that featured presentations from guest speakers including Google University Programs Manager Debra LoCastro and Mark D.W. Edington, the executive director of the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory.

Students said that popular workshops in the conference included “Speaking Your Mind and Minding Your Speech,” “Team Problem Solving,” and “Case Studies in Leadership Failures.” Workshops featured team-building exercises and group discussions.

“In a workshop led by Dale Carnegie Training, we talked about engaging in a meaningful conversation with somebody and making a memorable impact,” said Grace Phang ’14, a student from Dartmouth College. “We learned techniques to get someone to open up and make them feel special—skills that all great leaders need to have.”

The conference, arranged by the Ivy League Council and the Leadership Institute at Harvard College, received generous donations from Google, the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College, and the Harvard Undergraduate Council.

Ivy League Council members said that they expect that next year’s conference, which will be held at Dartmouth University, will continue to grow in attendance. Future plans include seeking official club status for the Ivy Council at Harvard and improving publicity for the event.

The Ivy Council is also currently organizing a “State of the Ivy” address at Columbia University this April, where student government presidents from all the Ivy League schools will come and share what they have been doing at their colleges.

“If there was a philosophy behind why we do this, I would say that we want students to gain new perspectives and new skills,” said Tiab. “We want to empower young leaders to go back to their college campuses and make a difference.”

—Staff writer Michelle Denise L. Ferreol can be reached at mferreol@college.harvard.edu.

Article source: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/2/27/ivy-league-leadership-summit/

Pros: Ideas Don’t Equal Value

by Daniel Isenberg, Babson Global

If you had one dollar to invest, would you invest it in an innovator or an entrepreneur? Innovation is crucial to social advancement, but the entrepreneur gets my buck every time. Innovation is about the manifestation of novel ideas, but entrepreneurship is about value creation. Ideas help, but the sine qua non for entrepreneurs—hard work, ambition, resourcefulness, unconventional thinking, salesmanship, and leadership—will always trump brilliant ideas.

I know who and where the entrepreneurs are, but who is an “innovator?” Is it anybody tinkering with a grand idea or just a mystical few? Is it a group of people or a lone inventor? I might spend my buck on an innovator if I could find one; I suspect if I did, lurking behind the innovation get-up would be an entrepreneur.

Furthermore, innovation without an entrepreneur is like a car without a driver. Entrepreneurs will navigate the road to value creation and growth, with or without innovation. Generic pharmaceutical entrepreneurs create economic and social value around the world—without innovation. In fact, “generic” is an antonym for “innovative.”

Oh, and don’t go bending the definition of innovation to suit your purposes. Something that means everything ends up meaning nothing.

So let the entrepreneurs rummage through piles of society’s innovation assets. As they determine what is valuable from scrap, watch as they surprise us in their value creation.

Yes, I have heard it ad nauseam: “Innovation is more than technology,” but when push comes to shove, societies measure innovation by RD investment, IP (Internet Protocol) generation, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. Sure, STEM sells, but value-creating entrepreneurship will get my dollar every time.

Daniel Isenberg is a Babson Global professor of management practice and the founding executive director of BEEP, the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project, the global action research subsidiary of Babson College. Isenberg has a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University.

Article source: http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2012/02/entrepreneurship_outperforms_innovation.html

“Fix the world.” This seems to be the gist of the task assigned to Harvard students in the so-called President’s Challenge, an initiative unveiled last week at Harvard’s Innovation Lab by University President Drew G. Faust. Her challenge asked Harvard affiliates from both the College and the graduate schools to come up with an innovative, social entrepreneurial solution to address problems including clean air and water, education, and global health. Harvard is offering a $100,000 prize to be shared by the three top student groups that produce the best work in answer to these pressing issues. Bold and ambitious to say the least, Harvard’s I-Lab seems to be the place that our administration believes can cure the world’s ills.

Clearly, Harvard is home to an intelligent population of young minds. We are, however, by no means home to the only concentration of bright individuals devoting themselves to addressing humanity’s greatest challenges. Many have in fact devoted their entire lives, not simply extracurricular time at college to these pursuits. The notion that ad hoc coalitions of young adults can succeed in endeavors in which so many others have yet to break through seems at once idealistic and a bit presumptuous.

While Harvard should not be faulted for teaching students to be idealistic, other recent programs and initiatives have similarly strayed too close to serving as nothing more than high profile photo-ops. Such photo-ops are themselves not inherently detrimental. Harvard occupies an elevated place on the world stage, so it is allowed to show off its talent pool from time to time. But these events become problematic when they distract from legitimate functions and goals that Harvard should be striving for. While it would be great if students could come up with solutions for clean water problems, not to mention global hunger while they’re at it, Harvard ought not to let such pursuits distract from its real mission—education. By focusing rather on classroom instruction on these problems instead of collaborative group work, Harvard graduates would be prepared with more than just their brains and a designated space across the river to combat the world’s worst crises.

A fundamental purpose of the President’s Challenge seems in fact to assign purpose to the newly built I-Lab. A $20 million building near the Harvard Business School in Allston, the I-Lab was constructed after the administration shelved the construction of the new Science Complex development on its extensive Allston property. The motive behind the I-Lab is no doubt a well-intentioned one, to connect ambitious, entrepreneurial students with other like-minded peers, but at present its actual function seems nebulous at best. In its most useful capacity, the I-Lab would provide space for post-graduates to work in start-ups, but instead it has become the nexus of distracting mixers and eye-catching but ambiguous administration initiatives. If the President’s Challenge is to become a main feature of the I-Lab, it remains to be seen what will happen to this space after the top three student groups have received their $100,000.

The I-Lab has been heralded as a way to promote social entrepreneurship that will give back to the Allston community, but a serious question mark remains as to how much the lab and the President’s Challenge can actually benefit the local population.  While the entire world would certainly benefit from clean air, clean water, education, global health, and personal health—the Challenge’s stated target areas—none of this is likely to address the fundamental needs of a local population that has been badly served by Harvard’s ambitious and unfulfilled building projects. If the I-Lab is merely the latest effort to make reparations to a yet-uncompensated community and show the rest of the world that Harvard does care about Allston, then the University can frankly still do much better. Allston’s residents might get more out of the mini golf course Harvard initially installed to mitigate their anger.  Encouraging innovation is one thing, but cleaning up the mess in Allston is quite another.

Article source: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/2/28/innovation-lab-allston-harvard-social/

Inclusive capitalism, disruptive innovations, triple bottom line, scalability… My head is abuzz with catchy expressions after spending the past weekend at the 13^thSocial Enterprise Conference at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

The crowd of 1,500 young, passionate (and caffeinated) attendees bounced around the hallways between panel discussions, hands-on workshops, and the much-anticipated Pitch for Change Competition. The excitement and entrepreneurial spirit were palpable. When meeting someone, the question was not the usual “What do you do?” with which east-coasters usually strike up conversations, but rather, “What’s your idea? 

Change the World

Daniel Epstein of Unreasonable Institute set the tone of the conference by opening the keynote address with a reminder of what unites all attendees: a deep desire to Change the World. He was joined on stage by Kavita Shukla of Fenugreen, Lauren Bush Lauren of FEED, and Taylor Conroy of Destroy Normal – three young social entrepreneurs who have made a big impact. 

One of the topics discussed was fundraising. Taylor’s advice: the most effective way to raise funds for your project is to reach out to people you personally know, ask for little (microgiving), show them the tangible impact of their gift, and finally, acknowledge them (a little recognition never hurts). Lauren Bush’s FEED Project which has sold over half a million bags, providing 60 million meals in the process, perfectly illustrates the last two points: every FEEDbag features a printed number on it that indicates how many children are being fed by your purchase.

The conference did not fall short of inspirational talk by charismatic personalities. Judge for yourself with these selected quotes:

“Most people need to see it before they believe it. Social entrepreneurs believe it before they see it.” (Martin Burt, Fundación Paraguaya)

“Social entrepreneurs are self authorizers, giving themselves permission to do what needs to be done to change the status quo.” (Daniel Epstein)

“We’re not giving fish or teaching people to fish, we’re changing the fishing industry” (Bill Drayton, Ashoka)

“Innovative leaders have the audacity to dream, and the tenacity to deliver” (Judith Rodin, Rockefeller Foundation). 

Fail fast. Fail often. Try again. 

Margaret McKenna, who manages a US$ 100 million philanthropic fund as the president of the Wal-Mart Foundation, tempered the excitement. “Social entrepreneurship often translates to ‘I’m going to start my own thing so I can be the president of DoingSomethingGood,’” she pointed out. But she reminded the audience that doing good while doing business is not an easy task. The structural and managerial challenges facing social entrepreneurs are real. 

Indeed, another recurrent theme at the conference called for getting comfortable with risk, practicing making mistakes until you get it right, and accepting failure as an intrinsic part of the game. Timothy Prestero, CEO of Design that Matters spoke of the importance of prototyping when innovating for the Bottom of the Pyramid.  ”Somebody in the world knows that your idea sucks, and the sooner you find them, the better,” he said. Jo-Ann Tan of Acumen Fund echoed that sentiment: “small incremental insights are more likely to lead to success than one big ‘aha’ moment.”

Scalability vs. Contextualized Impact

As I wandered from panel to panel, one dichotomy particularly struck me. On one hand, social entrepreneurs and practitioners were stressing the importance of adapting goods and services to the specific needs of the communities they serve. On the other hand, the same investors that these entrepreneurs are hoping to attract typically stressed a whole other dimension: scalability and replicability.

While it is true that measuring impact is crucial, using the wrong metrics distorts incentives. I would argue that replicability is not always the right test for worthiness of receiving capital – after all, what matters isn’t the number of people touched, but rather the number of people served. So social entrepreneurs need to keep in mind that in absence of good measures of success, their reputation, their skill at leveraging their network, and interpersonal relations matter all the more.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, and only 9 percent of all startups survive their first year of existence. But events like the Social Enterprise Conference are a good reminder of why each year, a larger number of people take the risk of becoming social entrepreneurs, hoping to CT(F)W. 

Follow #socent and #impinv on twitter to get plugged on the news from the social enterprise and impact investing spaces.

* Named by Forbes.com as one of the “Top 12 most influential and exclusive executive gatherings” in 2009 (along with the World Economic Forum at Davos, and TED), the student-run conference is jointly produced by Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government and was attended by 1,500 participants and 75 speakers.

–

Hala is studying Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and also works with the Center for International Development on research related to the Arab Uprisings. You can find her on her blog or on Twitter @_hala.

Article source: http://www.wamda.com/2012/02/changing-the-world-isnt-easy-advice-for-social-entrepreneurs

ABU DHABI – Shaikh Nahyan bin Mabarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and Chancellor of the Higher Colleges of Technology, today opened the 2nd Stanford University Technology Ventures Program’s Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education MENA (REE MENA) at the Khalifa City Women’s College, Abu Dhabi.

This Roundtable, which runs until tomorrow February 28, is themed “Entrepreneurship Oasis: Building the Regional Ecosystem 2012” and promises to build on the success of the 2011 inaugural REE MENA. It will see a diverse mix of high-technology entrepreneurship faculty, in the fields of business, science and engineering, from leading international institutions and UAE-based entrepreneurs participate in an in-depth exchange of entrepreneurship ideas in education.

The REE MENA program aims to engage participants in practical and meaningful dialogue and idea-sharing while providing a unique, memorable and inspirational experience.

The REE MENA international speakers include Professor Tom Byers from Stanford University; Heidi Roizen from the Stanford University Technology Ventures Program; Professor Steven P Nichols from the University of Texas at Austin; Paris de L’Etraz from the IE Business School in Madrid; Professor Felipe Santos from INSEAD and Julia Prats of the IESE Business School at the University of Navarra.

The two-day event will see delegates take an in depth look at the local and international entrepreneurship scenes, with such sessions as “Host Country Snapshot. Entrepreneurship Opportunities Challenges in the UAE the MENA Region”, led by Abdullah Al Darmaki, the CEO of the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, and a panel session entitled “Global Snapshot. Trends in Entrepreneurship Education and Policy around the World”, involving Professors Tom Byers and Cristobal Garcia, and Paris de l’Etraz and Julia Prats.

At the inaugural REE MENA in 2011, Sheikh Nahyan bin Mabarak Al Nahyan spoke about the REE MENA being vital to emphasize the issue of economic entrepreneurship “but also the increasingly important area of social entrepreneurship where innovation and creativity are essential to improving the quality of life for so many of the world’s citizens”.

As a result, a session to be held today will focus on “The Rise of Social Entrepreneurship: Opportunities for Corporate Government Engagement”.

Sheikh Nahyan emphasized the ongoing importance of the Roundtable, saying: “The Roundtable highlights a growing conviction that entrepreneurship must be an integral part of education in the new century. It also helps build a culture supportive of innovation that leads to creation of regional and global networks of entrepreneurs.”

Sheikh Nahyan added that the REE MENA demonstrated that “Education and training is a cornerstone of the efforts to promote entrepreneurship and to build the skills needed for its success in our region. You highlight the role of colleges and universities as incubators for innovation where students, ideas, and expertise can come together.”

Dr Tayeb Kamali, HCT Vice Chancellor, said the REE MENA was a landmark event, which brought together leaders from the entrepreneurial community to work together to advance entrepreneurship education in the region.

“We are pleased to be hosting this important event as an ongoing process between HCT, CERT and Stanford University relating to the combination of entrepreneurship with education. High-quality education is a critical factor in the development of skills required in entrepreneurship – encouraging students to think outside the box; encouraging creative activity and critical thinking; and supporting success,” Dr. Kamali said.

“It is very hard to make advances in education without entrepreneurship and this very important roundtable is the beginning of the process of benefiting the whole country,” he added.

Professor Tom Byers, Founder and co-director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, said the Roundtable MENA was about “sharing any practices, compelling practices and activities relating to teaching entrepreneurship”.

Prof. Byers said over 40 REEs had been held around the world since 1998, with the hope that this event would lead to more and regular implementation of ideas in the MENA region.

UAE-based speakers include Abdullah Al Darmaki, CEO Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development; Dr. Mohamed Lahouel, Chief Economist, Economic Studies Policies Division Dubai Government; Lina Hourani, Director – CSR Division, Al Ahli Holding Group; Sulaf Al-Zu’bi, CEO of INJAZ-UAE and Amer Bitar, Managing Director of Spacetoon International.

The REE MENA program will include snapshots of entrepreneurial activities and development within the UAE and also from around the world. There will also be panel discussions lead by the Founder and co-director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Professor Tom Byers of Stanford University and involving locally-based entrepreneurs.

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), at Stanford University, presents five annual international conferences for entrepreneurship educators called Roundtables on Entrepreneurship Education (REE). These events take place in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Middle East/North Africa, and the USA. They are designed to stimulate communication and collaboration between business, science and engineering faculty who teach high-technology entrepreneurship in tertiary institutions around the world.

Article source: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2012/February/theuae_February748.xml§ion=theuae&col=