The pioneer of social entrepreneurship talks about a range of issues from the rapid spread of 'us-versus-them' politics and how India can grab the opportunity to become leaders of climate change, health, technology and more, in a free-wheeling interview with Forbes India
Individuals who had started something in their teens were at least four times more likely to be C-level leaders
This explains why income distributions are getting worse everywhere in the world. It also explains the rapid spread of ‘us-versus-them’ politics…It is the chief reason both business and social have to come together. Any organisation that fails to make this transition is very unlikely to survive for long. Business led the ‘everyone is a change-maker’ revolution when, by the year 1700, it was telling everyone, “If you have a new idea and make it work, we will make you rich and respected, and we’ll copy you.” The citizen sector, which was dependent on the government (which could not tolerate competition), only broke free and joined this entrepreneurial and competitive architecture around 1980 (the year Ashoka was launched). Since then, the citizen sector has caught up with business in entrepreneurship, competition, scale, elan and more. The largest student group at Harvard Business School is no longer focused around finance or marketing – they are focused on social causes. It has been growing jobs much faster than business anywhere in the world. The social sector has the advantage that the core motivation of the social entrepreneur is to serve the good of all. Moreover, social entrepreneurs are not trying to “capture a market” or “dig a moat”. They make their ideas as simple and understandable and safe as possible, precisely so that thousands of people across different communities can seize the idea and become local change-makers. Q. You said in one of your interviews that ‘if you want true equality, empower teenagers to change’. How do you see that happening?Any organisation that fails to combine business and social responsibility is very unlikely to survive for long
Ashoka and the field of social entrepreneurship started in India. South Asia, with 1.7 billion highly talented people, is by far the world’s biggest region. It is also a culture that respects the individual and works together across an exuberant diversity that can only be challenged, perhaps, by my native New York City. Ashoka hopes to help India and South Asia jump to the next level. Our Fellows are the best focus group across the world to see the future. Entrepreneurs will not commit their life to a change unless they intuit where the world is going to be in 15 or 20 years. That’s why the patterns in their work give us a very accurate forecast of what the world will need. Q. Do you think that social entrepreneurs can be governments' best friends?