Last Saturday, I attended the Alleviating Poverty Through Entrepreneurship (APTE) Summit at The Ohio State University. It’s an annual event that showcases how innovative leaders around the world are tackling poverty through social entrepreneurship. Think “TED Talks” but with a focus on using entrepreneurship to combat poverty. The APTE Summit website can be accessed here and a list of the speakers and their bios can be accessed here.
I won’t break down the event speaker-by-speaker, though each speaker was interesting and dynamic enough to fill a lengthy blog post. A couple of my favorites included the presentation by Ohioan Greg Bixler, the Co-Founder & CEO of DesignOutreach. DesignOutreach is a team of engineers, manufacturers, marketers, accountants, and businessmen/women who volunteer their skills to partner with community development experts to develop practical solutions for the African water crisis. The design-intensive approach taken by Greg and his team helps fill a gap in many community development efforts. Another favorite presentation of mine was given by Tiago Dalvi of Brazil. Tiago founded Solidarium, a social venture linking thousands of skilled, but poor, artisans with major retailers. In addition, Solidarium is building a significant online platform (think of the Brazilian version of Etsy). The model is being rolled out across the globe, providing local producers with unrivaled market channels for the products they produce.
Another speaker to highlight is Jim Ameduri, Founder and Chairman of the Board of the Garuna Project, a microfinance organization providing tools and education to the working poor in developing countries. Currently, the project is located in Southeast Asia. However, Jim said something that grabbed my attention: next year, Garuna will be piloting a microfinance program geared towards first generation immigrants to the U.S. Again and again, a question that arises with microfinance is whether it can be applied in the U.S. – so Garuna’s efforts will be worth following (see my earlier post, “Microfinance: Can it be applied in Ohio?”).
A noteworthy aspect of this year’s summit was the various ancillary events, including a student business competition. Visit here to check out the top ten pitches made by students to show that their business idea is practical, profitable, and will have a social impact. The winners received seed-money for their idea, as well as coaching from business experts and investors.
The judging criteria of the student business competition – that the business idea be practical, profitable, and have a social impact – nicely captures the idea of social entrepreneurship. It’s about results; it’s about prosperity; and it’s about empowerment. In an earlier blog post, I shared my experience with a microfinance project that has now funded dozens of small businesses, the majority of which were founded by women. That experience captured my imagination and provided me with a different way to look at challenges. As said in the “About” page of this blog, part of what I want to explore is “the aspirational ideal and pragmatic implementation.” Admittedly, that’s a difficult balance to achieve, but the speakers at APTE showed that we can get pretty damn close.
As a quick aside, like the presentations at a “TED” event, the APTE presentations were not only informative but also dynamically executed and thought provoking – a new favorite quote of mine, from one of the presentations:
“All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up one day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.”
- T.E. Lawrence
Oh, and one other gem:
“Climate change is one of the greatest wealth generating opportunities of our generation.”
- Sir Richard Branson