#12 Entrepreneurship — Social Entrepreneurship
Video: Social Entrepreneurs: Pioneering Social Change
What is social entrepreneurship? It is a kind of entrepreneurship, so the first idea in my mind before I read any reference about social entrepreneurship was a company which contributed to society, and solves social problems, e.g. poverty and healthiness.
An entrepreneur, in my mind, is someone who owns a company and makes money. However, social entrepreneurs are different. They use their own power to change the world.
Social entrepreneurs, instead of calling them just entrepreneurs, have deep a perception of the future. “Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to move in different directions.“ They are pioneers in their field, providing their power to change society to bring positive effects.
I heard Muhammad Yunus, the father of micro-finance, before when learning about globalization in economics. Microfinance is a way providing loans to low-income groups who have no access to capital funds with a lower interest rate. It mainly targets groups who are in poor but have a good credit for this loan. People who are extremely poor are not in this consumer segment; they should be supported by the government. However this micro-finance helps many people, especially in South Africa, to get out of poverty as they have an opportunity to start their own small business. Regardless of its drawbacks, micro-finance, to some extent, addresses a world social issue — poverty.
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Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk5LI_WcosQ#t=497
“Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to move in different directions.“