What is Acumen?

Acumen is an organization helping those in need by coming up with new ideas that haven't been discovered yet. Acumens slogan is: «changing the way the world tackles poverty», which is a good summary of what they intend to do by working with creative and innovative people all over the world.

Since April 2001 Acumen has been working as a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve problems concerning poverty. Their headquarter is situated in New York with regional offices in India, Pakistan, Kenya and Ghana. Acumen raises charitable donations to invest in companies, leaders, and ideas that are changing the way the world tackles poverty.
What Acumen does is to take the best ideas that are distilled from more than a decade of investing in companies and leaders and sharing them globally so others can benefit from their impact. In one of the courses, volunteers and willing participants are helping Acumen by creating new and innovative ideas for the future. This course is called «Human-Centered Design for Social Innovation».
This course is a seven week course that helps people to create innovative, effective, and sustainable solutions for social change. During the course, the human-centered design process will be learned by applying it to a real world design challenge. To learn more about Acumen you can go to their website: http://acumen.org/

As stated in the information bar, we are four students taking this Acumen course. This blog is apart of the course where we decided to help inform you about social entrepreneurship so that we know about the social impact we can have on others. After doing a study on our fellow classmates and students we found the core of the problem that limits the impact that social entrepreneurship would be able to have; very few people actually know what social entrepreneurship is. We then set up our own ideas on how we could have an impact on as many people as possible using the resources we had. The pictures below shows some of our ideas.

The ideas for how we could make social entrepreneurship 

seem like a more viable career path

After deciding on creating a blog, we further discussed and developed this idea.

Our outline for the blog

We think that the most fundamental part of learning about social entrepreneurship is to be informed about it. I hope you enjoy this blog, and feel more informed about SE after reading this! If you did enjoy this blog, don't hesitate to share it with friends and family! Enjoy your day :)

Social Entrepreneurship

What is social entrepreneurship?

Social entrepreneurship is the process of pursuing innovative solutions to social problems. More specifically, social entrepreneurs adopt a mission to create and sustain social value. They draw upon appropriate thinking in both the business and nonprofit worlds and operate in a variety of organizations: large and small; new and old; religious and secular; nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid. 


"What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are the driven, creative individuals who question the status quo, exploit new oppertunities, refuse to give up, and remake the world for the better."

- David Bornstein, author

Why do we need Social Entrepreneurs?

Given all the problems our world faces — in teaching, technology, health care, or finance — we need many more social entrepreneurs and change makers. We need to teach our youth that they can help people; that they can lead; that they can make lasting and important change in their communities and across the globe. Society, employers, educators, and parents need to recognize that our kids’ successful personal and social development must start with a mastery of several complex skills — empathy, teamwork, leadership, and change making.

Where can Social Entrepreneurship get you?

As a social entrepreneur, you will be working with social problems. Since there are social problems all over the world - you will be able to work all over the world! A popular area to work in is in the southern, developing countries, especially Africa. 

It isn't always easy to find success as a social entrepreneur. After all, most of them are driven by their passion for the cause and can sometimes lose sight of the idea that we really do need to build a business - the more successful their business becomes, the more positive change they can create. 

Here are four key-points that will help  you become a successful social entrepreneur:

• Build a Team Focused on Your Mission
• Invest in Authentic Relationships
• Create a Culture of Risk Taking
• Never Stop Learning

Famous Social Entrepreneurs

Rafael Alvarez is the founder of Genesys works. Rafael is in the educational field where he helps industry leaders, schools, and disadvantaged youth. His goal has been reimaging vocational education for the post-industrial society. In 2002 he founded Genesys works to connect the often disparate worlds of education and corporations to provide intensive training and placement for students in technical positions at leading corporations. This program allows students to gain knowledge experience, income, and a network of support. Read more about the program at www.genesysworks.org

Alvaro Rodríguez Arregui is one of the founders of IGNIA. Alvaro is in the support field with IGNIA where it is a venture capital firm based in Monterrey, Mexico. Their goal is to support the founding and expansion of high growth social enterprises that serve the base of the socio-economic pyramid in Mexico. They provide supply chains to the low income populations, empowers entrepreneurship and generates social impact while creating attractive financial returns for its investors. Read more about their company at www.ignia.com.mx

Case Studies - Where social entrepreneurship has developed a change

Lifesaver bottle

Disasters all over the world have made social entrepreneurs invent a perfect invention to help the people drink clean water. The bottle called ‘LifeSaver’ is a bottle that rinses the filthy water in the bottle! This might be one of the major inventions in this century, and has clearly been of successful use by hill walkers and British soldiers in Afghanistan, as well as communities in the developing world blighted by natural disasters that have disrupted the flow of clean safe water.

The bottle is 750mL and was the first product in a range created by Pitchard (the founder of Lifesaver) eight years ago. It uses a filtration technology that was previously applied only in industrial sectors. The outcome of the Lifesaver bottle uses a handheld pump mechanism to force water from the outside to the inside of a narrow coiled tube inside the device.

How does this work?

-          The smallest bacteria are about 200 nanometers in diameter while the smallest viruses are 25 nanometers. Lifesaver uses a membrane are 15 nanometers wide, blocking bacteria, viruses, cysts and waterborne pathogens from getting through. The dirty water can be left in the bottle until it needs to be cleaned.

-           The cartridge in the bottle is replaces after through-put of 4,000 or 6,000 liters, while the jerry can lasts for between 10,000 and 20,000 liters. Towards the end of the life of the unit, more pumps are needed. When the pumps no longer work, the filters have to be replaced – making it easier for the consumer to know when they need to change.

Clean Team

Many countries in the world cannot clean water and sanitation. Unilever, a multinational maker of consumer products, and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), looked for a suitable toilet and waste collection service to provide a complete in-home sanitation solution. They cooperated with IDEO.org to help them determine the best approach for developing the new products and services.

Both Unilever and IDEO.org succeeded in inventing a satisfactory toilet for the consumers after some prototypes – Uniloo. In 2011, the pilot trial was conducted with approximately 60 households in Kumasi. By the end of 2012, Clean Team was servicing 106 households and had begun production of 1,000 new Uniloo toilets. January 2013, a load of 384 Uniloo toilets arrived in Kumasi. Their aim is to service 1,000 households in 2013 and 10,000 by 2014. 

WHERE ARE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS NEEDED TODAY?

Social Entrepreneurs work with developing sustainable and positive solutions to some of the world’s most challenging issues. As long as social problems such as; poverty, lack of drinking water, and health problems exist, social entrepreneurs will be needed. In today’s society social entrepreneurship has resolved several problems and, new innovative and inspiring ideas have been developed, put in place and improved society. However here are some examples of places in the world where social change is still desperately needed:

 

MILLIONS LACK SAFE WATER
Every single year 3.4 million people die from water, sanitation and hygiene-related causes. 99% of these deaths occur in the developing world, where lack of resources or optimal solutions keeps people from accessing safe water.
780 million people do not have access to clean water. To put this in perspective; that is more than 2.5 times the united states population, or approximately one in nine people.
Today 1 child dies from a water related disease every 21 second. In one hour 171 children will have died from this cause.
Due to limited or challenging access, women spend 200 million hours a day collecting water. These hours represent working hours that the women have to give up in order to provide water for their families, and they are therefore forced to give up jobs that could have otherwise given them important income.
2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation facilities that ensure separation of human excreta from human contact. Furthermore 1.1 million are still forced to practice open defecation.

Limited access to safe water or poor solutions for distributing water has lead lack of safe water to be one of the most serious global issues of our time. New ideas and solutions need to be put in place in order for society to overcome this devastating world issue. Social entrepreneurship is needed here, today


HIV AND AIDS
HIV has claimed more than 36 million lives so far.
In 2012 there were between 35 and 39 million people living with HIV.
69% of all people with HIV live in Sub-Sahara Africa. In this region nearly 1 in 20 adults live with HIV.
HIV can’t be cured, but can be treated. Antiretrovial therapy (ART) can ensure that people living with HIV can live healthy and productive lives. However 19 million people who are eligible for ART under new 2013 guidelines do not have access to antiretroviral drugs, keeping them from receiving treatment.
AIDS is the most advanced stage of HIV and takes between 2 to 15 years to develop. It weakens the immune system and leaves the body unable to fight of minor infections or viruses. Since the first case of AIDS was recorded in 1981 more than 25 million people have died from the disease.

HIV and AIDS is still a major health problem in society today, especially in developed countries where the majority of the population may be unable to access treatment. With treatment people with HIV and AIDS can live happy, fulfilling lives, therefore action is needed. Social entrepreneurship enabling social change is needed in order to ensure that people tested positive for the disease will get the treatment they need.