Social Entrepreneurship

1. How do you define social entrepreneurship?

2. What does social entrepreneur mean for you?

I'd like to answer the first and the second question together. For me, “social entrepreneur” is indeed a synonym of “transformative force.”

A social entrepreneur identifies and solves social problems on a large scale. Just as business entrepreneurs create and transform whole industries, social entrepreneurs act as the “change agents” for society, seizing opportunities others miss in order to improve systems, invent and disseminate new approaches and advance sustainable solutions that create social value. They have new ideas; they can deal with huge problems; they pursue goals without hesitating and indolence; they never accept failures as final answers, and they try their best to promote their thoughts to others and never give up easily.

3. How are social entrepreneurs different from “normal” entrepreneurs?

Unlike traditional business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs primarily seek to generate "social value" rather than profits. And unlike the majority of non-profit organizations, their work is targeted not only towards immediate, small-scale effects, but sweeping, long-term change.

The job of a social entrepreneur is to recognize when a part of society is stuck and to provide new ways to get it unstuck. He or she finds what is not working and solves the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution and persuading entire societies to take new leaps. Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.

4. How does a social entrepreneur make the world a better place?

Identifying and solving large-scale social problems requires a committed person with vision and determination to persist in the face of daunting odds. Ultimately, social entrepreneurs are driven to produce measurable impact by opening up new pathways for the marginalized and disadvantaged, and unlocking society's full potential to effect social change.

Just as what the author said in “How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas”, only when a person has creativity, plus strong perseverance and unswerving will, can he revolutionize the world and solve the chronic problems of the society. Serious social revolution usually result from a single entrepreneur – a passionate person figures out a problem, thinks of solutions and then takes actions according to these solutions and his vision. He collects every kind of resources and forms an organization to protect and promote his vision which he puts all possible energy in. He keeps working hard to improve, solidify and extend this vision and helps the organization conquer inevitable obstacles until this vision which seems ambiguous and hopeless to achieve at first becomes a new role model. That’s the way a social entrepreneur make the world a better place.

5. What are some examples of organizations run by social entrepreneurs?What do they do?

Because I’m from Taiwan, I’d like to introduce two organizations run by social entrepreneurs in Taiwan.

The first one is 雅文 Foundation. The founder is the president of 明門Company, 鄭欽明. He formed this foundation ten years ago because his younger daughter had difficulty in hearing. After his daughter could hear by artificial electronic ears and learned how to speak under the instruction of 聽覺口語法 expert, he decided to found a foundation to promote聽覺口語法 and help deaf (or almost deaf) children in Taiwan. (If you interest in this, you can look for much information on this website: http://www.businessweekly.com.tw/webfineprint.php?id=22878)

The second one is the president of 長庚生物科技公司, 楊定一. Although he was called “Genius Child” when he was young and had double-major PHD in Biochemistry (Rockefeller University in United State) and Medicine (Cornell University in United State) when he grew up, he tries his best to concern the learning-retarded children in America and Taiwan. According to his own research, he found out that once a child keeps quiet and tranquil, his potential in brain can be released and then he can make progress in learning. Therefore, he cooperates with Special education teachers and 復健師 to hold free Grow-up Camp for learning-retarded children and hopes that these children can change their future by reading traditional Chinese classic book (經書), playing games, and good nutrition.

(We two OCPs of the Recruitment Team from NTLC, AIESEC in Taiwan are planning to invite the above two presidents to share their experience with us in September owing to one of our LC’s PBOX issue is “social entrepreneurship.”)

6. What values do social entrepreneurs have?

As what I said in first two questions, besides the traits of normal entrepreneurs, I think social entrepreneurs have new ideas; they can deal with huge problems; they pursue goals without hesitating and indolence; they never accept failures as final answers, and they try their best to promote their thoughts to others and never give up easily. And now I want to add a most important one but I didn’t mention before: They have the courage to be behind none in the desire to benefit mankind. This courage and their strong, unswerving perseverance work together to lead social entrepreneurs try their best to change the world!

7. What did you learn from these values?

I found out the common values on normal entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs and realized the main differences between these two different kinds of entrepreneurs. I admire the accomplishment of normal entrepreneurs in their fields but I adore social entrepreneurs’ courage, passion and strong will to make our world become a better one. I’m deeply touched by the latter’s actions and their sparkling and humanity-filled traits. I hope that one day I can join them to do something for our society in the same way.

8. What are good ways to teach these values?

I think it’s a good and useful way to learn these values by inviting successful social entrepreneurs to share with audience their experiences and points of view.
But just like what 證嚴法師 said several weeks ago, “As for charity, only reading words and looking images merely touch people’s hearts, it isn’t enough. Only when a person experiences others’ pain and realizes others’ suffering firsthand can he be motivated and produce overwhelming power to touch the deepest side in everyone’s mind.” I think the most important thing everyone who wants to learn these values should do is to spend more time observing the society and standing in others’ shoes to think of every social phenomenon. This is the only way to let a human being understand the situation and be inspired to learn the true meaning of these values stand for.


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po這篇的目的 其實是希望讓身邊非 AIESECer 的好朋友們知道我最近究竟在忙些什麼......
不過說老實話 要介紹 AIESEC 哪是這麼容易的事情orz

很多太 AIESEC 的東西當然都沒有辦法三言兩語解釋清楚
但我也總不能老因為這樣就不跟大家說明
越因循下去只會越積越多 到後來就根本無從解釋起了
所以...還是就從現在開始吧 能讓大家知道多少算多少
（不過你們要願意看才行...恐龍我知道你討厭看這種長篇大論的東西 不過我也沒辦法...）

然而其實這也不全算是 AIESEC 的東西（我們社內事務是很禁止公開討論的= ="）
只能說它是我們今年要做的PBOX issue之一 也正好是最近一個滿多人討論的話題吧

這是還在美國的昕頤設計的問卷 在填的過程中我思考了很多
對 Social Entrepreneurship 的定義也更加清楚 謝謝昕頤 ^^"

BTW 今天開會的時候有再被提醒到Social Entrepreneur的定義......
剛剛回來後又再把遠見介紹楊定一的那篇文章看了一次

我想 在這樣描述之下的楊定一確實比較不適合放在Social Entrepreneur來討論
反而比較適合用於討論企業家回饋社會的行為或CSR
或許楊定一有用符合Social Entrepreneur定義的模式希望達成願景
但這篇文章裡沒介紹 我們無從得知 究竟是不是還要再找資料才行

Anyway 謝謝提醒我的貞儀 :-)
還有一起開會的大家 最近總覺得頭腦常常很混亂
組織能力有下滑的趨勢 你們能聽懂我講什麼實在很厲害XD