simon tucker social enterprise summit, hong kong december 2007

Simon TuckerSocial Enterprise Summit, Hong KongDecember 2007

A changing world

Too inflexible, unimaginative, fitted to past problems or locked into powerful interests

Existing models don’t work

GDP

Index of sustainable economic welfare (ISEW)

Economic index

Time

Happiness

1950s 60s 70s 80s 90s 00s

Need for social innovation

Social entrepreneurs and innovators

Business entrepreneurs → economic growth

Social entrepreneurs → social innovation Now include 2 Nobel Peace Laureates: Muhammad Yunus, Wangari Maathai

•Micro-credit and consumer cooperatives •Self-help health groups and self-build housing•Community transport•Magazines sold by the homeless•Recycling and waste services•Neighbourhood nurseries and neighbourhood wardens•Wikipedia, Craig’s List and Freecycle•Complementary medicine and hospices•Fair trade •Zero carbon housing schemes and community wind farms

Social enterprises

Michael Young

‘probably the world’s most successful entrepreneur of social enterprises’ (Prof. D. Bell, Harvard)

• shaped UK welfare state• futurologist• Over 60 organisations created• Launchpad social venture funds• pioneer of innovations – patient-led

health, consumerism, extended schools• International SIX network

Michael Young and Young Foundation

Two examples of social entrepreneurship in practice ….

The Open University

• The world's first successful distance

learning university

• Idea conceived by Michael Young in

response to exclusion from higher education

• Initially launched as a social enterprise then incorporated by government

• Millions of beneficiaries worldwide – 25 variants from India to China - and copied by the private sector

• 2006 satisfaction rating the highest among 129 higher education providers across the UK

Resistance…

• ‘blithering nonsense’ according to conservatism and vested interests

• Michael Young’s own experience:

‘Although I canvassed the idea with 120 colleagues, only one supported me… After years of struggle, we gave up the idea of trying to do it within a university. Because the inertia was so great, it had to be established through a separate institution.’

InterpreterCall Centreoperator

Patient

Doctor

Language Line

• Started on a shoestring as an NGO in 1969

• Quickly grew to providing over 100 languages

• Management buyout to finance growth

• After 10 years valued at £150m (HK$1.7bn)

• Now handles >1m calls/year in 175 languages

• 95% calls connected to interpreter in <60 seconds

From NGO to social enterprise

“A new type of organisation combining social and business characteristics, innovation and entrepreneurship” Bornstein

“The real growth ‘sector’ in the post-capitalist era” Drucker

Nature of social enterprises

Business Government

NGO

Social enterprise

Social enterpriseSocial enterprise

Advantages of social enterprise

• Power of belief

• Customer focus

• Co-production

• Committed staff

• Pro-Am power

• Scaleability and sustainability

• Market pioneering

Hong Kong?

Ideally suited to be not just a hub for finance, trade and creative industries

But also laboratory for social entrepreneurship and innovation for the region

Simon Tucker

simon.tucker@youngfoundation.org

youngfoundation.org socialinnovationexchange.org