Entrepreneurship
Unleashing African entrepreneurial success
Often I am disturbed when I read the latest unemployment statistics and forecasts for job creation. Global unemployment is currently 200 million people. The international unemployment statistic remains pervasive and systemic, and over the next 10 years the global community will need to create 600 million productive jobs in order to keep pace with the demand for gainful employment.I grew up in the United Kingdom, Rwanda and Uganda, which afforded me a diverse set of opportunities throughout my youth. I started my first business at the age of 15 and, in as many years, I have grown the Mara...
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February 26, 2013
An economic revolution driven by microentrepreneurs
Here in the World Economic Forum on East Asia, Bangkok, the conference theme is Shaping the Region’s Future through Connectivity:“The 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) together form an important strategic and economic region with a combined population of over 600 million, a nominal GDP exceeding US$ 1.8 trillion, and a growth rate for the region expected to exceed 5% in 2012 despite ongoing economic turmoil in the Eurozone and the United States. The ASEAN Economic Blueprint has established concrete targets to form a single market and production...
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May 31, 2012
How to Kick-start Your Business Idea
Despite many business sectors facing problems related to the economic crisis, entrepreneurs are finding alternative sources of funding.Through its online crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter – a World Economic Forum 2012 Tech Pioneer – has helped a quarter of a million people raise money for thousands of imaginative projects.One of the projects that received funding through Kickstarter hit the headlines a few weeks ago in The New York Times and elsewhere – Eric Migicovsky’s Pebble wristwatch, a Bluetooth 4.0-enabled wristwatch that integrates with iPhone and Android smartphones to show...
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May 23, 2012
Doing development differently
What is the difference between a social entrepreneur and an entrepreneur original, the entrepreneur-on-the-rocks?The entrepreneur sees a gap in the market, an unfulfilled need for which the market will pay. The social entrepreneur, on the other hand, operates in areas in which markets have failed. And gaps are all that seem to exist. Finding anything that can work in these environments is a challenge.However, in my experience, the two types of entrepreneurs share many characteristics. They share the belief that the world should be different and both have the temerity to believe they can...
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May 9, 2012
Can entrepreneurs transform Africa’s brand?
This meeting, held this year in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, is about Africa’s Transformation. And there is no greater transformation taking place than in the continent’s entrepreneurial realm where Africans are showcasing their immense skills and creativity, and transforming the brand that is Africa. We will see a lot of this on display at the meeting!I am often asked about the “poverty” in Ethiopia and Africa. People are amazed when I answer that there is no poverty in Ethiopia or Africa. What there has been is a poverty of ambition, one wherein we were never supposed to dream big and...
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May 3, 2012
Entrepreneurial revolution? Or redefinition?
Many people around the world are calling for an “entrepreneurial revolution” to fix social and economic problems. This call naively assumes that more entrepreneurs are needed to address these issues. Increasing the number of entrepreneurs, however, is not as critical as persuading entrepreneurs to improve their societies through growth, innovation and social transformation. The revolution should be one of transforming contemporary entrepreneurial culture to make it more socially minded.Entrepreneurs are known for creating new ventures that creatively solve problems. This basic definition, I...
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April 18, 2012
An entrepreneurial society
There has been a lot of talk recently, both globally and regionally, about the importance of creating an entrepreneurial culture, and the role such a culture can play in an economic recovery. Calling for an “entrepreneurial revolution” should definitely be one of the priorities of the world today, however; we need to make sure we do not define entrepreneurship too narrowly. In its essence entrepreneurship is about a proactive mindset that takes ownership of surrounding problems in society, sees them as opportunities, and embraces the risks and failures involved in finding a solution.In most...
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March 30, 2012
Facilitating social investments: help shape legislation!
The European Commission launched a Social Business Initiative in November 2011. One of the 11 key action areas is a proposal for regulation on European Social Entrepreneurship Funds. This proposal is currently being discussed in the European Parliament and I will have the opportunity to address the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on 20 March.The goal of the proposal is to provide a framework in the EU that will remove barriers to efficient flows of capital to funds that invest in social entrepreneurs and social businesses. The proposal seeks to remove two perceived obstacles to the...
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March 16, 2012
My top ten beliefs as a social entrepreneur
The list of top ten beliefs of Pakistani social entrepreneur Asher Hasan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Naya Jeevan, a social enterprise that offers affordable, high-quality health insurance and “value-added” services to Pakistan’s population of low-income workers. “I believe that all human beings have intrinsic value. Regardless of their ethnicity, religion, etc. For those of us who have faith we were all created by the same Creator and therefore should respect ALL of his creations (yes, even Donald Trump!).” “I believe in the resilience and...
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February 17, 2012
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and Wendy Kopp discuss social entrepreneurship
Close to 3000 world leaders are convening in Davos at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting. 30 of them are social entrepreneurs from around the world. The theme of the meeting is “The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models”. Watch what Muhammad Yunus and Wendy Kopp (Teach for America and Teach for All) contribute to this fundamental debate on the current capitalist system. “We need to expand the idea of business,” said Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus, a board member of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. “Rather than just making money, we need businesses that...
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January 26, 2012
Social Entrepreneurs in positive moods as Annual Meeting kicks off
I always love the day before the official annual World Economic Forum meeting kicks off. This is the time when the 30 social entrepreneurs who have been invited to the Forum through the Schwab Foundation can get together themselves and discuss matters which are relevant to their sector.I had a 6am flight out of London and then managed to plough through the thick and deep snow in Davos to arrive just in time for the start of the sessions. It is just really great to meet everyone. All the social entrepreneurs are passionate people and deeply concerned about the issues which they are involved in...
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January 26, 2012
Davos Daily: There’s a Reason It’s Called “Venture” Capital
There’s a Reason It’s Called “Venture” CapitalBy Jose Ferreira, CEO and Founder, Knewton I started Knewton to do my bit to fix the world’s education system. Education is among the most important problems we face, because it’s the ultimate “gateway” problem. That is, it drives virtually every global problem that we face as a species. But there’s a flip-side: if we can fix education, then we’ll dramatically improve the other problems, too. So in fact, I started Knewton not just to help fix education but to try to fix just about everything…Okay, yes, that’s crazily ambitious. But we have a...
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January 26, 2012
Global Entrepreneurship
After avoiding the collapse of the global financial and economic system, governments around the world are now focused on building a foundation for future growth. In addition to safeguarding the economic recovery, the world is facing a number of transformative challenges, such as an increasing scarcity of natural resources, significant demographic shifts, and the environmental and social implications of climate change.In dealing with these challenges, governments have taken an increasingly strong interest in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are recognized as important drivers of economic and...
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April 15, 2011
Alternative Investments
Through recent years, alternative investment asset classes such as private equity have become increasingly important pools of capital in the global financial system.Private equity activity in particular (defined as equity investments by professionally managed partnerships that involve leveraged buyouts or other equity investments with a substantial indebtedness) has accelerated noticeably. The total value of firms (both equity and debt) acquired in leveraged buyouts is estimated to be $3.6 trillion from 1970 to 2007, of which $2.7 trillion worth of transactions occurred between 2001 and 2007....
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October 20, 2010
