Mainstreaming Social Entrepreneurs
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2010-11-02 16:58
From Oct 21-23, over 300 visionaries convened in New Orleans under the banner of “Innovators Summit: Reboot America,” to discuss the nation’s challenges and rally around the innovative approaches being applied to tackle them. The Daily Beast hosted the event, led by the inspirational Tina Brown, and Echoing Green was honored to be an organizational partner. It was notable for social entrepreneurs to be recognized as an integral part of what is required to reboot America, and there rubbing shoulders alongside leaders in journalism, banking and politics – but that is the hallmark of a true social entrepreneur: a leader who can cross these traditional sector boundaries to engage with multiple industries. On that note, Tina and I had a great conversation about the next generation of social entrepreneurs and how business models and social impact can meld together so effectively.
The Summit was interesting in that it gave attendees an opportunity to hear different perspectives from leaders across fields and disciplines, whether it was Barry Diller speaking about the near-merger of The Daily Beast with Newsweek, General Stanley McCrystal discussing strength in teamwork, or Michelle Rhee on the power imbalance of the American education system. I particularly enjoyed Vinod Khosla’s terrific discussion on radical innovation. These speakers all touched in some way on the message that being a leader is difficult because you have to put yourself out there knowing that you can, and many times will, fail. Acting knowingly with this risk is what makes innovation simultaneously so challenging and rewarding.
New Orleans provided a meaningful backdrop and wonderful host for the Summit, as the city has become a real hub for place-based innovation in the past few years. Mayor Mitch Landrieu established one of the first state Offices of Social Entrepreneurship when he was Lt. Governor. Appropriately, Mitch kicked off the Summit by highlighting the lessons that America can learn from New Orleans, and the efforts of many social entrepreneurs who are strengthening schools, and building sustainability models to help rebuild and revitalize the city. For example, before the conference started I had lunch at a great local eatery, Commerce, with Fellows Will Bradshaw and Reuben Teague. They are the co-founders of Green Coast Enterprises, a triple-bottom-line real estate company that is part of the collaborative effort to rebuild New Orleans as a green city.
Back at the Summit, I had the opportunity to convene two panels featuring other Echoing Green Fellows: the first was comprised of David Del Ser of Frogtek, Jane Chen of Embrace, and Mark Hanis of the Genocide Intervention Network who described their bold ideas, and answered one of Echoing Green’s favorite questions: “Why do you do what you do?” The second panel included Ashni Mohnot of Enzi, Kara Bobroff of Native American Community Academy, and Rafiq Kalam Id-Din of Teaching Firms of America, with each describing how their organizations are tackling the nation’s education reform challenges. Rafiq’s talk created such buzz that he was included on the Daily Beast’s Top-10 Inspiring Stories from the Summit.
Overall, social innovators were the stars of the Summit, and we are excited that social entrepreneurship is entering the mainstream as a viable model for broad, systemic innovation. We hope that the energy from this first Innovators Summit continues to drive people together to think about bold social change.
