This Week, Social Entrepreneurs Around The World: 9 June 2006

We continue to survey interesting entrepreneurial blogs around the world. We will focus on a global social entrepreneurship blog which I feel contribute the most diverse of social entrepreneurship & sustainable development and also an important social entrepreneurship foundation.

Social Entrepreneurship will dominate the theme of today. Afterall, in Singapore, not many people are aware what social entrepreneurship is all about. Most of them associate social entrepreneurship with charities, which is a totally wrong concept. Helping to tackle environmental problems (greenhouse gases and global warming) and social issues (healthcare and third world poverty) using the traditional business enterprise also constitute as social enterprise. Creating new technologies to replace oil and petroleum as an energy source is another form of sustainable development. A very recent theme pursued in social entrepreneurship is also corporate social responsibility. For example, Shell is actively engaged in helping the community to educate them in entrepreneurship in a global project called Shell Livewire. Let’s move forward now with what’s happening around the world:

• Audeamus, a social entrepreneurship blog covering the world of social entrepreneurship, social enterprise, corporate social responsibility, international development, global non-profit and philanthropic work. They have interesting stories on Innovations and Social Entrepreneurs and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): is it real?. While maintaining a global outfit, they also profiled interesting social enterprises like Literary Ventures Fund, PowerSource and Creative Capital.
• Ashoka: Their aim is “to shape a citizen sector that is entrepreneurial, productive and globally integrated, and to develop the profession of social entrepreneurship around the world. Ashoka identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs – extraordinary individuals with unprecedented ideas for change in their communities – supporting them, their ideas and institutions through all phases of their careers.”

  Their vision is that of a global society that is able to respond quickly and effectively to social challenges everywhere. Ashoka does not accept government funding; business entrepreneurs and their foundations, corporations, individuals and volunteer chapters finance Ashoka’s work.

  They give a very broad definition of a social entrepreneur, and it might be better to read up more on what they do.

Technorati Tags: Social Entrepreneurship, Singapore Entrepreneurs, Audeamus, Ashoka.

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