What will we do if we win?

We’ll launch InVenture – Canada’s first program to help young people launch businesses that can change the world.

We’ll bring 20 of the best start-ups we can find, have them learn from Canada’s best business minds, and then fill a room with investors interested in them.

We’ll help build businesses driven by social missions. Businesses that focus on renewable energies & cleantech, micro-finance, global education, health access, arts & culture, etc. Businesses that propel us toward a more social, greener economy as fast as possible.

So why is InVenture important?

• It will create jobs. 97.5% of businesses in Ontario are small businesses. And they account for 52% of net job creation across Canada, according to Statistics Canada.

• Young social entrepreneurs are asking for it. Since January, we’ve had nearly 60 requests for this kind of help.

• We can make it happen. That’s why we’ve recieved letters of support from PM Paul Martin & Premier Dalton McGuinty. We just need the money.

• There’s nothing like it in Canada.

Please vote for us.  Everyday if you can. Here.

Thanks!

- From the YSEC team.

Before the mix of festivities and chaos hit the streets of Toronto this past weekend, YSEC joined a panel of young entrepreneurs representing the city at the G20 Youth Summit. Known as MY SUMMIT, the event convened youth delegates from all the participating nations.

Moderated by Gavin Sheppherd of The Remix Project – a community organization with several budding social enterprises – the panel was prodded on their thoughts about the challenges and opportunities the city holds for young entrepreneurs.

Their verdict? Canada needs more community hubs and informal associations dedicated to young entrepreneurs, but stands to gain significantly from looming transformations in all social systems – from energy and agriculture, to healthcare and education.

As the delegates spoke about means of influencing the future, social entrepreneurship seemed to captivate their interest.

A delegate from South Korea contemplated the distinction between social enterprise and corporate social responsibility, while another from Mexico was concerned that developed nations were yet again dictating a prescribed development path for emerging economies by suggesting that they develop in cleaner ways. The latter point was an important cue in establishing a framework for collaboration among nations, but misses the point that a global full press of social innovation is needed to adapt to a rapidly shifting world. While it is entirely reasonable to demand that developed nations assume much of the burden of ensuring better social and environmental practices, it is also vital for all nations to do what they can to stimulate, aid and practice wide scale social innovation.

The event revealed the depth of interest young leaders from around the world are taking in social entrepreneurship as a concrete way forward. In contrast to the weekend’s moments of despair in the streets, the sense of promise was palpable. And that’s a very good thing.

Presented by YSEC & George Brown College’s Institute for Entrepreneurship & Community Innovation (IECI).

This 4-part series will take you through the steps of creating a business plan for your enterprise, social enterprise or nonprofit.

Outcomes:

- Draft a business plan
– Get an expert opinion on your idea’s strengths & weaknesses
– Utilize market research to create financial plans
– Create a draft marketing plan

Taught by Professor Mark Simpson, Co-ordinator & Professor of Management Studies, International Business Management, Small Business Entrepreneurship

June 2, 9, 16, 23   I    6-9pm

George Brown College
230 Richmond Street East

50% discount for YSEC Members. To become a member click here.
35% discount for additional members of your team.

Limited seating available. Register here.

Renjie Butalid is the Communications Coordinator at Social Innovation Generation at the University of Waterloo.

1) What are you working on and why does it matter?

I am currently working on a speaker series beginning May 5 in Waterloo, hosted by Social Innovation Generation at the University of Waterloo.

This speaker series will apply the ideas of social innovation to a number of specific sectors and issues – education, youth mentorship, inclusion, collaboration and fostering a culture of change – where each of the five speakers in the series will discuss and share their experiences of operating at the national level to identify and address the root causes of intractable social problems.

For each of these talks, all of which are free to attend and open to the public, we are strategically inviting people from sectors and organizations dealing with each of the issues mentioned above, to begin facilitating discussions within communities of practice around new ways of thinking and taking action, in ways that are more meaningful (especially for young people) and have a deeper impact within the community.

2) What motivates you?

The way I see it, people are inspired by role models, but are motivated by their peers. With that said, I am motivated by the excitement and energy found within this emerging field of ’social innovation’, especially among young people today.

Social innovation in this case, for me, involves new ways of thinking and acting within government, education, healthcare and even more so in the non-profit/charity and business sectors, that will ultimately lead to transformative and meaningful change within our local communities and across society as a whole.

3) What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned recently?

To always say ‘yes’ to things that scare me and to never be afraid to learn something new, you never know what opportunities may arise from these experiences.

Case in point, I am extremely claustrophobic and I’m afraid to be in tight, confined spaces.  That being said, I was always afraid to go scuba diving because of the claustrophobic feeling I assumed I would get being underwater and relying solely on a tank of oxygen to breathe. I went and got my scuba diving license at the end of last year, and found that rather than feeling claustrophobic underwater, it was the most liberating feeling I have had in my life.

This has opened up some new possibilities for me, from pursuing underwater photography as a hobby to exploring sunken wrecks and cave diving.

4) If you could invite 5 people dead or alive to dinner, who would they be?

I would invite US President Barack Obama and the late Philippine President Cory Aquino, my late grandfather Romeo Butalid (whom I never met since he passed away when my dad was in his teens), the late British explorer Wilfred Thesiger whom I have always admired growing up in the UAE, and of course Barney Stinson from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ to lighten the mood. It would certainly make for an interesting evening and great conversation.

5) Best resource people don’t know about?

I am a firm believer in life-long learning and as a result, I find myself watching TEDTalks online very often. By now, most people would have heard of TED and if you haven’t, I would encourage you to check out www.TED.com.

Some other great resources that are very similar to TED that I would highly recommend, include Academic Earth (http://academicearth.org/) and the Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/).

 For many of us at YSEC, David Bornstein’s book, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, was one of our first introductions to social entrepreneurship.

As a result, we were thrilled to have David as the keynote speaker at our recent conference, re:Vision 2010.  (For some great reflections on Bornstein’s remarks, read the following posts by Nathaniel Whittemore (one of our other exceptional keynotes), Cheryl May, and Ruby Ku).

David’s newest project is Dowser, a multi-media site committed to exploring, “Who’s solving what and how?”, which profiles the ways in which people are making a positive impact on the world. 

Recently, Nogah had the opportunity to ask David some questions about his new book, Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.

Below are David’s insights on his book, current trends in social entrepreneurship, and his advice for young social entrepreneurs:

In the introduction of your new book, Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know, you describe the current social entrepreneurship landscape as ’social entrepreneurship 3.0′, which focuses on the “change-making potential of all people and their interactions.” Do you believe anyone can be a social entrepreneur?

I don’t believe that everyone should be a social entrepreneur. You know what they say about too many chefs in the kitchen. There is a clear role for the entrepreneurial author in any change — but there are hundreds of other roles that must be played or nothing happens. However, everyone can be a changemaker and be a powerful one at that if they see the possibilities and learn the skills.

You also describe social entrepreneurship as “contagious”, claiming that “every person who starts a social change organization emboldens others to pursue their ideas and solutions…” What role does inspiration play for social entrepreneurs?

Inspiration is overrated. You obviously have to care very very deeply to cause a change, because it usually takes years to get something big done. When people engage in prolonged, concerted action, it’s usually grounded in a connection rooted in relationships, experiences and ethical values — often influenced by childhood teachings. Inspiration can add energy, but it’s not enough.

Most young people I speak with tell me, ‘Please don’t inspire us. We’re already inspired. We want to change the world. We want to know how to be effective.’

So the more important role is to demonstrate the pathways that exist for people to act on their ambitions and have impact. These career paths are opening up but we need to make them more visible.

In your book, you claim that ’social entrepreneurship 3.0′ is “concerned with building platforms that enable more people at every age to think and behave like changemakers and to help them work together powerfully in teams and in teams of teams.” What do these building platforms look like / consist of?

The platforms are ahead of us. We don’t know exactly what they look like. We need to imagine them. We can refer back to platforms of past generations and see how they got people to work together effectively.

For example, in the 1990s, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines brought hundreds of groups together globally using what was then a relatively new technology: email. These groups aligned and coordinated their efforts and produced the first international treaty in human history pushed through by citizens. They even overcame opposition from the United States and other governments – and they did it in a year. How did they do it? And how did they do it so quickly?

The Microcredit Summit Campaign figured out all the pieces that had to come together for microfinance to become a truly global movement. They recognized roles for practitioners, governments, funders, multilaterals, banks, academics and others, and they got thousands of groups to coordinate. They got individuals to work together as teams, and then got them working as teams of teams. As a result, the Microcredit Summit Campaign which had the goal of reaching 100 million poor families with microcredit, was one of the only global summits to actually achieve its goal, and now it has expanded on that goal to reach 175 million families.

Today with the vastly expanded reach of technology, especially cell phones and handheld computers, as well as crowd-sourced language translation platforms, it’s impossible to imagine how much farther people can go working together.

Why do you think teams and teamwork are crucial to this current phase in social entrepreneurship?

So many changemakers are emerging in so many different fields at once around the world. For example, one group may be teaching empathy to kids, another may be improving math education in middle school, another may be focusing on college access, another may be creating new Green Job pathways. And so on and so forth. To create whole solutions, we need to integrate many different solutions being developed independently. And we have to get everyone working across sector and cultural boundaries, too.

What new or different opportunities for social change did ’social entrepreneurship 2.0′ bring to the table?

If you think of the business services that popped up in the 20th century, we really figured out how to build great for-profit institutions. They may not always behave wisely, or with kindness, but they function well, and they often improve as they grow, which is different from many social and government organizations. What the business sector hasn’t figured out is how to achieve social benefit as a primary objective, rather than a secondary objective. So business and social entrepreneurs have something to teach one another.

Do you think there are any downsides to social entrepreneurship?

The downside is the way it is often interpreted. People see it as a celebration of the individual. What is not fully appreciated is that it is less a story of individuals than a description of a process.

What I mean is that for people to come together to create a new social configuration — something that can add value to the world — you need at the outset a very strong focus, great energy, and a deep belief that something is possible before the evidence is in. A social entrepreneur provides these things, which is why they’re essential for getting things going, building the momentum, and navigating change, especially in the early years.

But social entrepreneurs don’t cause change. Lots of people together cause change. We miss the point when we focus on social entrepreneurs as rock stars as opposed to social entrepreneurship as a process by which people come together and align their efforts.

Do you have any advice for social entrepreneurs who are trying to pursue their ideas and/or launch their own social enterprises?

The most important thing is to know this history of the problem you are solving. How have other people tried to solve it? What are they doing today? What are the 3 or 5 most innovative ideas in the world today in your area of interest? There are very few ideas that are wholly new. Usually, the key question is, ‘What are you doing differently than the people who tried this before you?’

The second is to realize that everything that gets built in the world gets built because of relationships — strong, enduring relationships that are based on deep connections, mutual affinity, respect, and trust. One caveat: there are people who go out with an eye to ‘network.’ Networking can be very crass if it’s done in an opportunistic spirit. Better to live in the world and be open to finding your true colleagues – people who care about the same things you do and whose ideas compliment yours. People who you want to be part of your life. That’s building community. It’s a different way of looking at things.

Why write this book? Why now?

We’ve gotten so many requests from students and professors for a general introduction to social entrepreneurship. We saw there were many people who didn’t necessarily want to be social entrepreneurs. They were in business, or policy, or journalism, or other fields. But they wanted to understand how social entrepreneurship would be relevant to their lives and why they should learn about it.

We think that social entrepreneurship is going to influence society from every angle. It’s going to change government and business, to be sure, but it will also affect the professions: health, education, law, etc. So we thought that a general introduction that doesn’t take up too much time to read would be a valuable addition. We also wanted to make it affordable, so it’s only being published in paperback.

Anything else?

There are so many opportunities that will be emerging in the next 5 to 10 years. Career paths that we can’t even envision will be coming up. It’s like when the internet took off in the mid 90’s. Nobody imagined the landscape of new work that would come. Who could have foreseen people with full time jobs advising companies how to use Twitter?

The field of social entrepreneurship will make it possible for large numbers of people to pursue careers that blend their interests, values and talents and really have an impact. And they won’t have to be entrepreneurs themselves to do that.

So if you’re a writer, a researcher, an academic, a computer programmer, a film maker, there is a role in advancing this field, where you can work with colleagues who turn you on, do work that is challenging and fun, and help improve the world. It is a hopeful time and an exciting time to be embarking on a career.

David Bornstein’s new book, Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know will be on sale at the YSEC MeetUP on April 22, 6 -8 pm at the Centre for Social Innovation (215 Spadina Ave., 4th Floor).

Social Entrepreneurship in Canada

Know of other good resources? Share with us below!

Today the first ever Young Social Entrepreneurs (YSEC) of Canada conference, re:Vision 2010, kicks off in Toronto, Ontario. With students, innovation centers, coworking spaces and an increasingly vibrant startup scene, Toronto is a place to watch.

So in response to Nathaniel’s question of whether Toronto is the next social innovation hub our answer is a resounding “YES!” Incidentally, this was echoed by the Center of Social Innovation on their facebook fan page yesterday.

Check out Nathaniel’s full blog post here: Change.org: Is Toronto The Next Social Innovation Hub?

A big thank you to Nathaniel for his great work and contribution in the area of social change, and for being a part of the immensely successful re:Vision 2010.

Check out their full essays at Globe and Mail: What it means to be a mentor.

Catch Tonya Surman and Nathaniel Whittmore at re:Vision Earth Hour and Mark Simpson at re:Vision 2010. Registration still open. Don’t miss out!

SiG@MaRS delivers social entrepreneurship programming and advisory support as a partner program of MaRS. Social Innovation Generation (SiG) is a collaborative partnership among The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation of Montreal; the University of Waterloo; the MaRS Discovery District of Toronto, and the PLAN Institute of Vancouver.

SiG@MaRS’ goal is to promote a robust innovation culture in Canada specifically social innovations that meet social and environmental goals.

When asked why SIG@MaRS decided to partner with YSEC for our inaugural conference Cheryl May, Advisor and Director of Social Entrepreneurship, replied:

The Social Innovation advisory service at MaRS works with social entrepreneurs from all sectors who are fuelled by inspiration and vision, and a drive to combine good business with doing good. YSEC is a tremendous force because it brings youth into the realm of social entrepreneurship, and when I see the enormous movement of people who are embracing social entrepreneurship, I am buoyed by the knowledge that the future is in good hands.

Thanks for your vote of confidence and support Cheryl May and SIG@MaRS!

7 sleeps to go until re:Vision 2010! Limited spots left so don’t miss out. revision.ysec.org

Possibly because nothing teaches you about running an organization like actually running an organization. – Scott Warren, young leader

Read From Student to Leader: Taking the Leap and discover how one young leader is making things happen.

What are YOU doing to be a change maker? Comment and let us know!