The Collective Power of Social Innovation

On Friday 29 April, 11 Social Entrepreneurs and I had the opportunity to meet with President Fernández of the Dominican Republic. President Fernández has set forth the ambitious goal for his country to be a powerhouse of innovation. He has focused much of his three terms on creating robust economic growth through investment in technology, infrastructure and technical skills-building. From what we had read online, a criticism of his government is the lack of focus on social programmes.

We walked into the meeting with open minds and welcoming hearts, eager to learn how we could be an informational resource for the president and hopeful that our community could be a source of inspiration for how the Dominican Republic could maintain its commitment to innovation while increasing its focus on social needs.

What happened during the next hour surprised us all. It began with the president giving his undivided attention to each and every Social Entrepreneur, learning about their backgrounds and the mission of their social enterprises. His ability to absorb the plethora of detail about our community and to draw on these facts and anecdotes as he spoke showed his capacity as an engaging and engaged leader.

President Fernández then launched into an enthusiastic dialogue with the Social Entrepreneurs about how governments and social enterprises could work more closely together. Governments, he asserted, can and should draw on the innovations born of social enterprises and facilitate the broader success of these social innovations to tackle the widespread and deep societal needs that plague Latin America and the world.

Building on what he knew about the Social Entrepreneurs participating in the World Economic Forum on Latin America, he commented that a self-sustaining model community could be created from the range of social innovations in the Schwab Foundation community. Naturally, someone asked President Fernández: Would you be willing to help us build this pilot community in the Dominican Republic? Smiling, the president said it would be his honour to host it, but where it really should be is in Haiti. If this was something of interest to the community, he offered to help advance the idea of a pilot community of social innovations for Latin America through the other heads of state across Latin America.

The enthusiasm swirled and the vision began to take hold among the Social Entrepreneurs. They had each focused efforts and time advancing the mission of their own social enterprise using the Schwab Foundation community to help support their enterprise’s missions and goals. Without doubt, they were all committed to the larger goal of making the world a better place, but had honed in only on the sector and geographic region of their social enterprise.

But what if, instead of Social Entrepreneurs addressing the myriad of social challenges communities across the world face piece by piece, they came together and created something larger than themselves and their enterprises? With this idea, the Social Entrepreneurs committed to taking their impact to the next level of multistakeholder engagement: a virtual community of social innovators that builds on-the-ground communities to improve the state of each individual community member’s life.

Over the past decade, the Schwab Foundation has been, according to many, the most successful curator of outstanding social enterprises on a global scale. Over the next decade, these Social Entrepreneurs of the Schwab Foundation community can use their vision, influence and commitment to demonstrate how the collective power of social innovation can and will improve the state of the world in a way that no other group or sector can on its own.

Abigail Noble

 

Editor's note
Abigail Noble, Head, Latin America and Africa, 
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship