When David Bornstein graduated from McGill University 19 years ago, he knew exactly what he wanted to be: a millionaire with a Jaguar.
But after a bout of restlessness sent him traveling the globe, his goals took on a drastically different texture. Dreams of riches, he said, gave way to dreams of a "life of richness," and as for the Jaguar--well, not many journalists can own Jaguars.
Bornstein--whose new book, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, profiles nine social entrepreneurs whose vision and determination have effected positive change for millions of people across the world--spoke Wednesday at the Fuqua School of Business.
Social entrepreneurship first drew his attention, he said, when he learned about Grameen Bank, an organization that provides credit to the penniless without any collateral, enabling its clients to create self-employment and eventually overcome poverty.
"We should have more innovative organizations like Grameen Bank," he told an audience of about 150 people. "It was founded by entrepreneurs but fused with an ethical influence."
Bornstein described the entrepreneurial endeavors of a number of his book's subjects, noting that each employed a mix of resolution and flexibility to drive their projects to success.
For example, he said, Fabio Rosa helped bring electricity to hundreds of thousands of remote rural residents in Brazil, weathering both governmental opposition and the demons of unprofitability. When Rosa realized that a distribution model he had been developing for over a decade was not viable, he switched to an entirely different approach and continued with his work, eventually landing on a solar power-based model that was affordable to rural Brazilians and profitable to the distributing company.
J.B. Schramm, another subject of Bornstein's book, accompanied Bornstein in Geneen Auditorium Wednesday evening. Schramm founded College Summit, a program designed to motivate and enable "undervalued" high school students to attend college.
"Students in the lowest income quartile who get As in high school go to college at the same rate as the highest quartile getting Ds," Schramm said. "There is something wrong with this system."
This realization, he said, led him to develop a program that familiarizes students who may not traditionally attend college with the college application process. In addition, Schramm encourages high schools to change their college guidance structures, employing both a college counselor and a teacher who checks in regularly on students' progress with their applications.
For middle-class students, Schramm said, the latter role is played by the "nagging parents" who have their own college experiences to draw from. For students of lower incomes, however, this stimulus is often absent.
Both Bornstein and Schramm offered their advice to any would-be social entrepreneurs in the audience. "Trust your intuition... in the face of indifference, opposition or people saying, 'That's not the way it works,'" Bornstein said, adding that a social entrepreneur must understand his or her market better than anyone else.
Schramm emphasized the importance of resilience in a business that does not always hint at immediate success. "If you try to do social enterprise, you've got to be a pit bull," he said.
Bornstein added that a social entrepreneur must build up "a brain and heart trust" of people who will play devil's advocate and help develop resources, but who will also provide emotional support, especially during a project's initial stages.
"Social entrepreneurs are like the stock in the soup; they do hold it together," Bornstein said, adding, however, that behind every successful social entrepreneur are a dozen valuable supporters and co-workers.
Finally, Bornstein said, the social entrepreneur must "take action today."
"Each action you take... can open a door to you," he said.
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