Social change: A selfless step for humankind<\/p>\n
Marco Kusumawijaya, Contributor, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Zamrisyaf, a 46-year-old worker at the State Electricity Company
\n(PLN) in West Sumatra, invented a machine that generates
\nelectricity from ocean waves, Kompas daily reported earlier this
\nmonth.<\/p>\n
Using a pendulum to capture and transform energy, the machine,
\ncosting Rp 3 million each, can be installed on any beach with
\nsteady wave movements to produce three kilowatts, enough energy
\nto give light to 20 fishermen's houses. It can also be used to
\nfreeze the fishermen's catch and start a processing home industry
\nto increase income and relieve them of the risk of going out to
\nsea during bad weather.<\/p>\n
He has been asked to present his invention before top
\nofficials, but he is far from satisfied, as the machine has yet
\nto become a standard device in coastal settlements across this
\nvast archipelago. If he achieves that, he will indeed create a
\nrevolutionary step in improving the life of many, while producing
\nalternative \"clean energy\" in mass, which is a goal in itself.<\/p>\n
How to do that? He is already an inventor, but now he needs to
\nbecome a social entrepreneur.<\/p>\n
He might want to learn from Fabio Rosa, a Brazilian agronomic
\nengineer, who in the 1980s practically changed national norms to
\nmake rural electrification affordable. He lowered the cost per
\nhousehold connection from US$7,000 (equivalent to five to 10
\nyears income for a poor farmer) to $400.<\/p>\n
Electricity means it is possible for the farmers to pump water
\n-- another rare resource -- from artesian wells to irrigate rice
\nplantations, hence increasing crop yields and, consequently,
\nincome. Another plus it that it creates better conditions for
\nchildren to study at night.<\/p>\n
Rosa, unlike Zamrisyaf, used inventions of others, bringing
\ndifferent components together and adapting them to national
\nnorms. He is an entrepreneur because he is, in the words of
\nJoseph A. Schumpeter, the source of \"creative destruction\" and,
\nin the words of Jean-Baptiste Say, a French economist writing two
\ncenturies ago, he is \"shifting economic resources out of an area
\nof lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater
\nyield\".<\/p>\n
The social entrepreneur is a concept, now offered for study at
\nsome leading universities, referring to those exceptional people
\nlike Rosa who make systemic change to solve society's fundamental
\nproblems on a large scale, but not for personal profit. Their
\ncore inventiveness is in the \"how-to\", not in the invention of
\ntechnology or hardware, although they sometimes do that as well.<\/p>\n
Bornstein links the rise with the emergence of a global
\n\"citizen sector\" in the last three decades. Twenty years ago,
\nIndonesia had only one independent environmental organization,
\ntoday it has more than 2,000. In the United States, 70 percent of
\nregistered citizen groups are less than 30 years old. John
\nHopkins University's study of eight developed countries found
\nthat between 1990 and 1995, employment in this sector grew two
\nand a half times faster than for the overall economy.<\/p>\n
Since the last decade, growth of the sector is occurring on a
\nscale never seen before. Its organizations are more globally
\ndispersed and diverse, and moving toward more systemic approach
\nto problems, forging more partnerships with businesses, academic
\ninstitutions and governments, and, driven by increased
\ncompetition and heightened attention to performance, is
\nexperiencing the benefits of entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n
A driving force behind this emergence is the rise in demand
\nfor the sector's service, because people recognize that change is
\nurgently needed as they become acutely conscious of environmental
\ndestruction, frustrated by failing government policies and the
\nwidening gap between the short-term interests of the decision-
\nmaking elite and the long-term interests of society.<\/p>\n
To trace the emergence of social entrepreneurship within the
\nabove context, the author has chosen Ashoka: Innovators for the
\nPublic, an organization that supported social entrepreneurs with
\ngrants, because it is the only such institution that has been
\nmonitoring this phenomenon at the global level for more than 20
\nyears.<\/p>\n
Ashoka does not claim that it creates social entrepreneurs,
\nbut simply identifies them at certain points where they need
\nsupport to carry on with their important work. In Indonesia, the
\nfirst fellows were selected in 1984, and it has supported a total
\nof 104. It is currently forging a partnership with a management
\nschool in Jakarta to set up the Center for Social
\nEntrepreneurship Development.<\/p>\n
How to Change the World could be too grand a title for a book
\nabout those individuals who are modest, although they did change
\nthe world, at least their respective ones. Its publication
\ncoincided nicely with the World Social Forum in Mumbai last
\nmonth. The individuals described in it do not just believe that
\n\"another world is possible\", but actually proved it.<\/p>\n
There is a tone of overwhelming empathy for Ashoka, its works,
\nfounders and fellows in the book. It reads largely like an
\nextended company profile of Ashoka, but the Ashoka Indonesia
\noffice in Bandung (ashokaindonesia@bdg.centrin.net.id) assured me
\nthat it is not a sponsored book. They also told me that an
\nIndonesian version is being considered.<\/p>\n
How to Change the World is an easy-to-read work written in a
\nfascinating style that combines analysis with vivid first-person
\nstories in concise sentences, paragraphs and chapters. It is the
\nresult of five years' research, including interviews with more
\nthan 100 social entrepreneurs all over the world.<\/p>\n
Seven longer chapters, each about 20 pages long, tell
\nindividual case studies of seven living social entrepreneurs,
\nfrom an Indian who opened a hot line for child protection, an
\nAmerican who helped thousands of low-income high school students
\nget into college and a South African who developed a home-based
\ncare model for AIDS patients.<\/p>\n
Two shorter chapters tell of historical figures, the 19th
\ncentury English nurse Florence Nightingale and James Grant, head
\nof UNICEF in 1980-19995, who is credited with saving 25 million
\nlives by leading a global campaign for immunization.<\/p>\n
Other shorter chapters, each nine to 14 pages, are inserted
\nbetween the above chapters. They tell the history of Ashoka, the
\nbiography of its founder, Bill Drayton, and some of the writer's
\nsynthesizing ideas.<\/p>\n
In all chapters, there are brief references to other social
\nentrepreneurs, including Muhammad Yunus, who in the 1980s and
\n1990s introduced large scale micro-credit and founded the famous
\nGrameen Bank in Bangladesh, which was the subject of Bornstein's
\nprevious book The Price of a Dream: The story of the Grameen Bank
\n(Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1997)<\/p>\n
The way the two types of chapters are organized is interesting
\nand prevents the book from being a boring documentation of facts.
\nThis may inspire many development agencies in writing up their
\nlessons-learned documentation into books. As Borstein suggests,
\nthe works of social entrepreneurs need be systematically studied,
\ndocumented and made replicable to respond to the expanding
\ncitizen sector and to speed up changing of the world with higher
\nefficiency. And mass-media may help in discovering and exposing
\nmore social entrepreneurs to that goal, to create a critical
\nmass.<\/p>\n
They are newsworthy, because they are \"destabilizing forces\"
\n(one definition of newsworthiness), even when many of them are
\nnot as \"sexy\" news items as others. Most important of all, there
\nis the demand for their stories, as people increasingly recognize
\nthat change is urgently needed.<\/p>\n
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power
\nof New Ideas
\nDavid Bornstein, 2004, Oxford Univesity Press
\n336 pp
\nUS$28<\/p>",
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