The FINANCIAL — Throughout the world, social entrepreneurs are creating innovative and disruptive solutions to tackle urgent global challenges. Typically these entrepreneurs aim to scale their individual organisations to increase their impact. Yet one of the most effective ways to achieve that impact is through connecting and partnering with other social ventures with complementary goals, says Pamela Hartigan, Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.
Hartigan comments, ‘Social entrepreneurs are tackling some of the world’s most challenging problems. As individual organisations, they simply cannot do this alone. They have to reach out and form alliances with other like-minded organisations that are also tackling the same issue. One of the goals of the Skoll Scholarship is to build a strong community of entrepreneurs to fuel the ecosystem of solutions.’
The Skoll Scholarship, which provides financial support for up to five students a year to join the Oxford MBA and pursue entrepreneurial solutions for urgent social and environmental challenges, has created a growing community of individuals who are increasingly finding ways to work together and create new alliances. The 52 Scholars, who have joined Saïd Business School since the programme was introduced in 2005, form a well-connected community of graduates that continue to lead transformational change as they pursue their careers post-MBA, according to Saïd Business School.
‘The Skoll Scholar community is extremely powerful and distinctive in this sector,’ says Daniela Papi-Thornton, Skoll Scholar 2011 and Deputy Director of the Skoll Centre. ‘The community enables the Scholars to come together to find solutions to shared challenges which is unique and fuels the Scholar’s progress long after the MBA programme is complete. The Scholars are constantly sharing their experiences, offering advice and connections, and supporting one another as they recommit to deploying their talents to improve the communities in which they work.’
There have been a number of effective collaborations facilitated by this community, and the energy sector in Africa is an example of that. Two of the fastest-growing ventures focused on delivering energy to people living in poverty in Africa were founded by Skoll Scholars who have then gone on to hire other members of the community. Jesse Moore (Skoll Scholar 2006) is the co-founder of M-KOPA Solar, a Nairobi based company providing solar power in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, growing at over 500 new customers per day. To help grow their business, they brought on David Damberger, (Skoll Scholar 2011), and recently Nikhil Nair (Skoll Scholar 2014) completed a pre-MBA internship with the organisation. Xavier Helgesen (Skoll Scholar 2010) and Erica Mackey (Skoll Fellow 2010) co-founded Off.Grid:Electric which provides people in rural Tanzania access to solar power at an affordable price. They have been joined by Graham Smith (Skoll Fellow 2010), and more recently by Austin Harris and Mark Hlady (Skoll Scholars 2013) to expand the idea into new countries.
The two-day Skoll Scholar Summit, which takes place on 13th-14th April, preceding the Skoll World Forum, is crucial to the strength of the community. The self-facilitated Skoll Scholar Board puts together a two day programme focusing on developing personal leadership, reflecting on the year that has passed, and provides an opportunity to share lessons learned across the community.
‘Social entrepreneurs, just like all entrepreneurs, cannot succeed without access to new ideas, networks, and the lessons of others. Taking time to reflect on their recent progress and reassert their aims, while learning about organisations that are attempting to solve problems that are similar or completely different to their own, is refreshing and really beneficial,’ says Papi-Thornton. ‘The Skoll Scholars are all working to solve social and environmental challenges, often taking personal and financial risks, and this type of experience helps build and refuel their resilience in that work. Being surrounded by such extraordinary individuals and being provided with the space to collaborate and share ideas is an invaluable experience and creates a really exciting ecosystem.’
‘The Skoll Scholar Summit is an annual residential retreat, generously supported by the Skoll Centre, that provides an extraordinary opportunity for the globally spread Skoll community to reconnect in person, to reflect collectively, to re-imagine possibilities and to be reinvigorated with a new zeal to face the challenges ahead,’ says Shubham Anand (Skoll Scholar 2012). ‘It is also an occasion for the amalgamation of the newest Scholars into the wider family to ensure an ever vibrant community that grows from strength to strength in its collective endeavour to find sustainable solutions for some of the world’s most pressing problems.’
Discussion about this post