TIEC Social Entrepreneurs Forum

The event took place today (November 14, 2009) in the Plaza Heisei of Tokyo International Exchange Center.
It started with the speech on sustainable development of Peo Ekberg, environmental consultant coming from the top country in the Climate Change Performance 2008 Index (data provided by the speaker) - Sweden.
He introduced information on the current global climate condition, warning us of the infeasibility for the planet to preserve the similar development with the Western world for all the countries. “We need 3 more planets like Earth for all of the states to reach the same development as the developed countries,” said Peo.
The presentation carried on to 3 pillars of sustainability: economy, environment, and human health. The speaker insisted that the three pillars should not contradict each other for the growth to be sustainable.
He continued on to the examples of Tesla Motors electric cars as successful illustrations of green technologies, as opposed to hybrids of Toyota (that comprise only 3% of Toyota car sales) and highlighted the irony behind Toyota's environmental efforts.
In his speech, Mr. Ekberg had also offered a rule for sustainable development, called “Above & below ground,” stating that humanity should concentrate on using things that are provided above the ground (biogas) and leave those that are below ground (oil) as they are.
He further proceeded to his own experience in helping people. He and his wife have established a computer skills training program for adults “One Planet Cafe” in Zambia. As a result of their efforts, 50 graduates of the program got an opportunity to add their new-acquired skills to resumes and find jobs, in some cases with a salary three times bigger than the original ones. The concluding words of the speech were “Don't take from nature more than you can give back.”

The Forum also included presentations on social entrepreneurship models around the globe. One of them, Phan Huu Viet, introduced an example of a restaurant that has also a vocational school, in which they provide children from the streets of Hanoi with a profession, board, and monthly allowance. Within several years, they have helped about 350 children.
Another successful example of social entrepreneurship takes us to Mumbai. Sitesh Srivastava introduced the supply chain of Mumbai Bento (Tiffin) Boys that deliver housewives' home-cooked food to their husbands at work, a service that costs only 6$ a month but helps employees to make 128$ of monthly salary.

These examples of businesses on par with others, such as “ensophia,” educational web-application, and TiE, a non-profit organization oriented on mentoring, education, and networking with entrepreneurs, were the main focus of the forum, the videos and materials of presentations you can find on Forum's website: http://www.sipjapan.org/

Kamila Kolpashnikova