How Social entrepreneurs are changing India and the world: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/SiliconInsider/story?id=750595&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
Silicon Insider: Social Entrepreneurs A New PBS Miniseries Shows How Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs Are Helping Developing Countries Commentary by MICHAEL S. MALONE Jun. 23, 2005 - I spent Monday night on stage in Silicon Valley with a Hollywood superstar, an Internet billionaire and quiet guy from India named Kailash Satyarthi. Guess which one of three got a standing ovation from the audience? Nope, it was Kailash -- and the two others, Robert Redford and Jeff Skoll, were among the loudest applauders. How we got there is a complicated story, but one that bodes well for the future. If a person like Kailash can become a celebrated hero, then there is hope for this complicated, tragic and scary world. Let me start at the beginning. As you may know if you've read this column over the years, I was involved in the early days of eBay, back when the company was little more than Jeff, Pierre Omidyar and a jar of Red Vines. I became friends with both men, especially Jeff, and we've stayed in regular touch ever since. Even in those early days, I knew that both men were looking beyond online auctions -- and that if they succeeded with their young company they would dedicate their lives to doing good works which is just what they have done in the years since. But even before eBay was a success, Jeff took the extraordinary (and probably unprecedented) step of creating the eBay Foundation with funds from pre-IPO stock. Needless to say, when eBay enjoyed its historic IPO, the eBay Foundation became one of the richest in the country. Skoll Becomes a 'Social Entrepreneur' But Jeff wasn't done. A few years later, after Jeff retired (in his mid-30s) from eBay, we sat down on a number of occasions to talk about what he wanted to do next. It was then that I first heard him use the term "social entrepreneur." It was an intriguing notion: that one could take the tools and techniques of commercial entrepreneurship, like that found here in Silicon Valley, and apply them to the world of non-profit organizations, especially those in the developing world. And when Jeff and Sally Osberg, another old friend whom he had asked to direct the new Skoll Foundation, asked me to join the board of directors, I readily agreed. What I found as I investigated the field further and studied the work of the world's leading social entrepreneurs was that here was a vast new global movement that few people in the developing world had ever heard of. Even more intriguing was that these social entrepreneurs and the enterprises they were creating were actually succeeding -- putting dents into the world's seemingly intractable problems -- hunger, exploitation, disease, illiteracy -- where the bigger aid movements of the last half-century had scarcely made a mark. Moreover, I felt a deep kinship to these social entrepreneurs: they were, at heart, the same people as my entrepreneurial friends and neighbors here in Silicon Valley. They refused to believe that anything was impossible, they fought to be masters of their own fate, they were resilient, idealistic yet practical, and utterly unafraid of failure. Whether they were building schools for AIDS orphans in Zambia or running a co-op for seamstresses in Brazil or setting up schools for street children on railroad platforms in India, they were the spiritual cousins of the men and women around me building dot-com companies. But they were also something more, too. Many were risking their lives every day in some of the most dangerous places on earth, all because they believed they could figure out the key to making the world a better place. And their bravery was exceeded by their toughness and their pragmatism . They weren't the classic, saintly do-gooders of myth, but hard-nosed businesspeople, constructing sustainable, scalable enterprises, flexible enough to adapt to changing conditions and disciplined by the bottom line. In the months that followed, I helped the foundation create an annual summit for social entrepreneurs at Oxford University, an event whose importance was underscored when Jeff decided to fund an Institute for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford. Now this new phenomenon would not only have a home and an annual gathering to share best practices, but also trained professionals to fill its ranks. Putting the Story on Film But there needed to be something more. Skoll from the beginning had believe in using the media to celebrate social entrepreneurship, and this was a story that screamed to be told, and there was no better medium for the job than television. So I brought in Bob Grove, who had worked with me on four previous series, and who, as my investigative reporter at Forbes ASAP, had first broken the landmark stories on Internet child pornography. Jeff and the Foundation agreed to underwrite the four-part miniseries for public television, to be called, appropriately, "The New Heroes." Ever careful about conflict of interest, I regretfully resigned from the Foundation. Meanwhile, Oregon Public Broadcasting agreed to become the host station, as required by PBS. Thus began two of the most remarkable years of my journalism career. I've worn a lot of hats in this business: business reporter, saloon reviewer, rock record critic, investigative reporter, columnist, author, magazine editor, TV host, but nothing prepared me to be a producer of a national primetime network television series, especially one that required Bob and I to manage three veteran production crews as they raced around the world shooting stories on four continents -- sometimes in real danger for their lives. But for all of the hassles, battles, nasty e-mails and shouting matches, I don't regret a day of the project. That's because, in the course of making "The New Heroes," I encountered some of the most remarkable people on the planet -- and got to tell their stories. One of those people was Moses Zulu, who runs Children's Town, a school for AIDS orphans in Zambia. I'll be visiting him next summer when my family and I once again go back to Africa. Another was Muhammad Yunas, whose creation of micro-loans at Grameen Bank has raised millions in Bangladesh out of the deepest poverty. And then there was Kailash, the man who risks his life to rescue debt bondage slaves from mobsters in India. After a quarter century in journalism, I pride myself on being a tough, cynical old Newsie. But I watched the rough footage of Kailash, in the slave camp, trying to convince terrified people to flee with him before the goons showed up to kill them all, with tears in my eyes. This was no longer just a story, it was not just a job. Redford Moved, Agrees to Host Other people felt the same way. One of them was Robert Redford. Jeff was now down in Hollywood, setting up his film company, Participant Productions; and in the course of making his way around the industry, had met and become good friends with the famous actor/director. It was Jeff who approached Redford about hosting "The New Heroes" -- and Redford, though he had never hosted a television series in his long career, fell in love with the stories of the social entrepreneurs and readily agreed. We met at Skywalker Ranch, at the Lucasfilm studios, even as "Star Wars, Episode III" was being edited in the nearby buildings, and spent two days filming the host segments and laying down Redford's narrative tracks. As someone who spent his career in worn newsrooms and bargain-basement TV studios, this was a brief glimpse of a whole other world. As with most big projects for television, we've had to sit around for months, anxiously awaiting the premiere date. Monday night, two years after we began, four months after we finished, we all gathered in San Jose for the official premiere. There was a wonderful symmetry at work: the Silicon Valley audience had helped create the revolutions in technology and entrepreneurship that had been adopted and put to work in the most novel ways by these equally extraordinary people who had flown in from around the world. Sally spoke. Jeff spoke. Redford spoke, and, of course, charmed the crowd. Then we showed three of the 12 segments: Kickstart (formerly Approtech), which is transforming agriculture in Africa with low-cost foot-powered water pumps; Aurolab, restoring sight to thousands of people in India with inexpensive cataract surgery; and Kailash. In the months since we filmed him, Kailash had been beaten nearly to death on a raid, then nearly died a second time on a hunger strike against government complicity in slavery. But now he was here in Silicon Valley, in a white robe with a big grin. When the film ended, I could hear sobs around the hall. With the three social entrepreneurs behind me, I climbed the steps to the stage. And then, as the crowd rose to its feet in applause, it was my honor to introduce them, three true heroes of our time. The first episode of "The New Heroes," a two-part, four-hour series on social entrepreneurs around the world, will premiere next Tuesday, June 28th, at 8 p.m. on most public television stations. The second episode will premiere a week later. If you'd like to learn more about, or help, the social entrepreneurs described in this column and profiled in the series, please visit www.PBS.org or www.TheNewHeroes.org. This work is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News. Michael S. Malone, once called "the Boswell of Silicon Valley," most recently was editor at large of Forbes ASAP magazine. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 20 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury-News as the nation's first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He has hosted two national PBS shows: "Malone," a half-hour interview program that ran for nine years, and in 2001, a 16-part interview series called "Betting It All: The Entrepreneurs." Malone is best known as the author of a dozen books. His latest book, a collection of his best newspaper and magazine writings, is called "The Valley of Heart's Delight." Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥««¤»¥«¤»§«¤» This is ZESTEconomics. Post economics-related articles and event info to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTEconomics by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! 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