4Basra

I’ve just returned from an interesting and inspiring three days in Oxford at the Skoll Foundation World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

Who was there?  More than 700 people, including:

EBay, Participant Films and Skoll Foundation founder, Jeff Skoll

Nobel prize 2006 winner and founder of the Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus

Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, Queen of Jordan

Peter Gabriel, former band member of Genesis, founder of Witness (a Wikipedia/Youtube/Myspace -type human rights website)

Geoff Mulgan, Director of Demos thinktank and former adviser to Tony Blair

Writer Charles Handy

UK Minister for the Third Sector, Ed Miliband

Larry Brilliant, head of Google.org (Google’s philanthropy arm)

What did they talk about?

Social finance

Leadership

Philanthropy

Social innovation and entrepreneurship

Now that confidence in politics and the democratic process in the West is at an all-time low, social entrepreneurs are taking action to solve social problems using the most innovative and entrepreneurial means they can.

Having realised that corporations are not going to go away, they are talking the language of business and literally stealing some of their ideas; specifically the ones that get results and get things done. Not only that, but they’re adapting them and improving on them, maximising the social benefit.

I interviewed a 24 year-old who started his social business when he was 12. He and his friends washed cars and baked cakes to raise money. Last year his social business earned $10 million. It sells fairtrade clothing and textbooks and literally builds whole villages in Africa.

This was not just a global gathering of do-gooders though. Some big names in the finance world are being brought into the fold as well. Someone who used to work for global investment bank Goldman Sachs has set up a new social fund. GE Asset Management, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Morgan Stanley are other names getting in on the act.

Investment bankers sitting beside social entrepreneurs and NGO founders and workers. Collaborating, bringing ideas, models and plans to the table. Working together. Getting results. Changing lives. Changing the world.

For more details and blogs from the Forum, see Social Edge.

Patrick Cockburn is one of the few journalists now reporting from Iraq.

His reports can be read in The Independent and The Independent on Sunday.

His latest report is required reading for anyone concerned about the current state of the country and the fate of the Iraqi people.

The Financial Times recently featured an interview with former Microsoft Executive John Wood.

Wood left his job in 1998 to found children’s charity Room to Read, and he has some interesting things to say. He has written a book and it will be on my reading list.

 

The former Body Shop owner has some useful nuggets of advice on the Real Business website.

As usual I have a backlog of things to do and not enough time to do them.

At the end of March I’ll be attending the Skoll Foundation World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford, where I hope to pick up some tips.

More news when I get a moment.