'Social' Business or Something Completely Different?

'Social' Business or Something Completely Different?
Louise Blouin Foundation - The Metropolitan Club
Catalysts for social development, divorced from explicit market necessities, have had the longstanding position of being driven and directed by global agencies, such as the United Nations or by foundations and philanthropic capital, through which many individuals ‘give back’ to society after they have acquired wealth. The most recent expression of this can be found with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has worked to make advances in the field of global health, development and the sciences – such as the development of a vaccine for meningitis impacting sub-Saharan Africa and the improvement of delivery overtime. An alternative to this established philanthropic approach has been the emergence of new forms of social enterprise and entrepreneurship that seek to not only bring about positive social change – whether in respect to the environment, health or poverty alleviation – but development and continuation of viable commercial projects. What connects many of these efforts is the utilization and leverage of technology in order to reach the broadest public possible in order to deliver social goods. This panel will ask: what are the methods that make social enterprises viable and sustainable? How can technology be further developed and utilized in order to provide social welfare? What new forms of social enterprise are on the horizon?