Ashoka: Innovators for the Public

Bill Drayton established the Ashoka organization to find and support leading social entrepreneurs. Drayton mentioned about the goal of social entrepreneurship, "Our goal is not to give people a fish. It is not to teach them how to fish. It is to build a new and better fishing industry." To create a new industry and strong impact on society, entrepreneurs should have the power of innovation and entrepreneurship and ethics. He thinks a pattern-changing idea can be viable only if a first-class entrepreneurs work on it. Although ideas have a lot of potential to change process and a strong impact on process, if entrepreneurs does not possess passion for social change and share intuitive sensibility for innovation, the innovative ideas are more likely to be unsuccessful. In addition, Drayton emphasizes the power of ethics as a capability of entrepreneurs. Having ethics is significant to keep their business sustainable in a long term. Without ethics, people are more likely to make a one-sided decision regardless of whether it is unethical or not.

Figure 1: Ashoka Fellow

source:: http://www.ashokaseattle.org/what-we-do/ashoka-fellows/

Drayton's basic vision for social entrepreneurs is based on the interrelated conception of "what could be" and "how it could become." For example, if we think about how to provide digital education in developing countries by spending less money and time. To execute this idea, we should focus on what could be. If we want to make a plan for digital education for children in need, what we are providing them would give them a chance to learn knowledge or skills. After identifying what the suggestion could be, we need to consider how it could become. In this case, we can change process of delivering a patter-changing idea.

There are four explanatory criteria: social impact of the idea, entrepreneurial quality, ethical fiber, creativity. I think ethical fiber is more important in that trustworthiness of the social entrepreneur make people believe and trust the social entrepreneurs. Although entrepreneurs are creative and have entrepreneurial quality, they would not persuade others unless they can show their integrity.

Setting up businesses is so adventurous that there are many uncertainty and opportunities. Entrepreneurs are looking for the opportunities instead of uncertainty. By reading about an article about Ashoka organization, I rethink about my value systems and ethics. Since everything changes over time, what I believe today can be different from what I believed yesterday. That is, values we believe firmly can be totally wrong one tomorrow. Therefore, finding myself in this complicated world would be homework we have to finish until we die. Ideas from entrepreneurs should be creative and social impact positively. However, without knowing values of the ideas and about absolute values they believe, there are many potential risks that make the values of the ideas useless. Entrepreneurs should have integrity toward the values of ideas. They ensure that the values  of idea they define can be sustainable and consistent in the world by having a positive influence on societies.