Asian Social Entrepreneurs Summit opens today
Innovators seek to curb poverty
By KimYoung-jin
For many, entrepreneurship is about taking an innovative idea and forging it into a transformative business undertaking. But a major movement around the world known as social entrepreneurship is broadening that definition to alleviate pressing human problems.
The second major meeting of the Asian Social Entrepreneurs Summit (ASES) that opens today will bring together distinguished social entrepreneurs from around Asia to work to build a pan-continental network ― a development they say could change the way Asia deals with poverty and other problems.
Work Together Foundation, a Seoul-based foundation that works to close the wealth gap in Korea and host of the event, expects some 300 guests from 15 countries for the biennial gathering that kicked off in 2008. It will be held at Kyoyuk Munhwa Hoekwan hotel in Seoul.
Participants will come from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and other countries. Participants are slated to forge a “Seoul Declaration” Thursday to cement the growing network.
As their top agenda item, they will discuss how to eradicate poverty in Asia through social entrepreneurial efforts.
“Poverty here hasn’t been discussed so seriously compared to that in Africa. But has reached a serious level,” Song Wol-ju, chairman of Work Together, said.
He pointed to the hundreds of millions living below the poverty line in India and the growing number of working poor across the continent, even developed countries, to illustrate the growing problem.
Despite efforts such as the U.N.’s poverty-reduction targets known as the Millennium Development Goals, poor worldwide still face structural challenges that keep them from getting their foot on what the foundation calls the “ladder of development.”
“We’re looking to gather with various Asian social entrepreneurs who have succeeded in securing financial self-reliance in an effort to pursue the common social goal of anti-poverty,” he said, adding that the forum will provide the opportunity for collaboration to “end poverty in Asia and perhaps the entire world.”
The participation of accomplished entrepreneurs promises dynamic dialogue as each will present the problems they identified and the solution applied to solve them.
For keynote speaker Antonio Meloto, chairman of Gawad Kalinga Community Development Foundation, the problem was a lack of opportunity and self-sufficiency in the slums of his country.
Meloto and his foundation have been hailed for turning many areas hit by poverty into safe communities by educating residents on how to become self sufficient.
“Our goal is simple: to transform the attitude of poor communities from survival to sufficiency, from sufficiency to abundance; and to transform the attitude of the rich from philanthropy to social enterprise.”
Masa Kogure, president of Japan-based Table for Two International, has been tackling what he calls the “double burden of malnutrition” _ malnutrition in developing countries and obesity in the developed world.
“The global dichotomy where some are dying of hunger while others are literally eating themselves to death is both ironic and alarming. It represents our world today one that we need to redesign,” Kogure said.
Table for Two partners with restaurants in Japan that provide healthy meals to its diners, promoting moderation. Twenty percent of the proceeds then go to providing meals in the developing world, thereby “transferring calories” from parts of the world with excess to
those with need.
Anshu Gupta, founder of India-based Goonj, saw that clothes were desperately needed in India while in other parts of the world there are vast quantities of cloth treated as waste materials. As a solution, his company seeks to recycle cloth from developed countries and transfer them into a “precious resource” where it is needed.
Reiko Inoue, of the Asian Forum for Solidarity Economy, will discuss women’s initiatives currently underway in Japan to promote community-based business and social entrepreneurship efforts.
Other topics will include revitalizing rural economies with the help of social organizations; fair trade for sustainable development; responsible tourism and investment techniques for small and growing businesses.
The forum comes as Korea works to sustain its own social entrepreneurial activities.
Korea launched efforts in 2007 to promote social entrepreneurship, and since then has seen the number of such groups increase from 50 to over 400, creating some 14,000 new jobs, said Bahk Jae-won, minister of employment and labor, who will also speak today.
But support for such groups is decreasing, he noted, calling on a cross section of society, from the central government to NGOs and religious groups, to support such endeavors.
“In order to create a sustainable environment for social change, social entrepreneurs need to build upon their own strengths and attract more citizen participation,” he said, urging the forum to create a network in Asia.
This gathering will also seek to create a repository detailing problems facing social entrepreneurs and attempted solutions as well as highlight best practices of social enterprises in Asia.
The 2010 summit will also reflect the growing network in Asia, some 100 more guests and several addition countries will participate than in 2008.