Social Entrepreneur - Innovation in Construction

Social Innovation | Social Entrepreneur

Social Innovation | Social Entrepreneur

Social Innovation | Social Entrepreneur

What is Social Innovation | What is a Social Entrepreneur

Social entrepreneurs drive social innovation and transformation in various fields including education, health, environment and enterprise development. They pursue poverty alleviation goals with entrepreneurial zeal, business methods and the courage to innovate and overcome traditional practices. A social entrepreneur, similar to a business entrepreneur, builds strong and sustainable organizations, which are either set up as not-for-profits or companies.

A social entrepreneur is a leader or pragmatic visionary who:
  • Achieves large scale, systemic and sustainable social change through a new invention, a different approach, a more rigorous application of known technologies or strategies, or a combination of these.
  • Focuses first and foremost on the social and/or ecological value creation and tries to optimize the financial value creation. 
  • Innovates by finding a new product, a new service, or a new approach to a social problem.
  • Continuously refines and adapts approach in response to feedback.
  • Combines the characteristics represented by Richard Branson and Mother Teresa.
  • The Schwab Foundation employs the following criteria when looking for leading social entrepreneurs: Innovation, Sustainability, Reach and Social Impact.
Social entrepreneurs share some come common traits including:
  • An unwavering belief in the innate capacity of all people to contribute meaningfully to economic and social development
  • A driving passion to make that happen.
  • A practical but innovative stance to a social problem, often using market principles and forces, coupled with dogged determination, that allows them to break away from constraints imposed by ideology or field of discipline, and pushes them to take risks that others wouldn't dare.
  • A zeal to measure and monitor their impact. Entrepreneurs have high standards, particularly in relation to their own organization’s efforts and in response to the communities with which they engage. Data, both quantitative and qualitative, are their key tools, guiding continuous feedback and improvement.
  • A healthy impatience. Social Entrepreneurs cannot sit back and wait for change to happen – they are the change drivers.
What is Social Entrepreneurship?

Social entrepreneurship is applying practical, innovative and sustainable approaches to benefit society in general, with an emphasis on those who are marginalized and poor.

A term that captures a unique approach to economic and social problems, an approach that cuts across sectors and disciplines grounded in certain values and processes that are common to each social entrepreneur, independent of whether his/ her area of focus has been education, health, welfare reform, human rights, workers' rights, environment, economic development, agriculture, etc., or whether the organizations they set up are non-profit or for-profit entities.

It is this approach that sets the social entrepreneur apart from the rest of the crowd of well-meaning people and organizations who dedicate their lives to social improvement.


Organizational models

Leveraged non-profit ventures
The entrepreneur sets up a non-profit organization to drive the adoption of an innovation that addresses a market or government failure. In doing so, the entrepreneur engages a cross section of society, including private and public organizations, to drive forward the innovation through a multiplier effect. Leveraged non-profit ventures continuously depend on outside philanthropic funding, but their longer term sustainability is often enhanced given that the partners have a vested interest in the continuation of the venture.

Hybrid non-profit ventures
The entrepreneur sets up a non-profit organization but the model includes some degree of cost-recovery through the sale of goods and services to a cross section of institutions, public and private, as well as to target population groups. Often, the entrepreneur sets up several legal entities to accommodate the earning of an income and the charitable expenditures in an optimal structure. To be able to sustain the transformation activities in full and address the needs of clients, who are often poor or marginalized from society, the entrepreneur must mobilize other sources of funding from the public and/or philanthropic sectors. Such funds can be in the form of grants or loans, and even quasi-equity.

Social business ventures
The entrepreneur sets up a for-profit entity or business to provide a social or ecological product or service. While profits are ideally generated, the main aim is not to maximize financial returns for shareholders but to grow the social venture and reach more people in need. Wealth accumulation is not a priority and profits are reinvested in the enterprise to fund expansion. The entrepreneur of a social business venture seeks investors who are interested in combining financial and social returns on their investments.

Housing crisis
The world is experiencing a global housing crisis. About 1.6 billion people globally live in substandard housing and 100 million are homeless, according to the United Nations. If no serious action is taken, the United Nations reports that the number of slum dwellers worldwide will increase over the next 30 years to nearly 2 billion. Despite the progress in meeting low cost housing in Africa, UN agency Habitat, says that the continent requires 4 million units per year to cover its low cost housing needs.

Poverty housing affects people’s health and well-being, their job prospects and ability to make a living. It locks people into a cycle of poverty. It also holds children back from fulfilling their potential: children living in bad housing are more likely to suffer from serious health problems, to have learning difficulties and miss school and to face unemployment and poverty later in life. The impact on children’s development is both immediate and long-term. Growing up in poor or overcrowded housing has been found to have a lasting impact on a child’s health and well-being throughout their life. Housing at minimum cost meaning lowering the cost of construction – Advantage of economies of scale

How to bring decent low cost housing to poor communities?

Appropriate Technology

Appropriate Technology

Appropriate Technology

Appropriate technology is an ideological movement that involves small-scale, labor-intensive, energy efficient, environmentally sound projects.

Small is Beautiful

It was Dr Ernst Friedrich Schumacher who coined the term “Small is Beautiful”. The economist and philosopher wanted to stress that small-scale technologies are the ones needed in the fight against poverty. These solutions have great advantages: they can be implemented with local resources and skills and they are affordable – which makes them tools that empower people to help themselves.

The impact of appropriate technology becomes particularly noticeable when innovative solutions are used and promoted by social entrepreneurs who put social impact at the heart of their business. The combination of low-cost technology and social entrepreneurship can have far-reaching implications for thousands of lives. Creating jobs, stimulating ownership confidence and the spirit of innovation - this is what social businesses are looking for. Appropriate technical solutions, such as low cost housing, improve life quality and can give the initial push for development.

Maslow Model

Maslow's theory is based on the premise that humans are motivated by needs
"The most basic of Maslow's needs are physiological needs, such as the need for air, food, and water. When you are very hungry, for example, all your behaviour may be motivated by the need to find food. Once you eat, the search for food ceases, and the need for food no longer motivates you.

Once physiological needs are satisfied, people tend to become concerned about safety needs. Are they safe from danger, pain, or an uncertain future? At this stage they will be motivated to direct their behaviour toward obtaining shelter and protection in order to satisfy this need."

After the "basic needs" are met, then "Love and belonging" then "Esteem" then "Self-actualization".

How many people in the world do not have the "basic need" fulfilled? How important is "Love and belonging" or "Esteem" to the people who are hungry and homeless with NO hope of "opportunity to change"?

And this is what Hennie Botes created - APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY to EmpowerPEOPLE to help themselves

Combining "production" of the two basic needs "Food and Shelter" moladi creates employment transferring skills and develop entrepreneurs.

Fight poverty crime and unemployment producing jobs, food and shelter
Innovations in Affordable Housing - Appropriate Technology

Decent housing is one of the key factors in the fight against poverty and social exclusion. It is not just about putting a roof over someone’s head. Academic research proves that access to a clean and stable home implicates an improvement in security, health and education.

The housing sector is one of the strongest catalysts in the growth and prosperity of any country. Housing investment leverages the GDP growth through multiplier effects of forward and backward linkages of activities from house planning to construction, maintenance, manufacturing of materials to storing, trading, transports and supplies, and supplies and maintenance of utilities. It creates new employment opportunities for the every level of the labour market; from unskilled labourers to highly paid professionals. Housing revitalises regional development and equalities, creating taxes for government.
Create enterprise at the base of the pyramid for the base of the pyramid.
We see moladi as a visionary approach to establish scalable economic projects that will eradicate poverty through social entrepreneurship – EmpowerPEOPLE

With the motto “Train the unemployed to build for the homeless” moladi combines construction with economic sustainable development.

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Tags: Social Innovation | Social Entrepreneur | moladi | innovations in Affordable Housing - Appropriate Technology, moladi, Appropriate Technology, innovative, eco-friendly technology, fight poverty, Hennie Botes, Sustainable, Small is Beautiful, grassroots, Appropriate, Affordable, building technology, building materials, sustainable development, Appropriate technology, the poor, developing countries, poor, needy, BOP, visionary

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