We were happy to have teamed up as a media partner with the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford’s Said Business School for their inaugural Skoll: Emerge. Our Beyond Profit UK Representative, Eugenia Afonso, shares her thoughts on the conference.
A record inch and a half of torrential rain fell across southeast England last Sunday. The Skoll:Emerge event for students held in Oxford that day, however, laughed in its face. From the moment coffee was served in the morning to the last applause in the evening, the conference kept on pulling the best punches. The calibre and quality of the speakers was matched only by the ideas and enthusiasm of the students.
Entrepreneurship, a much debated term laden with nuances, can be an innate quality belonging to those gifted few, but it can also be something learned, born out of careful nurturing. It is based on this second premise that centers like The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford’s Said Business School have chosen to school this generation’s most hopeful entrepreneurs – through directed research, education, and collaboration.
Skoll:Emerge was structured around the many facets the field encompasses. Four tracks guided the diversity of interests. The practical and operational “starting out as a social entrepreneur,” the advice giving “careers in social entrepreneurship,” the macro-level “global challenges,” and the inspiring “ideas workshop” allowed students and others alike to get a true feel for what social entrepreneurship means – out there in the ‘real world.’
While creating a cocoon of positive energy, Skoll:Emerge also spelled out the challenges and did not shy away from bringing them to the fore. The speakers latched on to this approach as well. From Laila Iskandar Kamel (CID Consulting) we heard about how politics can try to put an end to your efforts; from Caroline Casey (Kanchi) we understood the scarcity of funding sources; and from Pamela Hartigan (The Skoll Centre) we learned about the the need to foster and encourage a stronger ecosystem that supports not only the “heroic individual” but those that support initiatives as agents of changes themselves. In addition, an honest and open discussion about the perils of consultancy and a mini open careers session were very much appreciated and welcomed by the students.
The content of each session I attended was genuine quality. The best, in my opinion, was perhaps the least obvious of all the talks. It was entitled “The Middle East: Innovations in a Cultural Medley,” during which we were treated to an hour in the company of Naif Al Mutawa (Teshkeel, the “99” project) and Nader Khatib (EcoPeace). Both these gentlemen are testament to the principle values of what constitutes social enterprise. Both innovative, both winning admirable social gains, and both working in environments that would seem to be anything but amenable to change, they have overturned judgments and surpassed expectations. Naif has redesigned the concept of the super-hero and in so doing has fostered intercultural understanding. Nader heads the only organization that still works across Israeli-Palestinian borders—proving that shared values transcend many divisions.
As an event designed for students; it could not have provided a more holistic forum for mentorship, networking, and idea pitching. Not only were there stories of success, but practical career steps were addressed as well as a true “mapping” of opportunities and possibilities available. It created the space that is so vital for students to grow and take those first steps.
On that note, I leave you with the star speaker Caroline Casey’s top five tips on becoming a social entrepreneur. It would be churlish to keep only the students in the know!
- Learn to be the duck; gliding with ease and paddling frantically below the surface.
- Use failure as a necessary feedback tool; learn the lesson and move on
- Be prepared to view the knock backs as motivation
- Good friends are essential along the way; make sure you have the right support network
- Self-awareness; know why you are doing what you are doing
