And the importance of spanning fields of work in different areas,
of social challenges that need really, really good solutions.
So if we look even further and zoom in a bit from this big global reach of Ashoka,
let's talk a bit also about the qualities that we see in social entrepreneurs.
Or Ashoka fellows, as we call them, once they're elected into the fellowship.
We've seen five key qualities that are not so far off,
from what Bill Drayton noticed as these first key people in India.
It's a small evolution of the early thought that he had.
But really today we're left with five key qualities that every
single Ashoka fellow in our network has in some shape or form.
Now let's go through those together.
The first is a new idea.
What we call the innovation that systems changing new idea.
What is it that's actually fundamentally different,
about what that person is doing compared to what has been done before?
We know that if they're solving a really complex challenge like Jeroo, working with
child protection in India, requires innovation.
It requires doing something different than what has been done before.
In addition to that component of the qualities we see,
we also look very closely at the entrepreneur him- or herself.
We look at the creativity of that person,
the vision - this includes the vision that this entrepreneur has towards a bigger and
better future. It also includes the origin of the idea.
How creative is this idea?
And is this person's idea ... is it this person's idea to begin with?
Tied to creativity as a key quality.
We also see entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial skill or quality.
This refers to the person's drive and persistence and
almost obsession with solving a social problem.
If you look at Jeroo, as a great example, the fellow we've discussed today.
It's very clear right away: her entrepreneurial skill even began,
with a spark I should say, began as a 16 year-old when she began her first organization.
And it continued throughout. It would be very easy for her to give up.
It's a big challenge she was trying to solve, but she didn't, and
that's the quality we always see in leading social entrepreneurs in our network.
Combine with that, there's another key
fourth quality, which we call social impact.
Now this is a broader aspect of social impact than only on the number of
people touched, or the millions of children in Jeroo's case she touched.
That's one very basic level, important level of social impact.
But Ashoka takes it a bit further in the sense that we're looking for
systems change.
We're looking for solutions that are actually shifting the way that
people think, that people, processes and institutions act in society.
It's a deeper kind of impact which we'll get to later in the session.
And finally we're looking at ethical fiber.
Now this relates a lot to the motivation of the social entrepreneur.
And also... it relates a lot to the motivation of a social entrepreneur.
In the sense, I mean, that this is a person driven by social impact,
not on building a business or changing... or personal gain.
What I mean by that is, this is someone who is motivated by the change in
society and that's their ultimate goal.
So it's more about, if you will,
scaling impact, rather than scaling a business or an organization.
So those are the five qualities that we see, and includes the new idea,
the creativity, the entrepreneurial quality, the social impact,
and ethical fiber. This is the full picture that we see.
So I think, to wrap this up,
the final two key parts of this discussion will be how a fellow is elected,
you may be wondering, but also what happens once you become an Ashoka fellow.
So, let's start with the process.
This is also something, similar to the criteria.
The process to become an Ashoka fellow has been used for 30 years.
This is a process honed over those, that period of time.
And again is used in every single one of the 87 countries that we worked in,
that we work in.
The search and selection process begins at a local level,
in the local country office with the nomination stage.
This is a five part process, which continues along its course through
a national evaluation which includes the site visits and due diligence and
references et cetera, that are done on every single Ashoka fellow,
candidate, in addition to an international review stage.
An international panel stage, which requires interviews with both social and
business entrepreneurs in the local context.
Finally, an Ashoka fellow candidate goes through the, through the last
stage of the selection process, which is the global Board of Directors' review.
So, that's a five part process that you can see spans from
the beginning local, national review, through an international review, and
finally through Ashoka's global Board of Directors.
So, when someone does pass that five stage process, you have an Ashoka fellow.
This is someone, one of 3,000 people around the world who serve as a role model for
the citizen sector.
This is someone we can look towards as inspiration to start our own idea,
to create something new,
to connect with another person to start something you've been thinking about.
When an Ashoka fellow becomes an Ashoka fellow they join the network of these
3,000 Fellows, and there's three key parts of the Ashoka fellowship, which is life-long,
this is not an incubator or an accelerator.
We work with social entrepreneurs in such a way over their entire lifespan.
So the first key part of the fellowship is what we refer to as the,
the intellectual capital, if you will. The components of strategic support.
Whether that's through a partner of ours, or pro bono partner, or individuals in our
network that are linking up in the challenge areas a fellow faces.
The second key part of the fellowship is maybe perhaps called social capital.
This refers to what we've described before as the collaborative entrepreneurship piece.
The connections between fellows around the world, and
the programs that Ashoka builds to actually facilitate that.
The last component of the fellowship is the financial capital.
Now for those fellows that need funding in order to focus full time on their work,
Ashoka provides a living stipend.
But in addition to that we work a lot as well in terms of opening doors to
new funding through our network, which includes not only the 3,000 fellows,
but of course the businesses and universities and
schools that are part of our network that we'll get to as well in later sessions.
>> So what is the actual impact that Ashoka fellows have in the world?
>> That's a really good question.
Almost 60% of Ashoka fellows
change national policy within five years of election.
Even more interestingly, is that more than 80% of Ashoka fellows change a system
at the national level, within ten years of election.
And here we could come back to Jeroo's story again.
Her service, Childline India,
is now the way that the Indian state is protecting children in India.
So that's a perfect example of system change at the national level.
And then an even more interesting number I think is that more than 90% of
Ashoka fellows have their ideas replicated by other groups or other people.
And then I think it's quite interesting to stop here a little bit.
So more than 90% of Ashoka fellow have their ideas replicated by other groups.
If we think about traditional business versus social entrepreneurship,
a traditional business would be very unhappy, and
it wouldn't be their criteria of success to have other people run with their products,
so to speak, and take the product.
For a social entrepreneur, in Ashoka's terms an Ashoka fellow, that is
the key criteria of success that they have other people, lots of other people,
adopting the idea as their own and creating a system change with that.
So it's a, actually a big success for
them if they have other people replicating the idea.
And I think also this number speaks quite well back to, or
links well to the criteria, that Rebecca mentioned before.
Because it's because we have trustworthy people, that are very inspirational, and
that have a new idea, an innovation that people want to follow.
So that also links back to that I think.
So let's look at the maybe the notion on systems change a little bit more because
that's at the core of our understanding of social impact and social entrepreneurship.
It can be clearer if you think about the model in four steps.
Let's start with direct service, or providing a product directly to some people.
So for instance when Jeroo went out and spoke to the children on the streets.
She was gathering a lot of data, and so on.
She soon realized, it's not enough with just me, or other social workers, so
she scaled, so that's providing an indirect service.
And other children then picked up the line when someone had a problem, and
then she wasn't a bottleneck anymore, so it could be quite big.
If you think about these two categories, like direct service, and indirect service,
you still measure how many people are we reaching, and
what kind of difference does that make to those people.
And that's of course all fine, that's also what we should be doing.
But Ashoka focuses a lot on what we call system change.
And there are two categories.
There is pattern change and there is framework change.
So if we think about the pattern change, that is when you revolutionize
or you change a system.
So for instance, once Jeroo got Childline India to be
the national protection service for
children in India, that is really how you change a system, or change an industry.
