 Welcome everybody. Welcome to this press conference from the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum 2017 here in Snowy Davos. Welcome to you here in the room and also welcome around the world on the live stream. You're joining a press conference that is asking the question, how are leading social enterprises creating impact at scale? Now To answer that question, I'm joined by a wonderful panel here today And it's a tough act to follow the Chinese president. We'll give it a try. So so welcome Let me quickly introduce to you Our panelists here today to my immediate left. We're joined by Catherine Milligan She's the director and head of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship at the World Economic Forum She's also a member of the forum's executive committee Further down the line We're joined by Eduardo Bon Tempo the co-founder of Geeky from Brazil Right at the center of things here at the panel. We are joined by Nina Smith the chief executive officer of Goodweave International And last but definitely not least we're joined by Arbin Singh who's the executive director of Nidan from India So welcome everybody Before we go into the exciting announcements you have to do and to before we hear about the projects You're working on I'd like to invite you Catherine to to briefly explain to our to our audience What are social enterprises? What are social entrepreneurs and what is the Schwab Foundation for social entrepreneurs doing very briefly? Thank you Thank you so much. It's a privilege to be here Klaus and Hilda Schwab co-founded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship 16 years ago and it's hard to remember now But a decade and a half ago social entrepreneurship was a term that was not very well understood it was confused with charity Social entrepreneurs leverage market forces and business principles to solve social challenges very simply put And over the past 15 years the Schwab Foundation has built the world's largest late-stage network of Social entrepreneurs in the world more than 320 organizations working in 70-plus countries And if I could sum up the work of the Schwab Foundation, there are just three things that I would briefly say We offer global exposure and credibility to the networks We we put our awardees on plenary stages that form summits in front of heads of state and a thousand business leaders broadcasts live and that really matters particularly when you are challenging conventional practices Which often means coming up against vested interests? So shining that kind of global spotlight on your work is incredibly legitimizing and often we see that more awards and funding follow The second thing that the Schwab Foundation provides is access to top decision makers in the same sector or sphere of work And this we hear again and again You know Ron Bruder of Education for Employment said that the access they had to the highest level of decision makers in the Middle East Unlock partnerships. They could not have even imagined Jonathan Hirsch met senior political Indonesian officials at the forums Asia summit and is now working with City officials to redesign slums in Jakarta So many social entrepreneurs struggle for months or even years to have access to a minister or CEO And after a 30-minute meeting here in Davos they can strike a partnership to scale nationwide The third way we support our community is maybe underappreciated, but it's vitally important We build their capacity as leaders primarily through peer-to-peer mentoring sessions But also through executive education programs at Harvard and elsewhere Being a social entrepreneur can be tough and lonely work And we brought our community here in Davos together for a two-day program ahead of the annual meeting So that they could share their learnings with each other get inspired and recharge their batteries So many of them over the years have told me that these peer mentoring sessions help them grow tremendously as Individuals as leaders and give them the fuel to continue So if you add that together Exposure access and capacity building all of it enables them to be better leaders to mobilize additional resources and Collaborators and to improve their strategy and methodology Ultimately, we here at the Schwab Foundation want to act as a launchpad to help them vastly scale their impact Thank you, Eduardo. So visibility and exposure Catherine talked about so let's use that platform Your social enterprise is called geeky If I were an evil man, I'd say all social entrepreneurs are a bit geeky But we want to hear about your geeky in particular here. So tell us in a nutshell. What are you doing? I know you work with the local income students in education and you're using technology in an interesting way So but tell us what what what is geeky doing? Yeah, so first. Thank you It's a great pleasure to share what we are doing back in Brazil. So we have a we are education technology company and What we actually do we use artificial intelligence to personalize the study plan For each student. So in Brazil 80% of the students come from public schools with very low quality education And also in Brazil, we have an exam a national exam In which every year 10 million people take this exam to enter university and this exam is the only Criteria to be accepted or not in the university. So what we do this in 2016 we did a partnership with the government in which we offered our platform to all Public students in Brazil was in total five million people that had access to this platform and could prepare for the national exam In a similar level than students coming from private schools So what we try to do we try to you know, bridge the gap that they have in the past and try to level everyone to have a More equal competition in this national exam Thank you, and I also understand you have quite an exciting announcement to make in that field. So don't You know, don't hold back. Let us hear it. Yeah, so We know from the last year exam that the difference between Public public the average grade of students from public schools and the average grade from students from private school The difference was 70 points in a scale From zero to a thousand right this year We conducted a study from this University of five million people with a hundred and forty thousand students With a third-party consultancy firm that really attested What is the impact that we had in the grade of these students coming from public schools? The gap was 70 points We could prove that by Students using our technology they could improve 72 points in average their grade So actually the gap between students from private schools and students from public schools With our technology we could bridge this gap. So the goal of really leveling everybody Was was achieved it. So we are very very happy to announce that this is very fresh news We are discussing the government with the government right now the results. So we are very excited about it Well, thank you, and I want to know and for sure congratulations from outside as well Nina, let's let's move over to you. So your company's name good. We've is Giving it away a little bit more about what you're doing, but still I'm going to ask you what it's good. We've doing and and What is at the center of your social enterprise? So good weave works to combat child labor around the world there are 168 million children That's about one in 11 in the world today That are involved in some way in the global economy that are exploited in the global economy So we've been working for 20 years to eradicate this starting in the handmade carpet industry of South Asia The way our model works. It's we call it market-driven because we partner with brands who License our program Which enables us really the key to our model is when a brand signs up with our program That enables us to drive open visibility into their supply chain where they weren't able before to see down to the bottom past an order in a factory who is really making their products because Many of the children and forced laborers in the world are at what we say at the bottom of the supply chain factories outsource and outsource again, and there are in informal workforce that are Making the goods that you and I buy every single day. So what we do is once a brand signs with us We work to map that entire chain as I said in Indian and pollen Afghanistan are the main countries where we're working We work to clean up that supply chain to surveil it to build capacity of the suppliers to have good working conditions And when we find children Often hidden away in these supply chains. We rescue them and provide rehabilitation in long-term long-term support for them And we don't stop there. We also partner with worker communities. So We partner with the communities to ensure every child in the community is getting enrolled in school and that workers are able to to Get their rights essentially. So really we're tying up both ends of the supply chain Down from the brand and up from the community Thank You Nina. That's impressive work and you want to add a little bit on the new announcement yet You have to make sure well we've We've already been able to eradicate child labor by 80% in the carpet industry. So there's been a huge drop and Actually right now, there's a big interest in issues of modern slavery of child labor and forced labor right now Some of you may know there are new laws now in the United States in the UK and they're moving on to many other countries that require companies to have transparency around What's happening in their supply chains and to protect workers rights? And so there's a big interest in what we're doing from the corporate sector and the donor community And we just launched a new program called sourcing freedom and the goal of that is to take what we've done in one industry And to move it into five more sectors in the next three years that are high-risk sectors focusing in South Asia Where about half of all the world's child labor and forced labor is happening? We are working in apparel fashion jewelry Home tech styles the tea sector is coming soon and also in brick kilns in India and Nepal are the main areas where we're working and I did want to share who some of the partners are in this work. So the CNA Foundation CNA Company Target Humanity United and the Walt Disney Company are our main partners Thank you, Nina. Thank you again This is impressive work from the community and really great examples of what social entrepreneurs are doing in the field Arbent over to you So what is at the core of your social enterprise? I know you're working with street vendors Tell us a little bit about what you're doing with them and what the focus of your work is, please 92% of the Indian workforce is in the informal sector and So beginning from street vendors to agriculture workers large number of them Depend on informal work and they contribute hugely to the economy of the country So we began when India began globalizing and liberalization began we thought that Instead of the informal workers being more marginalized Why not organize them collectivize them so that they're able to use the opportunities that were being created And so we began with street vendors and went on to work with many categories of informal workers And with each of this category of workers we began creating institutions Which are sustainable so that they are able to reap the benefits on a continuous basis So to give an example from the street vendors we organize them City-wise so we have now more than a thousand organizations in each of the cities you know so each city has an organization of street vendors and we went on to get a street vending act passed by the Indian Parliament in 2014 which calls for regulation of street vendors providing licenses to each of the street vendors and Creating vending zones vending streets in Indian cities You know and that too through through a very participatory approach called the creation of town vending committees in which 40% members are from the street vendors community so which each category so to give another example Recently India announced demonetization in November and the business of street vendors went down by 60 70 percent so we quickly moved on and collaborated with the evaluate companies and We are we are enrolling getting them enrolled with the evaluate companies on a very large very large scale and very fast speed because we didn't want the Behavior of the customers to change, you know Like if they go if they start going for the weekly shopping in the malls, you know, then the customers will go away So that's kind of work we do to give another example We organize the food vendors set up a food vending company called Nazvi Street food private limited and that food company provides training to food vendors in hygiene and safe food handling and Organizes food festivals across the country and that has become a very good income model for the street vendors And it is also a for the city and for the culture because it brings the the cousins that are being lost You know and the the recipes that people are forgetting they're back into the back into the fashion And also it proves the theory that if the if the capacity of the people are developed They can themselves use the market to their to their benefit. So this is the this is the kind of work So we have set up help set up West because we have helped them to set up West management company whereby they They learn the technique of compose. They learn the technique of Recycling, you know, and they're able to take contracts from government and they're able to make use of The opportunity of West management that is being created. So so that kind of examples are many and We believe that the revenue model has to be generated by the people themselves So that they are able to sustain their institution so that even if we are not They're they're able to take forward the all the institutions are run and managed by the workers themselves Thank you. Thank you very much and for you. What are the next steps? How will you drive this forward? Well, I am looking at this forum as a very good opportunity of taking the street vending act which we got in India to Too many parts of the world because that's an unique act and I see street vendors whether they are in Newark or whether they are in Any city in South Africa or any city in say Columbia? I know being chased away being prosecuted Their goods being taken away harassed. So I I am trying to I'm trying to set up meetings and trying to get contacts where we can use this opportunity So that that's replicated all across the world. Thank you very much The theme of this 47th annual meeting is responsive and responsible leadership and I know that is something you definitely have all in common and made The centerpiece of your work, but Catherine you're more familiar with the community. You might know more things Our the panelists have in common Are these just exceptional social entrepreneurs or? What what made some them successful in your perspective? What are the what is the common threat you see here? Yeah, thank you. I'm I'm struck by a couple of things listening to these stories The first is that we're clearly entering a new era in terms of social entrepreneurs being able to leverage technology enabled business models and Solutions that were not even possible five years ago. I mean sourcing freedom is in part a data visualization tool Needon are been I think is being very modest You know, these are mobile is a mobile enabled digital payment system He's enrolled more than two million street vendors in two months Geeky is an artificial intelligence powered learning platform So look technology is not a pancia. I'm constantly saying, you know social entrepreneurship is not an app And you know often the implementation is much harder than the technological invention, right of the thing itself But in terms of cost effectiveness being able to reach large numbers of people As we can see from these examples technology can be a real game-changer and the second thing that strikes me Is you know sort of the strategic collaboration in all shapes and forms partnership with government partnerships with industry players the Ministry of Education and It's really easy to run around and say let's collaborate, but it is much harder to do It's much slower. There are lots of ups and downs much more is actually out of your control And so we at the schwa foundation for social entrepreneurship are looking at the emergence of systems Entrepreneurs and by that we mean, you know social entrepreneurs who are building on their direct service models And the evidence base that they've generated to be able to shift larger systems The education system the production system of textile products And you simply cannot do that through a direct service model alone You really have to be able to influence government policy or shift industry behavior But the eventual impact can be magnitudes of order orders of magnitude rather larger So that to me I think are the big trends that we're seeing in the late-stage community of social entrepreneurs in the schwa foundation Thank You Catherine and I've been already Expanded a little bit on what its expectations for Davosa Nina Eduardo you want to add to that Well, yeah, I mean one of the big issues everyone's talking about here are the SDGs and so it's really important To plug into that conversation for us for target 8.7 to end child labor we are hoping to capture the attention of more company partners and supporters of sourcing freedom to be able to work closely with the various actors working on this target in particular to to be able to not only make progress towards the goal of Getting 168 million children out of child labor But actually to be able to help measure the progress towards that. So really looking forward to having conversations with All the stakeholders about that. Thank you, Eduardo. You want to yeah, so in our case We know that the discussion about education is very deep very profound and you know We don't want to end our work just you know preparing people to get into the university So there is a lot of discussion on how we develop soft skills in this new area How can we better prepare the kids, you know for the work employment in the future? How do we reshape the education as he's using the technology not only to you know Improve grades, but you know to form better human beings. So there is a lot of discussion on this It's you know Something that is gonna take a long time to happen But we want to be part of this this change and you know, I think there's very rich things to to learn here Thank you very much. Can I get a sense from the room if there are any questions? We have a microphone here Feeling like the teacher who's asking for the homeworks. Nobody Nobody fills up for it. Let me ask a quick. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yes. We have a question I've come a road from West Rome, Malaysia There's a lot of social enterprise movement in my country too, however It's still fragmented and it's like everybody is fighting for their own and I guess only a social entrepreneur would understand more Another social entrepreneur. So is there any sort of movement whether from the foundation or you guys yourself? Because I do know you guys network more than everyone else sometimes imagine your WhatsApp groups, but um Can that also be a focus? Especially at these kind of meet and moving forward into the future because if the world is really borderless without any artificial device Why not the SE's of the world get together and really make it mainstream rather than alternative as it is now Thank you Who wants to? Yes, please See there has been a process by the foundation to bring us together and there has already been collaboration between us So even in within I mean many a times It's really bad situation But even from India we meet here for the first time, you know, yeah but back home that it fosters collaboration and We do we are collaborating with fellow social entrepreneurs. So even here also today morning We had a discussion with Fandacio Paraguay as to how to take the poverty spotlight model to India So the for the forum enables collaboration and I think that is a good beginning for social because Each of the social enterprise would be like super specialization in a particular area of work, you know So it's very easy having done the basic work of Organizing basic work of creating a framework. It's very easy to get other models incorporated. So and this is what the forum does Yeah, I would just add to that that we think of our Organization as in a way a supply chain for delivering social change. So They're great opportunities. For example Good weave has worked with another Social enterprise that's part of the Schwab network vision spring. So we are working in producer communities That are highly dependent on good eyesight to be able to earn an income And so we can create an avenue for distributing the vision spring I care, you know through our through our own service delivery and there are lots of other examples of how that can work So I think one thing is to share those examples of Collaboration where maybe it hasn't been happening yet and I would just say that, you know Schwab has really supported us to be in a place where we have the the time and Opportunity to really learn more deeply what each other is doing and there are hubs really starting all over the world of especially a major cities of Social entrepreneurs that are getting together on a regular basis and some of us can share more about that And just to add I think there is this global collaboration and the two days that we spent here were, you know, very productive And there is also the local collaboration. So in Brazil, we have, you know, this network of social entrepreneurs that, you know, get together You know once a month or, you know, twice a month to discuss best practices to share because You know, I work with education. There's people working with health Environmental, but you know the issues in terms of management the daily challenges Challenges with people talents are the same, right? So back in Brazil. We have all this collaboration We are, you know, very close to each other and not only, you know, social entrepreneurs But also in the education space in Brazil, we are very open We share, you know, what we do, we share our management practices And we really believe that, you know, by opening what we do We get a lot of feedback and we learn and, you know, the sector is going to benefit As a whole. So we are going through tough times in Brazil right now given the economy challenge So during these times, we need to get even closer and this is what's happening down there. So let's add from the Schwab Foundation perspective that I, you know, I completely agree with you It is absolutely fragmented even though I would argue over the past decade this movement really has mainstreamed and You know part of that is very easily understandable, right? I mean the needs are so much greater than the available resources to address them And of course everyone is trying to then position right in that space I am, it was a pleasure and a privilege to be able to spend the past two days with all the outstanding Schwab Foundation social entrepreneurs here in Davos Where we do very intentionally and deliberately try and foster and catalyze those kinds of partnerships across community members and we heard a couple of examples There are countless more through our network that that happened as a result of these meetings. I would just Add that you know sort of we are not just the community that the World Economic Forum's community of late-stage social entrepreneurs If you will in the Schwab Foundation that we also are very closely aligned with other our sister communities We say and those are young global leaders more than a thousand outstanding young leaders in a hundred countries around the world and the global shapers and that's the millennial community of the world Economic Forum more than seven thousand and four hundred and twelve cities in a hundred seventy one countries around the world So, you know, we're really now moving Into a strategic direction where we are bringing members of all three of those communities together For greater collective impact because you know someone has solved a problem somewhere And it's a matter of trying to find the best ideas and connecting those ideas with the networks of Entrepreneurs and talented people in other countries that can then really localized to their own context and and that's what you know We're trying to do Thank You Catherine and thank you to all panelists Mindful of the advanced time. I'll close this press conference here If the year 2016 gave you some reasons to be skeptical about the future You had some some great news here about that there is progress and that there's reason to be hopeful for the future Thank you very much