Find Your Place in the Universe: Chris Crane at TEDxAshokaU
thank you I love the term social entrepreneur I also love speech recognition software I talk into my computer it writes down what I say it's like but the software doesn't like the term social entrepreneurship it transcribes it in some nefarious ways for instance I say social entrepreneurship and it writes socialist lunch errors another time it wrote so much inertia and then my least favorite I said social entrepreneurship and it wrote social manure shop trust me I did these actually happen I'm not smart enough to make these up I'm very pleased to be able to speak with you this evening about some remarkable social entrepreneurs who grew up in the developing world and are addressing a major problem in their communities first I'd like to frame the issue I invite you to reflect back on the greatest gifts that you've received in your life which one of those gifts has opened up the most doors of opportunity for you which one of those gifts that you received year after year helped you develop analytical skills helped you to do thinking much more productively it is of course education so I ask you is it fair is it social justice that hundreds of millions of children in developing countries don't have the same gift they'll not receive the same gift as you that they won't have a chance to develop their minds to be highly productive in their communities as you have education is social justice it's the pathway out of poverty it is a human right in my opinion and this lack of Education of access to a good education in developing countries is one of the greatest problems in the world today it's often referred to as the global education crisis but what would you think if I told you that there are indigenous social entrepreneurs who grew up at the base of the pyramid who are solving this problem who are starting and managing schools to educate the children in their communities and they're doing this in slums and rural areas all over the world these schools are humble here's a classroom from West Africa this is a simple cement block classroom as many are it costs $5,000 to build some classrooms are made of brick such as this classroom in Rwanda but there's something astonishing about these schools please listen to this these schools are fully financially sustainable they don't receive donations from anyone they don't receive any government subsidies they are fully financially sustainable they charge 30 cents or to 60 cents a day per child per student and when carefully managed they can pay all the teachers they can pay the bookkeeper and the social entrepreneur that owner operator can make a living I'd like to tell you a little bit about my unlikely journey into social entrepreneurship I was a businessman for 25 years during that time I bought a company little company over the years it grew and I sold it and shortly afterwards a I got a very surprising phone call that would change my life a micro Finance organization that I had donated to asked if I would come in and manage it I discouraged them I said I don't know anything about managing a nonprofit but they persisted and after some soul searching and encouragement from my wife I said yes and I had a pleasant surprise when I arrived at the organization I found that many of those best practices that I learned in business did apply to managing a social Enterprise and so over seven years while I was there the organization scaled up and along the way I met a remarkable British professor of Education Dr James Tuli is an impeccably polite Englishman he's shy he's self-effacing he's not tall and stature but he's a giant when it comes to caring about disadvantaged children receiving a good education and Dr Tuli had done the pioneering research on this phenomenon of these affordable independent schools that are financially sustainable he spent over a decade traveling to seven countries in Africa and Asia and his research showed that these children from these humble schools consistently scored higher on National exams than the children from the public schools where the teachers were absent often you see teachers you see ministries of Education in the developing world are terribly underfunded they do not have the resources to make sure the teachers are showing up every day but these social entrepreneurs these owner operators who own those schools they are making sure those teachers are there every day and they're they're doing a good job teaching the children so I was fascinated by Professor tuli's research frankly I wondered was it too good to be true but I was compelled to find out for myself so I got on a plane I went to Africa to two countries one of the first schools I visited was a school in an isolated Village it was surrounded by mountains and I talked to the woman who grew up in this community who had started this school and I asked her what motivated you and she said that she wanted to educate her son and provid an education for the other children in the community and that that hit a heartstring for me because I knew how meaningful it was for me to provide a good education for my son so she took her meager savings she borrowed money from friends and family and so she built a couple classrooms and you can see these class this classroom these classrooms are s they made out of simple inexpensive wooden slabs notice something interesting although you see the children looking in from the outside although these social entrepreneurs often provide up to 10% of the deaths for Orphans who can't afford to pay they can't accommodate all of the very disadvantaged children who want an education so children these children are looking through the open window to try to get as much learning as they possibly can because they know they know that education is their one chance in life to escape dire poverty and they will take that chance so as I traveled around other communities seeing these schools a Common Thread came out these schools want to expand much more rapidly than their modest cash flow would allow they wanted loans to build more classrooms in computer labs so I started an organization called edify dorg to make loans to these schools for $5,000 they can build a classroom for $5,000 they can equip a computer lab with 11 brand new computers they pay back the loan in 5 years they pay back typically in 3 years actually and then at that point then it is recycled to another school that builds another classroom with the same $5,000 and then it's recycled to another classroom so that keeps recycling it keeps building more Compu more either computer labs or classrooms so we are at edifi we are scaling up we made our first loan less than three years ago we've now made loans to over 600 schools impacting $150,000 children we've got a vision in four years to be impacting a million children and in 10 years to be impacting four million children we also come along these side the schools we encourage them to teach life skills such as English and computers were big Believers in education technology we also encourage them to teach values such as loving your neighbor and being honest and through our partnership with the University of San Diego were able to offer teacher training which reminds me of another blooper from the speech recognition software I said I have a plan for incentivizing the teachers and it said I have a plan for sanitizing the teachers requiring sanitizing May reduce the attendance at the teacher training whatever sanitizing is I want to tell you about the determination of parents to provide an education for the children especially parents who are at that base of the pyramid I want to talk in particular about mothers and their desires to educate their daughters and I see mothers who labor in the 100 degree Heat and the high humidity and they make personal sacrifices to save so that their daughters can grow up to be an arua and araba is a word from the West African language of twe and a ruaba is a woman who goes to work in a business suit and she's respected by her husband by her children she has a place of honor in her community she works in an office and she knows how to use computers and these mothers often have almost no education but they want something better for their daughters than they had and they make these sacrifices and I'm honored to serve parents like that who are so intent on their children getting a good education so I want to conclude with a call to action if you thinking about opening that if you're wondering if if you should open that door to social entrepreneurship if that might be your place in the universe I encourage you to step through I'm so glad that I did I was the most I was the most unlikely Canada I was a 50-year-old business person I wasn't thinking about social entrepreneurship until I got that surprising call but I stepped through and I think especially I think what I did so many of you could have done especially you those of you that have a decade or more of business experience or other good work [Music] experience I stepped onto the playing field of social entreprene ship found a professor came across a professor who had identified this ingenious solution simple solution that indigenous entrepreneurs had come up with to solve their own problem and all I did all I did was come alongside them with a market-based solution of loans to help them expand and to grow much more rapidly I used to have I used to have Thrills when I do a million-dollar business deal but those Thrills faded quickly now I have this longlasting Joy I make a $5,000 loan to a school and it builds a classro that's going to educate children for the next 40 years so I encourage you to step through that door of social entrepreneurship because if you do I promise you that you will develop profound friendships with wonderful people you'll have Amazing Adventures maybe all around the world and you will have the Deep fulfillment of knowing that you've used your experience and your talents to benefit your fellow woman and man thank you