Transcript

The Future of Business | Ahmad Ashkar | TEDxGeorgetown

everybody how's everybody doing Pedro great speech you couldn't have set set me up better as I as I talk to you guys today about the future of business [Applause] great who can tell me what just happened okay that's what movement building is all about and what's happening today with the future of business is all about movements and what we do at the Hult prize which I founded about a decade ago is inspire people like Pedro to do what they do and do it best because all it takes is one I'm going to talk to you today about why impact is changing everything we know or used to know about business a little bit about me while some of you may or may not have heard about the Hult prize in our foundation I've probably been invited to Georgetown because of founding falafels Inc you know ten years of impact work and venture funding and 50 million dollars invested and little brown three cents to make falafel balls is what puts you on the map and get you to Georgetown but it's uh it's ironic bite size impact I've had I've had a very wonderful career in this space we have had the pleasure my organization of hope prize and I'll talk to you a little bit about that but more so been able to advise and great companies I'm on the board of the United Nations Development Program and been recognized across the Middle East by some super-duper publications I've got this book how many books and writing and Millennials it's called the pursuit of impact and I'll talk to you a little bit more why I think this is today life's greatest pursuit my career started in the impact space about ten years ago I launched something called the whole prize and the whole prize is the world's largest program which gives students college students around the world a risk-free platform to do the things that Pedro did and some of the other great impact entrepreneurs and I'm super shocked I've got the winner of the 2016 halt prize in the front row stand up like left everybody should meet you yeah and I swear I swear to you it's totally random that he's here but Wyclef was a student and that whole prize we run thematic challenges every year and we have young people who don't necessarily have an idea come together as a team and try to solve a challenge that we set every single year so in 2016 it was doubling the income of urban populations through connectivity and why clefts company was formed as a response to the whole prize challenge we have almost a hundred thousand participants every year between volunteers who organize on campuses and participants and his team emerged through multiple rounds on campus in country in region and then went to our incubator and then finally won and today I'm super excited to announce that why clefts company boo paths since winning the whole prize just in 2016 when 12 months before that had never even thought of becoming entrepreneurs impact entrepreneurs is today one of Africa's largest transportation companies and they've just won a contract which makes them the official ticketing agent using their technology which connects people in rural to people in urban for increased economic opportunities in all of Kenya okay that's the power of the Hult prize platform we've partnered up with the United Nations this is if you can't really see the picture but we've got President Bill Clinton right there in the middle and behind them is the winner of this past year's hall prize which was all about refugees and a team out of Rutgers University for Muslim Americans from Rutgers won by creating a point-to-point ride-sharing system and that's what we do a whole prize but again I'm going to talk to a little bit more about why this business the business of impact is on the rise 2012 we were recognized what seems like an ages ago as one of the top five ideas changing the world I wasn't exactly sure I knew we were having impact then but I didn't realize it until about a year ago why President Clinton had the foresight to tell us and tell the world that the platform we had set up again a risk-free platform which allows young people around the world to dream and create and then we provide the shortcuts to entrepreneurship around it was something that was gaining global recognition and soli but surely we begin cracking the code we're on the front page of this newspaper front page of that right what was it about and then the Vatican came knocking and I was lucky enough with a group of founding partners to design a program called the Lada Tosi challenge co-founder along with one of my dear friends trusted brothers Eric heart of this program that empowers young people again to solve climate change in migration issues inspired by His Holiness Pope Francis so now you've got politicians you've got religious institutions and you've got everyone in the world talking about young people and developing business that both serve humanity and serve capitalists simultaneously right and then there was this about six months ago falafel Inc right how many of you been to falafel amazing you know again I'm always humbled when I talked to be like oh what are you going to George how you talking about Holt prize and your portfolio of amazing I was a no no I'm talking about falafel and hummus and it's been it's been a great honor but here we've built a business model which validates that the future of businesses impact to date we've been open less than six months we've fed over 35,000 refugees we employ to refugees full-time and we've just secured enough backing to open a minimum of 100 stores around the world after opening those hundred stores will literally be feeding more than five million refugees a year okay every store employs about ten we have publicly traded companies trying to acquire our brand today what that means is the idea of social innovation premium is true it's not just about how much money goes to your bottom line you can achieve market validation and maximizing shareholder wealth which is what every business is meant to do maximize shareholder value by achieving impact what's driving this you don't take anything away from today's TEDx talk it should be this slide by 2060 60 trillion dollars will be transferred from our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents generation to Millennials the first five trillion by 2022 what does that mean that means that the people controlling the money will be in charge and why it is them being in charge matter because Millennials make decisions differently than every single generation before them here's the data that proves it this is Hult prize data plus nielsen global research eight out of ten Millennials choose brands that they can associate and affiliate impact to all else being equal they don't have to go out of their way they get at least that minimum the same quality and service or product and the cost is equal sixty percent pay a premium and these numbers are going up every single day every single year so corporations of the future understand and that's why people say the idea of social entrepreneurship versus regular entrepreneurship the lines are no longer black and white they're coming together as one because if you want to be relevant in the next decade I assure you look at the data the sixty trillion dollars in wealth transfer and the Millennial buying behavior right it's not just purchasing guys my friends right now I'm born in 82 so I'm on the very tail end of the millennial generation so my friends now are taking over come I have friends who run publicly traded fortune 1000 companies they're my age they're making decisions differently right you think when Pedro is 23 by the way congratulations you think when when Pedro is going to sell its company eventually guys don't don't get it twisted he's going to put a handsome paycheck in his pocket do you think he's just going to chase bottom-line he's gonna make every single decision hiring spending R&D okay his cofounders are all going to spin off other companies that all do the same the world is changing right now okay now let's go to my story I wasn't always this shared value economy guy I actually began my career on Wall Street and I enjoyed it I didn't choose Wall Street because I wanted to make the most amount of money that I could in my time right one of my time it's like forever ago I graduated in 2000 high school and my parents immigrated to the u.s. from Palestine pretty much nothing and as the child of immigrants I wanted to repay mom and dad all right not literally figuratively I wanted mom to be proud when she called her sisters and brothers and family back home what does your son do and she had to give them the bad news that I wasn't an engineer or a doctor right they had come to the US and you know we were five and none of us studied medicine right but I thought if I maximized wealth then we'd have a great store in her hands it's not because I love money it was because back then society told us that maximizing income was a way of success social success that's what I was after the money and I was a damn good investment banker so I graduated undergrad played college football and went on first first stop New York I had my Series seven in 63 before I got in right my last year of college I took literally graduated in three and a half years and that last half year I got my securities licenses by the age of 25 I was one of the top investment bankers trading CMBS commercial mortgage-backed security who knows what those are right are we are we now too old right this is the financial instrument which collapsed the financial market okay March 6 2009 a day I won't ever forget Dow Jones 6200 some points I'm commuting now between Washington DC and New York and the Middle East I'm raising money from the Arab world because of my background and fluent in Arabic and placing it against us real estate I had a portfolio of over three billion dollars and a pipeline three times as big right getting paid commissions on every deal boom boom boom boom boom and then the market all came crashing down I laid off 50 people overnight and then began to rethink everything and I said there has to be more but what is it right I thought it was money right and in the ten years since I had graduated from high school and had this kind of peak of my career in finance the world changed right all of you guys came into being right inter connectivity ICT information communication technology kept us now from being able to turn a blind eye to the social challenges people were blaming Wall Street business school and every other profit-making entity for the collapse of what was the greatest financial recession in history her second biggest depending on who you ask so what was it so I went back to business school because I wasn't sure along with all my other friends right and those that any go back to business school they were looking for something also but maybe they had not thought it was money they thought it was fame this was the advent now you're talking 2009 in 2010 right a lot of people were beginning to get on you talking about snapchat right before that you add the Facebook and you had other technology platforms which were creating social media networks and people were trying to beginning to for the first time to build these great social profiles online and fame became a huge motivator but they were getting that and people were still coming up empty so certainly it's not making money and it's not getting famous it's got to be pedigree right I'm gonna go to Harvard and we come to Georgetown right nothing wrong with coming to school here but a lot of folks in my generation thought you know what it's not going to work making money let me go down the path a pedigree they were kind of right right some of them went to business schools some went to foundations others went back maybe to their home countries that were immigrants to have this idea of pedigree helping people achieving social status social inclusion but you come up empty until you pursue impact and what we discovered whether it's falafel Inc the Lada Tosi challenge or the whole prize unlocking the pursuit of impact can get you wealth can get you fame and can get you all this thinking pedigree you need because there is no better gift to humanity than helping the world and impacting people's lives what is impact changing the trajectory of people business society culture you change the trajectory so I have impact on your life maybe not today but at any time in your lifetime this presentation changes your view on the world than I've had impact on you the business of impact today for every dollar spent okay every one out of five is spent on impact and that number is just growing the business of impact is an eight trillion dollar industry today and remember by 2060 sixty trillion dollars is being transferred what's the magic well this is what we teach a whole prize and this is the fundamental attributes that I built falafel Inc off of build businesses of the future that are impact centered profit minded and market driven impact centered means every decision you make yields in net impact hiring spending research product service all of it profit minded means you haven't built a business which depends on charity you build businesses that have business models attached to them which means simply by existing you generate revenue and you have impact all you have to do is exist when your lights go on you don't have to think it's not literally selling a product taking a percentage of profits and donating it that's 1.0 it needs to be designed for impact and finally market driven you're solving a market-based challenge simple right the nice thing about building the companies correctly based on inputs is guess what the output that you need to measure is not the 31 or 60 or 100 that you often see it's $1.00 make money at falafel Inc all we have to do is count how much money revenue comes through the door our charter for our company employs and empowers refugees for every 10 bucks spent in store we have a literally a contract signed with the World Food Program that they can take us to court over if we don't fulfill our end of the obligation this is a company that's designed for impact and there's many many others the reason that measuring dollars matters is because folks the world is capitalistic you're gonna grow up you're gonna get out of school you're gonna mature and your jobs whatever the case is and you're gonna realize you need to make money cuz that's the currency from now till bitcoin if you haven't gotten to Bitcoin it's not too early I just started buying shares about three months ago and I'm in the space like I took me that long to believe but for now right the only currency that you can remit you can't go remix the social impact you're having four dollars today you can only remit dollars right for impact you need money so if you build your company correctly then you just count the revenue here's companies doing it today Paul Paul Manzano advisory board he serves as a judge for the Hult prize he's the CEO of Unilever he doesn't talk about Unilever in terms of P&L he looks at social innovation pipeline he's looking at the design of their product how much impact can have his products and services have on society and he knows that's going to drive up market price another example you see here on the screen is a spire food group 2013 halt Prize winner I just took boo pass out Wyclef I had you on the screen to aspire food group folks is a company which is the largest manufacturer of insects as a human consumable they've got a valuation today of well over a hundred million dollars they started with nothing they were an entry into the whole price a medical student and engineer a former investment banker and a lawyer at McGill today they're all millionaires and they're getting livestock out of the ecosystem and by doing that they're able to not just save the environment but they're able to provide an equivalent like-for-like product in terms of protein right they've created a soluble powder colorless literally this despair that you can add in to anything and it's made from crickets which take literally twenty-one over twenty five hundred less gallons of water to produce so the equivalent one pound of protein 2,500 gallons one pound of cricket protein one gallon of water by existing and making money they're having that impact on the world right now falafel Inc right this put at the end it's what you all been waiting for right what's our story so falafel Inc folks was created about six months ago we had a refugee challenge at the whole price and a lot of our startups were asking us how do you build a company that could both make money and be profitable as well as impact the refugee crisis as the CEO of the whole price I thought well it's my job to at least create a company that validates we asked young people like we do every year we challenge them with one problem and that problem was can we transform the lives and restore the rights and dignity of ten million refugees in five years right it's a hard task right so I'm Palestinian we love eating hummus and falafel it's all right it's our street food so my wife was literally I live in Northern Virginia I call that home my wife was in Georgetown and she called me she said quick pitas for sale buy it and I said what am I going to do with it she said no don't you always have this dream of a fatigue for that in the homeless shop you know it's like sorry immigrants you know we love opening restaurants and gas stations once we've made it right everybody can attest to that so you know one thing led to another and we got into the business and then because I run the whole prize I had no other choice but to turn it into a social enterprise what we do so we thought how do we create a product so we said what are the three characteristics that people are looking for in food and thank you to Georgetown who actually put us on the map you want the truth we said we need to make it I have affordable but the reality that the word is cheap you just can't use that in marketing right an affordable product right second is has impact because remember that slide I showed you about eight out of ten Millennials prefer it's true whether you do it consciously or not so we designed the impact inside I just use our own framework not very complicated said how do we make sure there's impact right and how do we create we went after vegan right away right and then we said ah we can't get all the way there let's at least go vegetarian right no sure where am i sorry guys for your protein eaters although we're working now on a potential vegan Shoreham a product but we'll go into that next a technique next year but it has to be good do not as you're building social enterprises and thinking about the businesses of the future don't sell yourself short do not create subpar products and services because you will only attract the millennial generation if it's as good they will not sacrifice right you may have a minority but as a majority it has to be so for us it's all fresh local tasty and good marketing so our hashtag which is picked up around the world is eat with dignity and we've now launched the food for good foundation where we're encouraging other restaurants pubs some publicly traded to join the food for movement so that they could provide the same business model that we do because we are one store with one founder right and we're able we're on a trajectory to get to millions and millions of refugees a year if we had another 50 brands like ours the refugee crisis would disappear full stop right imagine the possibilities so I leave that with you guys today the future of business is real its impact centered profit minded and market driven and I wish all of you the best of luck as you move into this next generation which is the most exciting generation of our times thank you [Applause]