A New Alliance for Global Change
SPOTLIGHT CAN ENTREPRENEURS SAVE THE WORLD?
Spotlight
ARTWORK Josh Keyes, Burst I, 2009 acrylic on panel, 30" x 80"
A New Alliance
56 Harvard Business Review September 2010
HBR.ORG
Bill Drayton is the CEO of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a global organization with headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
Valeria Budinich is the founder and chief entrepreneur of Ashoka’s Full Economic Citizenship Initiative.
Working together, corporations and social entrepreneurs can reshape industries and solve the world’s toughest problems. by Bill Drayton and Valeria Budinich
for Global Change
September 2010 Harvard Business Review 57
SPOTLIGHT CAN ENTREPRENEURS SAVE THE WORLD?
Social Ch Change
PROFILE
Making Emergency Care More Efficient
Medical Care
In India, many lives are lost for want of timely medical care. Not acceptable, decided a group of young Indian professionals, who started Dial 1298 for Ambulance. This initiative makes ambulances simple to access through an easy-toremember four-digit telephone number and provides service regardless of a person’s ability to pay, charging on a sliding scale. With the help of global positioning and realtime tracking systems, the quick dispatch of 1298 ambulances has so far saved some 50,000 lives in Mumbai. —Rasika Welankiwar
W work is performed, and businesses grow. Collaborations between corporations and social entrepreneurs can create and expand markets on a scale not seen since the Industrial Revolution. These markets will reach everyone, but especially the 4 billion people who are not yet part of the world’s formal economy. They will offer new and remarkable products and services in sectors as diverse as education, transportation, and finance. You may be skeptical of this claim, and with good reason. The citizen sector—the term we use to define the millions of groups established and run by mission-minded individuals across the globe who are attempting to address critical social
Spotlight
ARTWORK Josh Keyes, Burst I, 2009 acrylic on panel, 30" x 80"
A New Alliance
56 Harvard Business Review September 2010
HBR.ORG
Bill Drayton is the CEO of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a global organization with headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
Valeria Budinich is the founder and chief entrepreneur of Ashoka’s Full Economic Citizenship Initiative.
Working together, corporations and social entrepreneurs can reshape industries and solve the world’s toughest problems. by Bill Drayton and Valeria Budinich
for Global Change
September 2010 Harvard Business Review 57
SPOTLIGHT CAN ENTREPRENEURS SAVE THE WORLD?
Social Ch Change
PROFILE
Making Emergency Care More Efficient
Medical Care
In India, many lives are lost for want of timely medical care. Not acceptable, decided a group of young Indian professionals, who started Dial 1298 for Ambulance. This initiative makes ambulances simple to access through an easy-toremember four-digit telephone number and provides service regardless of a person’s ability to pay, charging on a sliding scale. With the help of global positioning and realtime tracking systems, the quick dispatch of 1298 ambulances has so far saved some 50,000 lives in Mumbai. —Rasika Welankiwar
W work is performed, and businesses grow. Collaborations between corporations and social entrepreneurs can create and expand markets on a scale not seen since the Industrial Revolution. These markets will reach everyone, but especially the 4 billion people who are not yet part of the world’s formal economy. They will offer new and remarkable products and services in sectors as diverse as education, transportation, and finance. You may be skeptical of this claim, and with good reason. The citizen sector—the term we use to define the millions of groups established and run by mission-minded individuals across the globe who are attempting to address critical social