Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Abstract

This is the second working paper in the series on Social Entrepreneurship in Asia published by the Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy (ACSEP). ACSEP’s mission is to advance the understanding and impactful practice of social entrepreneurship and philanthropy in Asia through research and education. While Asia is rich with the practice of social entrepreneurship given the plethora of social issues and challenges facing the region, there is still catch-up to be done in the documentation of these challenges and the responses from the private, public and people sectors. Case studies provide the platform for story-telling, analysis and theory building. Each of these applications serves a function in capacity building in the social entrepreneurship space in Asia. Story-telling inspires, engenders passion, informs of possibilities, sparks action, builds communities and facilitates information exchange for change. Iterations of analysis (and synthesis) done in the classroom among practitioners, professionals and students develop critical skills of assessment and evaluation. Academics interact with the models of social entrepreneurship which surface from data drawn from practice to build theory which again informs on practice. This collection of cases on social entrepreneurship was borne out of a three-year partnership between the National University of Singapore Business School, the Ateneo de Manila University and Gawad Kalinga in a collaboration on curriculum development in entrepreneurship for sustainable development. On behalf of the partners, I want to thank Temasek Foundation for its generous support for this collaboration. It provides capability and capacity training in entrepreneurial skills for both for-profit and not-for-profit enterprises. This case collection stands as a testimony of the collaboration which started in 2010. The collaboration has two dimensions. First, it is a curriculum development programme for curriculum writers to design a cornerstone undergraduate module on entrepreneurship for sustainable development. The programme introduces a method in curriculum development which integrates multiple disciplines throughout the module. In June 2012, this module was offered in the School of Social Sciences and the John Gokongwei School of Management for the first time. This case collection was commissioned to accompany this cornerstone module on entrepreneurship for sustainable development and can be used for discussion in many of its lesson plans. Second, it is a train-the-trainer programme for Gawad Kalinga leaders to train entrepreneurs in some 2,300 communities throughout the Philippines. The programme provides process learning for Gawad Kalinga community leaders to train entrepreneurs in their own communities. 24 Gawad Kalinga trainers and leaders were trained in May 2011. As planned, this Gawad Kalinga training program has been cascaded to their communities to build capacity, targeting to train at least 100 leaders and entrepreneurs by April 2013. The theoretical framework for the curriculum development process has been documented in a video clip and can be viewed in YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5S8vm_enu0]. Apart from its use in formal curriculum on entrepreneurship for sustainable development, we hope that this case collection can be inspiring reading to challenge the vision of and provoke passion in some of our aspiring entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs. We in Asia contribute 60 percent of the world’s poor. Entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship, besides education, are some of the keys to restore dignity, alleviate poverty and create employment. Therefore, social entrepreneurs in Asia are faced with one of the widest spectrums of unmet people needs and the correspondingly open range of entrepreneurial possibilities. I believe that one of the better ways of internalising the skill to recognise opportunities and create that value proposition is to keep looking at paradigms after paradigms, models after models. Some of these ought to be failure stories. Regrettably, there is a survivorship bias even in storytelling. Notwithstanding, the constant practice of reading such cases or stories, consciously or subconsciously, sharpens our senses of differentiating a success potential from a failure potential. It is with this hope that ACSEP publishes its Case Collection on Philippines. I also recognise that each Asian economy has its own trajectory in socio-economic development. Therefore, the corresponding solutions to its social issues are distinct to its context. This case collection is drawn from the Philippines. Over time, I hope that a beautiful mosaic will emerge from the myriad of entrepreneurial solutions in this collection and elsewhere for sustainable development.

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