Emerge Social Enterprise Conference Oxford 27+28th Nov 2010
After some busy weeks at university, here a short entry on the great Emerge conference at Said Business School, Oxford last weekend.
Great speakers ranging from Sanjit Bunker Roy (see older posts from conference in Zurich) over Tim Smit (Eden Project) and Joe Madiath (Gram Vikas) to Charmian Love (Volans).
Here some excerpts from the official Emerge blog that convey some impressions and results of the conference’s workshops:
The conference was aimed to provide students with practical insights into the field of social enterprise, something made clear in Liam Black’s opening keynote address, when he made clear that the conference was not about defining social entrepreneurship, but the work of actual entrepreneurs and professionals involved in the field.
Every breakout session at Emerge 2010 fell into one of the three categories: LEARN IT, INNOVATION; DO IT, CAREERS; and BUILD IT, SKILLS.
Investing for Impact (funding social enterprises):
Frequent reasons why social enterprises are turned down for funding:
1. A management team — investors carefully look at your team
2. Know your numbers — do your homework, provide investors with evidence for your profitability
3. Understand your market
4. Coachability — don’t defend your venture to death, show that you are willing to learn
Raising start-up capital:
Moderated by social entrepreneur in residence at the Skoll Centre, Matt Scott, Anya Navidski of Jumpstart-up, Inc. and Xavier Helgesen (Better World Books) gave advice around attracting funds and pitching ideas to investors.
One important note from this session:
“If you go to an investor seeking money, you’ll get advice; if you go seeking advice, you’ll get money.”
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Another inspiring note was the keynote address by Tim Smit on Saturday morning. Telling great anecdotes on why he only accepts every third invitation (“the best encounters are those that are not planned during events you did not plan to go to”) he delivered a speech filled with dry British humour as well as a refreshing reminder of the unconventional, the value of the unexpected and a generally positive attitude to life.
Altogether a great conference and definitively recommend for everyone around the UK and beyond interested in Social Enterprise.
