The term social entrepreneurship has become increasingly popular in recent years as more universities worldwide are initialing programs that educate future social entrepreneurs and as more firms are established with business model that has positive social impacts. From Wikipedia, the term social entrepreneurship is defined as "a work of a social entrepreneur who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change." One pioneering organization that embodies such principle is Digital Divide Data (DDD), an IT outsourcing and digitization organization with a social mission of providing economic development to the local communities in Laos and Cambodia. For the last 3 months, it was a privilege for me to be volunteering at their office in Vientiane, Laos (which explains my absence at my blog due to my busy schedule).

On the surface, DDD functions very much like a profit-driven company. Operations are based and sales derived from digitization and data processing services that the organization provides. But to say that DDD is a commercial venture is not entirely true. Registered as a non-profit organization, DDD still depends on donations for good reason and cause. The organization continues to initiate many social-economic programs that improve the lives of the local communities, especially the disabled people. DDD established free education courses in English and other business subjects to the local communities. In a country where there is a general lack of talents, such programs do and have made large impact to the local economy. This model of balancing between both social and commercial objectives works is based out of an old Chinese proverb "Give a man a fish, feed mim for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime." DDD often provides possible employment to the students after graduation from DDD. Ultimately, the social goal for DDD is, whether a person stays or leaves the organization, he/she will undoubtedly end up as a productive contributor to his/her country economy and improving his/her life -- hence "feeding" him/her for a lifetime.

10/9/2007 11:47:47 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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