15 Young Social Entrepreneurs Changing The World With Innovative Ideas
Feature Image Source: iStock/GeorgePeters
The basis of celebration today in the world of entrepreneurs is in the striking fact that our present generations understand entrepreneurs’ success is not solely measured by financial and business ventures; people who choose to take a stand for social issues, make an aim to effect changes and solve problems relating to culture, environment and society through their enterprises are equally, and perhaps more valuable in our lives.
Graduates who decide on a start-up idea of raising social awareness about a certain dilemma, in the opinions of many onlookers, are doing work far more profitable than the entrepreneur who merely manages a social engine named Facebook.
The Role Of Technology In Entrepreneurship
In the 21st century, without a doubt, technology has become an indispensable asset of our lives. While the use of technology has brought about a number of undebatable damages within our society, it is pleasing to know that somewhere in the last decade; technology has levelled the field as well.
Apart from opening up numerous opportunities for the youth, our young generations, through the help of technology are becoming aspired to be social entrepreneurs.
According to the Populus survey, about a portion of 16-26 years old are motivated to set up their own businesses, while 14% of them are already in the process of doing so. What’s even better is that they all are concerned for making a social impact through their enterprises.
Can Social Entrepreneurs Change The World?
Social Entrepreneurs have the power to help the local community and consequently change the world. We cannot reduce the leaders of this industry to five or ten because every single entrepreneur who is socially active is beneficial to our community, no matter how big or small their enterprise is. Those who own some of the globally acclaimed organizations working for a better society are in many ways, transforming the entire world into a place better for living than before. On the same stance, nevertheless, leaders who are in the struggling phase are still creating a more conscious, morally rich world in their own small ways.
However, the fifteen profiles that we have chosen to endorse our list as the young and ambitious entrepreneurs changing the world, are described below in this article. They arise from all parts of the world, across the oceans and around the globe. They are aged below 40, yet they have worked for our community in such several and innovative ways that no person above the 40-mark has, to-date. Let us see who they are and what are they doing.
The Paradigm Project Owner
Gregory Spencer, a young 27-year old, is the co-founder of the Paradigm Project – a project aimed at creating social, economic and environmental values within the developing countries.
Spencer entered into the world of social entrepreneurship by beginning a webisode series with the name “Stoveman.” In this series, he documented giving away special stoves to less-privileged homes in the developing country, Kenya – a kind of a cooker that not only was sustainable in usage, but was also environmental friendly.
Spencer partnered with his father to launch the Project and is yet working for the third-world countries for bringing social, economic and environmental impacts through his project.
The Water Collective CEO
She not only became an epitome of female empowerment, but is also one of the most-remembered social entrepreneurs who thought of the water-issues in developing countries and struggled to bring clean waters to these lesser-known places.
We are talking about Sophia Sunwoo, the CEO of the Water Collective Organization. This successful organization has come into existence since two years and within such a short span of time, Water Collective has trained over 140 people while brought clean waters to more than 6500 people in the Africa. Early in her career as social activist, Sunwoo found her part of success by working in the Fortune 500 Companies list.
Having learned new and improved business strategies, she founded her own organization with the name Water Collective where she implemented ingenious and powerful solutions to combating clean-water deficiency in developing countries. Water Collective Organization is working successfully under the resourceful mind of Sophia Sunwoo.
The Vera Solutions Founder
Taylor Downs is a young entrepreneur who launched his innovative program, Vera Solutions, sponsored by the Echoing Green Fellows, and working to produce improved and innovative technology for all the social organizations lacking it.
Vera Solutions is an enterprise that works to supply such businesses with products benefitting their monitoring, evaluation and management authorities. “We are breaking new ground when it comes to intellectual property and artificial intelligence,” says Taylor. He is the one who thought of this odd and innovative idea for spreading welfare to the organizations already struggling for a better community, yet limited in their resources for improved results. As narrated by Downs, it all began when he was 26 and transforming lives in South Africa.
He believes he was inspired by that period of his life into initiating Vera Solutions, and changing the way these socially active organizations worked.
The Sawa World Creator
Poverty is prevailing fast in most of our neighboring countries, and solutions to battling with it are few.
Daphne Nederhorst, a mighty woman in her thirties and an Ashoka Fellow, knows it well that to eradicate the plague of poverty, our youth must be educated and empowered. For this purpose, she has created a movement called Sawa World which works to empower the youth of the poor and motivates them to stand up for themselves, and be called “Sawa Leaders.”
The youth, through this organization, is trained and educated with solutions fighting with poverty that they report to their communities. Sawa World, in a way, has begun a movement of creating ambassadors of the regions enveloped in poverty.
The Goodwall Founders
Omar Bawa and Taha Bawa, aged 25 and 27 respectively, belong to Switzerland and have cofounded the social media platform, Goodwall. It resembles to the Linked-In except for the fact that Goodwall is solely to facilitate the students connect with their peers, avail scholarship opportunities, apply to universities and obtain similar benefits.
The Greensole Enterprise
Greensole is a social enterprise launched by two Indian athletes, Shriyans Bhandari, aged 23, and Ramesh Dhami, aged 22.
The pair met through an athletic training and sparked friendship from their first meetup. They discussed the impact of discarding so many running sneakers every year and discovered that around one billion people in India had no access to footwear. One fine evening, they came up with the idea of starting Greensole social enterprise, which would address this issue of their hometown, Mumbai.
These two young and ambitious athletes collect all the used sneakers, ready for disposal, and recycle them into wearable sandals.
Eco Eclectic Technology Founder
Binesh Desai is a South Asian, 24 years old and the founder of the Eco Eclectic Technology. This company was started in 2016 to invent eco-friendly solutions for the large amount of waste materials polluting the air and sea.
Desai has famously transformed much of the domestic and industrial wastes into bricks, or something more useful. Till present day, the company has successfully recycled 600 tons of waste materials.
The One Who Said Make Love Not Scars
Make Love Not Scars is not a slogan but an institute that provides rehabilitation services to the survivors who survived acid attacks in their lives.
Ria Sharma is 25 year old Indian girl who was inspired to act after she made a documentary on acid attack in her college. Her organization provides educational, medical, psychological, legal and vocational services to the victims.
The Japanese’s Job Rainbow
Talk about human equality. Kento Hoshi, a young Japanese founded the website JobRainbow for transgender looking for employment in his country. He came to this idea when a friend complained about being expelled from the interview room once the management came to know that he was a transgender.
Hoshi’s JobRainbow is an employment search site that invites companies looking for, and sensitive to the LGBTQ+ community in Japan.
Headstart AI
The two cofounders of the Headstart AI, aged 29 and 23, have revolutionized the recruitment process.
They give order and collect far more information of candidates than contained in a CV and utilize the machine-learning to match the most suitable and favorable jobs for participants. It also fits the recruitment considering technical and cultural formalities.
The Myna Mahila Foundation
India is one of those countries where women and their issues are prioritized once all other cases are resolved, including the ones that do not even arise.
To inculcate women empowerment in India, another young social activist, Suhani Jalota founded the Myna Mahila Foundation. This 23-year old, through her foundation, makes sanitary napkins accessible to women all over in India, while also encourage them to speak what make them afraid, and stop labeling discourses like mensuration and toilets as a ‘taboo’ topic.
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Digital Citizen Fund Sisters
She was born in Afghanistan, and with the support of her sister, she founded the organization called Digital Citizen Fund.
Elaha Mehboob studied and graduated from Cornell, United States, and has always been passionate about the STEM education.
Along with her sister Roya, the duo founded the organization that works by helping females get access to technology, get virtual connection with people, and develop necessary skills to survive in the global market, particularly from the developing countries.
Anti-Bullying Ambassadors
Alex Holmes, age 29, was a victim of bullying in his student life. Today, he is the founder of Anti-Bullying Ambassadors, a foundation that aims at training people psychologically and physically who get directed to bullying.
Holmes has successfully educated over 28,000 young victims and his organization has spread from UK to Greece, Italy and more. His foundation has also been a part of the Diana Award.
She Founded The Chatterbox
People who are held as refugees waste the precious years of their lives doing nothing other than praying to be freed.
Mursal Hedayat is a Kabul-born, 27-year old who was held as refugee herself. She founded the Chatterbox, which is an online language program that employs and trains all the refugees as teachers. Hedayat was named as the Emerging Innovator by Ashoka as well.
The Girls’ Network
Aged 28, Becca Dean is another social entrepreneur who addressed the disguised issue of the impact of a lack of female role model on young generation. Having known the affects it can have, Dean founded The Girls’ Network that connects young girls to individual female mentors.
She has matched around 1300 of such young females and is now partnered with Barclays, BNY Mellon and PwC as well.
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