- Welcome to the Skoll World Forum
on social entrepreneurship
live from Oxford, England.
And I'll be talking this afternoon
about the rise of the social entrepreneur in Latin America.
And I'm really delighted to be having as my guest,
Daniel Buchbinder.
Daniel, a very, very warm welcome.
- My pleasure, Emily.
- Thank you so much for coming.
Now you are founder and director of Alterna
a social innovation platform, which is empowering change
both in Central America and beyond.
You're here at the Skoll World Forum
as a senior fellow at Skoll.
But in fact, you began your career
as a marketing exec at L'Oreal.
You then became a consultant across private
and public sectors in tourism, mining,
in the consumer market across Latin America
and across Europe too and in fact,
as an entrepreneur, you even advise
the Ministry of Economics in Guatemala
to create a national policy of entrepreneurship.
We must hear more about that.
And now you're based in Guatemala,
in the Guatemalan Highlands,
and one of the areas you've been very passionate about
is clean energy, developing alternative energy in Guatemala.
So such that it's produced 100% locally
and sold at price so that
it's accessible to the local market.
And now you're working in impact
across a whole host of spaces.
But I must ask you first about how you convinced
the Minister of Economics in Guatemala,
the Ministry of Economics,
to create this national policy,
because that must be a first.
- Sure, I guess, our participation in that
was trying to position social enterprise
as a key point for the national policy.
So that was our our main participation on that.
- And how did you manage to convince them?
Because at that time, was the whole, when was this?
- So this was around six years ago.
- And how was the whole idea of social enterprise?
How much is that embedded inside the country?
- Yeah, actually, it wasn't at all
and actually when you know, it still happens,
you know, when we say social enterprise,
people look at you kind of weirdly,
especially in governments and certainly government sectors.
But to be honest, when you're talking with the right people
and with the right passion, the concept sells itself.
So you don't need to convince anyone
the concept is so appealing,
that basically anyone will fall for it.
- And how would you describe, what's your understanding
of what a social enterprise is?
What is a social entrepreneur?
- Sure, well, at least for us in Alterna
and for the type of work that we do,
which is more of a for profit approach.
- [Emily] A for profit?
- A for profit approach.
We say that social enterprises
as an enterprise that has a business model,
which has an impact model at the core,
- Okay, so when you say it's at the core,
is it driven primarily by impact
or primary by profit or a combo of the two?
- It can be both.
So actually how we have been thinking
and acting on that is that
we see this as a continuum.
We we don't like binaries,
- [Emily] Okay.
- And so we prefer to think as routes towards impact--
- Routes?
- Routes towards impact and toward change.
- So what does that mean?
These are all very broad concepts.
Can you give me an example
of what it means in practice?
- Sure, the most important things for us is the purpose.
So it's not that important, what's the origin,
where the enterprise is coming from,
it can be traditional company that understands
or that sees an opportunity,
or sees a challenge that can be embedded
within their business model.
- So it could be a straightforward corporation
up for profit, but then for some reason,
either because of a market opportunity,
or because somebody at the helm sees
that they want to get involved--
- Exactly. - In a certain impact
they then bolt on this impact,
but the impact becomes core
for doing that part of the business.
- Exactly.
- Can we perhaps have a drawing here
of your social entrepreneur or perhaps begin a bit
and then we might make him more South American
and by talking through we can understand
a bit more about what he or she or they,
are really like, what are the key features
of the entrepreneur?
- Sure.
- So let's.
So what do they need to have?
- [Daniel] This person could be an Egyptian?
- [Emily] Or a Guatemalan maybe.
- Or a Guatemalan, or a Guatemalan.
- Yeah maybe not.
What they need?
- So I think they need to have a very nice
and very clear alignment between what they have here
and what they have here.
So let's see how that works.
- [Emily] And their hearts okay,
so clear alignment between heart and brain.
- [Daniel] Exactly, so let's say that here.
- Great.
- They need to have a very clear, sharp focus,
so kind of, they can, yeah.
- [Emily] Okay it's a bit wiggly, not so good,
you want it sharp, sorry about that, okay.
- [Daniel] And wide as well so.
- And wide, yeah, okay wide, a wide focus.
So both very very sharp but at the same time
a very broad perspective so understanding
the whole ecosystem.
- [Daniel] Exactly, exactly.
- Okay.
- Then I would say kind of, well let's use the nose
as kind of, smelling opportunity.
You know having that also kind of sharp nose
to smell the opportunity to smell between the lines
if that, if I may.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very good.
- And let's say the mouth is that so,
they have to be able to articulate,
to engage, to bring resources, people, attention
to their objective, to their mission, to their passion.
- Have to be able to convince others and work,
you know in cohorts and community with people.
- Exactly they have to be magnets for talent
for other supporters, for everything, yeah.
- And perhaps they also need
some kind of style and creativity.
- Exactly.
- So let's give them a sort of--
- Totally.
- Stylish creative hat and earrings.
- Exactly.
- Which is important, so, go on,
no you were going to draw something else.
- No I think that's, it's a very good combo.
- Okay, okay, that sounds good
and what about anything that makes
your social entrepreneur particularly Guatemalan?
- So I think it has to do with having a big heart
and having that possibility to connect it with
with a brainy aspect of it and something that we found
that is unique about Guatemalans and because of this
heritage of Mayan culture in many cases,
or because of diversity and just like a mix
of what has happened in some occasions, it's creativity.
- Creativity. - Exactly.
- Okay so we like that, so maybe--
- We can highlight it.
- Yeah, go on, that's the creativity.
Yeah and good fun colors and doing things
in a non straightforward way.
Yeah, oh my word, that sounds cool.
Yeah quite circular, we don't even want straight lines
we want--
- No straight lines, absolutely, no linear thinking.
- No linear way so all sorts of creative woo!
Yeah, so suddenly, yeah.
- And with style.
- And with style and maybe we could even kind of
draw outside the box, we could start drawing,
no I don't want to.
- We'll do that out here. - Just in your imagination
drawing all over this beautiful wooden Oxford table,
marvelous antique, okay, that sounds fantastic,
that looks really really great,
I like all that creativity there.
And so tell me a bit more about Alterna and how it works.
- So Alterna is a platform that works with
entrepreneurs in rural areas so we have a program
and we actually, a very important thing we say,
for non-linearity is that we work, we cultivate.
We do not necessarily fall in either incubation
or acceleration, again we don't like binaries.
So we decided that cultivation is the right philosophy,
is the right approach, is the right methodology.
- What do you mean by cultivation?
- By cultivation we mean, first of all culture,
it's a culture, it's a mindset of purpose, discipline,
business, we mean cycles, so because we don't like
that linear paths because life is not linear,
so we believe in that the way that we can serve
entrepreneurs is through a series of discrete, relevant,
cycles of support, of business accompaniment support.
- We're talking very conceptually, can you help me out here
by talking about a particular enterprise
that you have supported at Alterna.
- Sure, so we have, so for example there is this
coffee comparative that we have worked
through many cycles and that they have needed
different type of resources at different moments in time
and so as they advance, they are able to
to have specific asks in what we can provide them
if it's something related to finance
or to access funding or investment for example.
And so in the last four years we have helped them
to develop specific aspects of their business model.
- Again you're talking very conceptually,
talk to me coffee, talk to me about the coffee cup
and the coffee I drink and people
who are harvesting the coffee beans.
- Sure so this coffee comparative is called Fesse,
they work with 2000 farmers--
- [Emily] And they're in the highlands in Guatemala?
- They're in the highlands, they work with,
yeah, around 2000 farmers that are being paid
fairtrade, they actually have a line of coffee
that is women, women grown, that's how they sell,
and they also work with very very high level
environmental standards, so they have something
called a biofactory so they help these farmers
have their own, to create their own organic fertilizer
for example, so it's a full circle.
And so then it's a case where they have gone through
a range of cultivation cycles where basically
we provide them business support.
- And how do you work with the fact that
you want to not impose your own Western perspective
but you're trying to work with the way they work,
with their indigenous methodologies
and their indigenous vision?
- Sure I mean, it's not easy, it's a matter of respect,
it's a matter of understanding, it's a matter of being
aware of exactly what you're mentioning.
And so I think with that on the table,
the relationship goes better and again,
it's not easy and that is why with these kind of cycles
and more discrete type of support,
we can get that intimacy that is required
for this type of support.
- And I'm also interested in your own journey
because you were born and raised in Mexico City
at a time of tremendous change, during the 80s
you had a World Cup win but you also had
an enormous earthquake, one of the largest earthquakes
in history, a time of really deep environmental,
ecological and indeed social change,
did that help create the entrepreneur in you?
- I think that made me aware of how fragile environment is
a city can be and kind of made me be aware
of all these things that basically,
that was the seed that started growing in me in the mid 80s.
- So it was the fragility which meant?
- The fragility of us as human beings,
you know an earthquake can change everything in seconds,
I was lucky enough that nothing happened to my family
but I knew people that their house
and part of their lives were destroyed
because of the earthquake a few blocks away
and so yeah I mean being, you know,
just like of caring and of having a view
of also supporting in a, also preventing right,
so I think all those concepts started
growing in me at that moment.
And we've just got a question as well
from a Alukei Lecul and he wants to know
or she want to know, how do you reconcile
cultivation with short term requirements of funders?
Thank you so very much by the way for that question,
great question.
- Yeah thanks Alukei, so one of our cultivation cycles
can be in very advanced stages so entrepreneurs
can come into our cultivation path
requiring investment preparedness for example
or to be linked to funding, we actually
last year we launched our own impact investment fund
exactly to eliminate intermediaries
and be closer to what entrepreneurs need.
- And where do you get the funding from?
- So that came from a range of actors,
from the IDB lab, is one of them,
that is the Interamerican Development Bank
who has a funding arm and other European foundations
so yeah, that's our capital.
- And where next for you, just very briefly?
- We're trying to connect to bring more,
different type of resources aside of finance.
So we're working very hard on providing
better connections for talent.
- [Emily] Okay.
- And for markets, so we are actually piloting
parts of our platform to connect
better entrepreneurs with international markets.
- That's really really fascinating,
thank you so very much Daniel, Daniel Buchbinder,
thank you so much for joining us
and to our audience on Facebook Live, thank you.