Good morning, GES 2016!
There are 700 entrepreneurs here.
Raise your hand, all the entrepreneurs.
OK, welcome!
We face some extraordinary challenges at this moment,
and I think I'm looking at a lot of different parts of the solution to it.
We need you to utilize your ambition,
your dream, your desire,
to creatively figure out how we can improve modes of transportation,
how we can deliver healthcare to everybody,
how we can build the infrastructure needed to grow economies
and create shared prosperity worldwide.
All of us, me, you, have the ability to change the world and change lives.
The next-generation entrepreneurs can come from anywhere.
In today's world where our economies have undergone dramatic shifts,
entrepreneurship remains the engine of growth.
That ability to turn an idea into a reality,
that's the promise that we see in all of you.
This is the best time of all of human history to be alive.
The opportunities to solve problems that have never been solved before
and the technology and resources you have in your hands,
has never been seen before.
Social entrepreneurs are every bit as entrepreneurial, as driven,
as disciplined.
So think of social entrepreneurs as phenomenal disrupters.
When we actually think about new projects,
we look at the same ten things that any VC would look at.
But we're just twisting them for social good.
We really need to pay attention to the, not the countries in the middle,
out of the 7 billion, they'll rise with the rising tide,
but it's the bottom-billion countries that are trapped.
If you think about entrepreneurship, it's about change,
it's about empowerment.
But if done right, it's about dignity.
The target population of farmers facing deep market failures
is in the hundreds of millions, 450 million to be more precise.
So, how do you create real scalable business opportunities
that can take families from having virtually no resources
to be able to invest in the future, and send their kids to school,
and access clean water and electricity?
We need to recognize our shared humanity.
We need to try to find a way for the 7 billion people in this world
to understand that we are all in this together.
Empathy is a formidable skill to solve conflicts to prevent people
from killing each other, but it's also a formidable skill
for being a better entrepreneur and a better business person.
At least a fourth of the 660 million people
who lack access to water today would absolutely pay for those services
if they just had access to affordable financing such as small loans.
This person, even if conventional, you know, indicators don't say
that they're creditworthy,
this person is actually creditworthy and the cost of reaching them
through mobile payments is negligible.
And I think it has profound implications
in terms of what that means to borrow
and then how that can actually end up, you know,
building wealth for low-income households.
As social entrepreneurs we are not satisfied with delivering services.
We want to change systems.
In the last year and half, 18 months, at this point
20% of Bangladesh's population is touched by solar.
To me entrepreneurship is about creating change,
not just creating companies.
It's mostly about doing something that you are passionate about,
and building a company or a business or an organization around it.
No matter what you are trying to do, necessary is that you are having
that kind of motive in your mind
that wants to help your society move forward.
There are skeptics out there and it's ridiculous.
I mean, of course you can invest for profit and pursue purpose.
I believe all of you represent all the upside
of an interconnected world,
all the optimism, and the hope, and the opportunity
that that interconnected world represents.
But it's also important in these discussions to find ways
in which we are expanding and broadening the benefits
of that interconnection to more and more people.
And that's what so many of you are doing.