Transcriber: Yiwen Moo Reviewer: Denise RQ
I am here to talk today about how we are going to need
a lot of really smart architects
to build a world that's going to be fit for nine billion people, potentially,
on this planet by 2050.
To do that, I am going to tell a few stories,
but I am also going to ask a few questions at the end,
so get ready for that ahead of the break.
I am a proud alumna of the London School of Economics,
and I studied a Master of Public Administration here,
I studied Public Policy, Management,
I learned about beautiful theories in a perfect, rational world.
Given that, I also learned to question my assumptions,
what assumptions were we making behind every theory that we have,
every theory of change, everything we do and see in the world.
But rewind a bit, Amanda, young,
in the United States, running a youth volunteer group;
where youth in my school, in the community,
could come with an idea, or a problem, or a question:
"How can we help people who have been affected by disaster?"
"Why don't we collect some books?
They might need more books if they've been destroyed by the storm."
"My mum has been diagnosed with breast cancer."
"How about we raise some money for our breast cancer charity nearby?
Or how about we knit hats for kids with cancer?"
Every idea that someone came with, we would craft a service project around.
And it was fun, it was exciting, it was ad hoc, it was reactive.
It was very much about the passions that people could bring to the table,
and then what we could do about it.
It was going so well that we set our sights globally.
We said: "We wonder how we can help kids in Africa
who don't have many things, don't have all of the opportunities that we have."
So we looked around, and saw we were wasting a lot of crayons.
All of our schools, we would use them, we would toss them into trash,
there were nubs and there were bigger ones;
crayons were just all over the place.
The students: "How about we collect crayons
and send them to a school in Africa?"
Great idea.
We packed them up, packaged them, year-on-year, sent them out.
We got sort of doodled, scribbled cards back from the students in Africa, saying:
"Thank you so much for this.
"We are now able to write. We didn't have any cool crayons before."
This is a true story.
We sent it out year-on-year, and the press loved it.
They loved all of these kids trying to do something
for other kids elsewhere in the world that they have never met,
but they wanted to help in some way.
All of that press got to the Guinean Embassy in Washington, D.C.
I got a call.
He said: "Thank you so much for the work that you have done.
Your group has really done a lot for the school,
and we really, really appreciated it.
I just wanted to tell you a few things.
The kids walk two miles to school everyday,
and they don't have any shoes to wear.
They are also getting really sick when they arrive
because there is no clean water at their school.
When I say school, I actually mean
they are studying in chicken coops, they don't really have a school building.
So, while they really appreciate those crayons,
I'm just wondering if you might be able to help us out
with a few of these other issues."
Right. Wake-up call.
There was a question to my assumptions,
and there was also a "Wow, how was I so unaware?"
And a lot of people - maybe you are thinking:
"Oh, she was young!"
I now wish that was the case.
But you can look around and see
these silver bullets to complex problems everywhere,
people trying to change the world with a crayon!
And it's not about being young,
it wasn't about that passion,
it was actually about the fact that we didn't truly understand
what problem we were trying to solve.
So as I thought through that
and thought how can I avoid this from ever happening again,
I got into an even messier issue in the US.
I ended up working on a public health issue,
where the smoking rates and smoking-related deaths in US
were getting a lot of attention.
The states had actually sued the tobacco industry
to cover the cost for all of the health care
that they were incurring due to their products.
So I looked into that issue and said:
"OK, we have youth everywhere, really interested in what they could do.
90% of the smokers started before the age of 18.
How could we tell our peers what was happening?"
So, it started with my volunteer group
as in "us for them," "let's give them crayons and we will save the world."
This activism became an "us versus them."
We got really angry
at those tobacco companies, at those corporates.
How could they be doing that to our generation?
How could they be selling products that were so harmful?
We went city by city, state by state, rallying to get smoke-free workplaces,
to move tobacco products away from the candy aisle.
All of that stuff, a few years ago.
Fast forward to two years ago, I was asked to speak on a panel.
It was: "How business can be a force for good" let's say was the title.
I was sitting next to a tobacco industry executive.
It took me a second, stepped back. "Can I actually do this?"
I've been fighting for so long,
against the saying that they are doing grand things,
but actually what they were doing
was harmful to me, my friends, our generation.
And I looked at a colleague of mine who I worked with today at Volans,
and I said, "I'm having this issue."
He said: "Listen, every company does something really well,
it just so happens
that tobacco companies are really good at delivering a drug that kills people."
What if we could take what they do really well
and channel it towards good?
What if we could take their expertise in drug delivery,
and getting that out to really, really far-flung parts of the world,
and use that to deliver pharmaceutical drugs
where they are really needed and where they can save lives?
I sat down on that panel, I said it to her,
- I don't think she took it up but I said it anyway -
and from there was a turning point for me.
It started with "us for them," it then moved to "us versus them."
Then I thought, if we can recognize the worst that these companies are doing,
how can we also channel
the best that they are doing and the best that they could do?
So that is what I work on today,
trying to figure out how we can work with businesses
who have gone from a stage of denial
that there is any responsibility for social or environmental concerns,
to compliance, government saying:
"Actually, you have a bit of responsibility.
Can you make sure to do these minimum standards,"
to a world of good intentions where a lot is said,
if you've heard of corporate social responsibility,
corporates are saying that they are really saving the world,
but we want to see it in what they do, in what they are best at.
It is not about just this "them."
There are amazing people behind these businesses
who can see longer term, who are ambitious.
Who can actually, really dig
into the complexities of the problems they are facing as a business
and recognize that in order to future-proof that business
and build a world where that business can still be viable,
they are going to need to strategically and very fundamentally consider
the people and the planet that they are working with and in.
So, as I think about this, I also think about those people,
and also what kind of inspiration they need,
- and I recognize our host today is a social entrepreneur.
Sometimes it is really good to take people out of their comfort zone
and really introduce them to the kind of individuals
who are starting businesses from the ground up,
that prove that you can have financial viability,
but also social and environmental impact at the core of what you do.
You can use the markets to incentivize good behaviors and good outcomes.
You also need to recognize it is a tool, and that we need to use it well,
and it is an entry point into a much bigger game.
How do we change how investors invest,
what they value, in business or in the world?
How do we change how policy makers consider the policies they are making
to incentivize people to be in a better world?
We need world's architects
that are working in a system that they are able to build and change.
So as we think about that,
there are a few questions that popped to mind.
One, are we good readers of the world?
As I come from a literature background,
I think how can we start to look at the complex problems we are up against
and break them down into what we are doing about them,
what we expect to happen from it, and what we can't control.
We also need to really consider, potentially,
how what we do
will really bring together other people around us
in a collaborative way, but also with competitors.
We work with businesses that work with their competitors
to say: "This is a bigger problem than just us.
This is about all of us."
Or, "This is a big problem.
We need to really, really show that we can change this
and then share with you how we did it."
So it is going to be about using competitions and markets
and forming a better world through that.
Now, as you get into to nitty-gritty there,
it's really, really complicated,
and I think there is almost three ways one could react.
You could sort of hide under a rock, hug your family, cross your fingers,
say: "That's a job for somebody else,
right now, that's a little too much for me to handle."
Don't do that.
The other option that a lot of people often ponder,
is: "OK, I am going to run off and be an entrepreneur.
I have a great idea for how we can change the way this one problem is approached,
and I am going to figure out that way."
That's fantastic. We need entrepreneurs, but not everyone is an entrepreneur.
So don't run out of the store,
and just start your own idea, your new crayon project.
Think about the problem you want to solve,
and how you might be able to do that at scale.
The third option that one could consider
is going into a big corporate, a big bank, and change it from the inside.
We need young talent, young enthusiasm,
and a young generation to change the way that business does business.
And we need that by people working from within,
and really learning parts of the business
and seeing how they can change it.
Young ideas are very powerful,
and we need to channel them to the greatest good.
So my hope for this room is that we take all of the crayons
that we are seeing in our tool kits,
take them and draw the world we want to live in,
and then draw your journey to get there.
I look forward to hearing about your journey.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)