Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Muriel de Meo
All the great turning points in history
started from a crazy, disruptive, even a taboo idea.
All major social, scientific, technological progress
began by imagining the impossible
even before knowing how we'd exactly get there.
Behind these innovative ideas
there have always been trailblazers
who gathered hundreds, thousands,
millions of voices and forces, called to action
and convinced them that change is possible.
Behind each of these great ideas
there has always been a man or a woman
that began to swim upstream.
What's important is to get started,
dare, take risk, try it out.
That's what social entrepreneurs are for us.
They are men and women
who discover the deepest causes of a social, or environmental problem,
and find creative solutions to solve them.
That's what entrepreneurial spirit is all about:
initiative, creativity, leadership and courage.
Tipically, social entrepreneurs
start finding followers who go after them
- at the beginning, maybe, to improve their personal condition,
or their family's one.
But shortly after, they realize
they may also improve the lives of many, and ultimately the lives of everyone.
Several studies show that when 16% of a given population
start changing a social behaviour,
the adoption rate undergoes an exponential acceleration.
This is certainly the case for human social behaviour:
for instance, the spreading of mobile phones:
initially a narrow group of people;
than a bunch of early adopters;
and eventually, almost overnight, we all had one in our pocket.
But not only that:
this also happens in non-human social situations, in other species!
When 16% of a flock of birds, for instance
starts changing direction,
all the other birds follow.
When 16% of fish change direction,
all fish will follow the new trail.
In statistics, this is represented this way:
a small group of innovators that together with early adopters make a 16%
and then, in the same timeframe when this first change took place,
we get a massive change,
right until latecomers also join.
Ashoka, the global organization I represent in Italy,
has been searching these social innovators for 35 years now.
These social entrepreneurs,
these tiny fish that start swimming upstream.
What we do is choose them for their creativity,
their entrepreneurial spirit, their ethical fibre,
their social impact, their ability to innovate.
We support them economically but mostly by surrounding them
with a network of experts, advisors and partners
who can bring forth these paradigm shifts
they tried to spread across the planet.
In our opinion, the best way to address all social problems in the world
isn't a top-down implementation of pre-canned solutions,
but go searching those who already found solutions,
no matter how imperfect and local they are,
and help these people
to turn this innovation into a universal paradigm shift.
Ashoka has 35 years of experience,
in 85 countries around the world, 15 of which in Europe,
but only arrived in Italy last year.
Many have asked me: why did you show up so late?
I don't have all the answers,
but a possibile interpretation is that our country,
from the end of the Second World War until the oil shock in the 70s,
really managed to do miracles
through hard work, initiative,
creativity of men and women,
whose innovation and character
made a war-torn - and largely poor - country
become one of the world's top economies.
And not only that:
we built one of the world's most efficient welfare State,
we innovated in fine arts, medicine,
architecture, in almost all disciplines:
then, somewhat paradoxically, from the 70s onwards,
the more skilled and educated we were getting,
the less we innovated.
We became experts in problem analysis,
vith very little attention to critics and attitude to change.
The results of this?
This diagram collects data
on rate of entrepreneurship in 200 countries in the world:
we're the world's third worst country,
after Bulgaria - an ex communist country -
and Suriname, which is 80% covered by forest.
Entrepreneurship and changemaking skills go hand in hand:
that's why we think schools, parents, educators,
should really teach us to try, fail, and learn from our failures.
To distinguish among strategic mistakes, planning mistake,
or simply plain bad luck.
To try over and over again, until we achieve a result.
And that's true for a social business, a for profit business,
or any change project a person may have.
In a fordist, repetitive world,
a universal, one-size-fits-all educational system
might have made sense.
But in today's ever-changing society,
there's need for experimentation and innovation.
We need creativity over homogeneity, opinion over notion.
I had the chance to study in a State school, in Italy,
until I was 17, in a classroom like this
- this picture was taken three days ago,
but except for that tiny computer, I think it still perfectly depicts
what your school years were like.
Then, at the age of 17, I had the even greater privilege
to win a scolarship
to complete my high school studies in Canada.
I was a fond philosophy student,
and decided to keep studying philosophy even there.
But I had never read an original text.
In Italy, a philosoper's thought
is first interpreted and filtered through the textbook,
which in turn is interpreted and explained by the teacher.
The more faithful the student's repetition, the higher the mark.
Once in Canada, our professor, Andrew,
gave each student a copy of Plato's Symposium.
And said: we have one week to read it, then next week we'll discuss it.
So I read this book,
actually way more interesting and intriguing
then it seemed through the textbook,
and when I came back to school Andrew asks me:
You already studied philosophy a little bit, what do you think about it?
Did Plato's interpretation of ethics convince you?
And I was like: gosh, criticize Plato?
I would never dare to do that!
Thankfully, over time I learned everything can be challenged,
because everything can be changed.
The good news, actually,
is that there has never been a better time
for all of us, in the whole history of mankind,
to change as many things as possible, as fast as possible.
And even if we feel constantly threatened
by terror attacks, wars of religion, climate disasters
we have never been better off as a species.
Here are, for instance, some data
on war casualties, in history, from the '40s on.
As you can see, the number has steadily declined.
The world population, in the meanwhile, almost doubled.
Life expectancy is increasing everywhere on the planet.
Child mortality is decreasing everywhere.
We defeated most of the diseases
our ancestors dealt with for centuries and millennia.
Sure, a lot of social problems are yet to be solved,
and environmental problems are even trickier and harder to tackle;
but we are connected and interconnected,
and today more than ever, globalization and technology
allow us to find a solution in a corner of the planet
and bring it - culturally revisited - somewhere else.
So we do have the chance to solve all social problems, if we want to.
So that's Ashoka's mission:
select innovation, support social entrepreneurs,
those tiny fish swimming upstream,
so that their innovation can turn into a movement
that accelerates social change over time.
And another important mission
is connecting social innovators operating in the same field,
albeit places and methods are different.
For instance, all social entrepreneurs
working with 0 to 10 years old children
say that the most important thing of all
is to teach them empathy,
the ability of putting themselves in other people's emotional shoes.
Not math, not Italian literature, but empathy.
Those who work with teenagers
say the first thing to provide them with
is the ability to see themselves as changemakers,
in their classroom, in their city block, in their school,
in their town and in the whole world.
At a first glance, these concepts might seem excessively vague, smokey:
but try to imagine what it meant to declare, 300 years ago,
'All children should learn to read and write,
not just the aristocrats!'
Or stating, 150 years ago, 'Women should have the right to vote.
And they should aspire to become Presidents and Ministers, also.'
Or saying, just 30 years ago:
two men or two women in love should have the chance to marry.
Instead, look what has happened:
here are some data on the spreading of literacy around the world.
Illiteracy, up until the 17th century, was a basically universal condition.
In 18th century it became the watermark of poor people,
who were the overwhelmingly majority of the population anyway.
Then Protestantism came along,
together with a need, even for the laymen, to read the Holy Bible.
A new paradigm emerged,
clearly enunciated in 1720 by William Hanley, who said:
'Everybody, not just rich children, should learn to read and write.'
This battle was first fought from within the Church,
then from within the State, Hanley's United Kingdom.
And little by little,
in 1820 20% of people can read and write,
which later becomes 40, 50 70
and today 85% of population is literate.
England reached 100% literacy in 1920.
Moving from the declaring of a new paradigm
to its universal adoption in England
took 200 years, around 8 generations.
I'd like to introduce you another case now.
This person was Kate Sheppard.
Kate Sheppard, in 1890,
in the dark, remote British colony called New Zealand,
said something no one said before:
'All that separates, whether of race, creed, class,
or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome.'
Kate wasn't just a good speaker:
mostly, she was a great leader!
She inspired thousands of women
to join her campaign for women's political rights;
plus, she also got support from some men
who made a difference, in 1893, in the historical achievement
to make women vote in New Zealand.
So a process started, and decade after decade
universal suffrage is approved in more and more countries
for men and women.
As you can see, during the 30s and 40s we reached the 16% tipping point,
and the curve starts spiking.
And we quickly get to the '70s and '80s,
where basically all around the world
- when elections are held, and whether they're really free is another question -
the right to vote is also extended to women.
Nowadays all the countries in the world, but in Vatican City and Brunei,
allow this right.
So we can see how a paradigm
- we can think of a girl,
born in 1890 in a world where no woman could vote,
dying at 90, in 1981
in a world where basically every woman can vote.
Time keeps "shrinking": now we can witness the dawn of a paradigm
and its full-fledged implementation within a lifetime.
Let's get to our present days: in the 70s, in Minnesota, these two boys,
Jack Baker and Micheal McConnell, decided to get married.
So they did something no one ever did before:
they went to the Registry Office and asked for a civil marriage.
Sure enough, their request is rejected and laughed after,
but it marked the beginning of a new paradigm shift:
homosexual couples deserve a set of rights as a couple, not just as individuals.
15 years later, in 1989,
Denmark approves the first civil unions;
in 2001, Holland approves the first same-sex marriage,
and over the last 15 years,
almost everywhere in the Western world and in Latin America,
some sort of partnership for same-sex couple is recognised.
We are in the middle of this 16% spike.
And while it used to be centuries, then decades, now it's a matter of years.
And now we have a person like me,
born in 1982 in a world where homosexual people couldn't marry;
when I'm 11, Demmark starts acknowledging civil unions;
at the end of the high school, same-sex marriage is allowed in Holland;
at 29 I can also marry my husband in Argentina;
and now that I'm 34, finally, my marriage is formally acknowledged in Italy as well.
(Applause)
If you're wondering where Jack e Michael are now,
they're still together and finally they got married.
So that's what I'm dealing with:
manage, in Italy,
to find the little fish who are swimming upstream
and can bring us all to a social change,
a paradigm shift, and help them accelerate this paradigm shift.
Social entrepreneurs are rare:
there's approximately 1 every 10 million people.
Hence, my job is to find approximately 6 per year, here in Italy.
These ones are the first six I found,
outstanding men and women
whose paradigm shifts might become universal.
One taught us that fighting mafia
isn't just an ethical choice,
but a chance for economical and psychological development
in some of Europe's poorest communities.
Another one taught us that maternity and paternity leave
are a chance to learn, one that's useful to us,
the society as a whole and our bosses.
Another one taught us that child stroke rehabilitation
can be gamified, and not necessarily hospitalized.
Where do we go from here?
Sure, these six people alone can't change the world,
or my three/four workmates for that matter.
We all have a part to play.
"
means that
If you are parents, commit yourself
to have these new skills taught in our schools,
or try teach them directly at home.
If you are students,
try not just give back our school the glory it had 30 years ago,
but to understand what's new
and what could really change
your lives as citizens, not just as students.
If you run a media outlet,
try sharing some uplifting stories of positive change,
not just tragedies.
If you run a business,
don't see yourselves as means of productions,
but as co-creators of change.
If a social problem comes to your attention,
don't wait for someone else to take the first step,
but do it yourself.
If you believe that change is possible, don't wait for tomorrow:
the time for change is now.
Thank you.
(Applause)