we all love technology don't we we love
the newest gadget the newest
productivity tools coming out the latest
smartphone well I certainly do I started
my first online marketing agency when I
was still in high school well online
marketing agency back then we build
websites for plumbers for electricians
for doctors back then means 20 years ago
back then as fur was still a thing and
Modan still made funny noises when they
connected to the Internet and I wanted
to make some party money back then I was
still going to parties but today we look
at our smart phones every day we look at
technology every day in fact just last
week I was in Berlin I was walking along
at the main station checking the license
latest social media updates checking my
latest notifications and not looking and
not being aware of the world around me
and what happened well I tripped a
faceplant in the middle of the Berlin
main station
I was so unaware of my surroundings I
was so focused on technology that it
didn't really realize what was going on
around me and it feels a bit that's been
what happened to us the last couple of
years in fact in the last 20 years most
of business most of industries were
focused on the fourth Industrial
Revolution on the new adventure of new
technology of digital media of
businesses disrupting businesses of
startups coming out so many companies
have left fortune 500 or the German DAX
being disrupted by startups that starts
become both the threat to every manager
the horror of every manager but as well
as the promise of being more agile being
more innovative being more thoughtful
about the things so we also see that
Facebook Apple Amazon Google they
dominate entire economies by now they
dominate our lives and in Germany we
also see more and more startups coming
up and it's great to see because many
many entrepreneurs are taking the risk
in a very engineered driven
environment like Germany where many more
entrepreneurs taking the risk to build
up new startups to build up new
solutions we've been coming better and
better not good enough yet that's
supporting these startups to build the
next future German metal stunt let's
take a look at this new German metal
stand what it looks like today the UI
startup studying or looked at the top
hundred startups in Germany based on
their funding received until 2018 so far
the top hundred got 8.1 billion euros in
funding and a top 10 that you can see
here in this slide
they along got 3.3 billion euros in
funding that's great news in the past
actually access to funding was a main
obstacle to German startups but let's
look at these startups a bit more
closely those are a top 10 those are the
most funded startups again if you look
in the middle of the circle when you
think about it all of those startups are
looking at how can we actually drive
more consumerism how can we get people
to buy more how can we drive ecommerce
how come you buy the next consumption
wave when you look at the fintechs in
the upper-left corner it's the same
thing how can we actually get more
credit to consumers so that can buy them
work we have more innovation in fin tech
we have more easy transactions that
ultimately are linked and focused on how
can we actually buy more there's one
company in the top 10 son and that's
actually looking at the problem how do
we transform our economy to a solar
power to a renewable energy powered
economy now this is not to say that
there's not a lot of sweat and tears
going into these ventures there's a lot
of really good brain capital going into
it a lot of good passion actually
driving those ventures and in fact you
know I love data so I looked at what are
those founders backgrounds the brains of
the top 10 founders not even counting
their staff include 17 bachelors include
11 masters and two PhDs just the top 10
founders now you may dispute whether
there is a direct correlation between a
university degree and intelligence
my teacher certainly would but at the
same time it's really clear what happens
here there's a lot of talent going into
these startups a lot of talent into this
kind of innovation what if what if we
could to turn it turn this around what
if we could turn it around from if
consumers of focus startup environment
to an actual environment that's solving
real and pressing challenges just
imagine these kind of brains these kind
of entrepreneurial passion going into
solving real massive challenges that
we're facing today and we look at this
we need to talk about it this year the
house was on fire both literally and not
literally the Arctic was on fire in
amounts in vast areas that it has never
been before
and Germany wasn't really featured a lot
in the news but it has been burning in
areas in a scope of areas that it has
never before when you look at the UN
emission gap report it says that even if
even if all the political and
environmental and economic pledges of
politicians but also economists CEOs are
being kept even then we're still 13
gigatons of co2 equivalents away from
our two degree goal
13 gigatons that's three times the
European emissions of co2 the annual
emissions of co2 in the EU but what the
emission report also says is that
innovation can actually drive our our
progress towards achieving a two-degree
goal so we need to look at how can we
actually drive this innovation similarly
when we look at social challenges the
world has given itself 17 amazing goals
to reduce inequality to end para to end
hunger to end poverty there's lots of
energy and work going into solving these
issues but the World Economic Forum also
estimates that we need three point two
nine three point nine trillion dollars
per year to solve these problems good
news is we have one point four trillion
challenges how do we get the other 2.5
now to some extent we have all been
looking at our smart phones checking
social media while being unaware of the
world around us so how do we change this
how do we build solutions that actually
solve the channel challenges we're
facing today I want to introduce you to
something Naveen Krishna is an inspiring
founder in India he's one of the
entrepreneurs that we had a chance of
working with with you know social
business and we've just invented
invested into his company called SMV
green smv Green is an amazing example of
how you can combine business acumen
business skills with actually solving
social or environmental issues as some V
green produces electric rickshaws it
brings electric mobility sustainability
to India now whoever has been to India
knows that the first thing you will see
when you exit the airport in India is
rickshaw there's many of them around in
fact if you don't see one the minute
after you step off the airport I would
check whether you're at the right
country but you also know there's
pollution everywhere cities are blocked
by traffic jams and blocked by pollution
so an electric rickshaw is an amazing
idea but not only that he went one step
further he developed a system called
lease-to-own he wanted to get the
poorest to get a chance to earn their
income so with a little small fee he's
actually giving out these rickshaws on a
monthly basis to the poorest that they
can earn an income through taxi rights
to rickshaw rights the poorest driving
electric rickshaws in India after 24
months they own direction and can even
earn more income and so far he's
quadrupling their income for X it's an
amazing story and it even gets better
because he's developed a program that's
focusing on women entrepreneurs on women
that are driving the rickshaws again if
you know India it's predominantly male
dominated it's very very male it culture
and women don't really have a voice and
a place in a society that I should have
with this he's turning everything upside
down
he's turning upside down that you can't
do sustainable mobility in
communities that can't even afford I
can't even afford their monthly payments
and that you can't get women into
entrepreneurship it's an amazing example
of how you can combine business with
solving social or amendment problems and
it doesn't just start with entrepreneurs
like Naveen we had you know social
business we look at the world in two
ways one how can we drive social
innovation through entrepreneurs like
Naveen but also on the other hand how do
we get companies multinational companies
to change their way of doing business
today we perceive companies to be at the
root at the main root of sort of
creating some of our problems right so
how do we get them to change their way
of doing business how do we think about
business as unusual and it's becoming
more important even for the corporates
in sales when you look at the statistics
eighty-one percent of Millennials want
the company to commit to social
responsibility it's a prerequisite and
necess intesity for your generation to
actually work with these companies and
when you look at the number of young
people that want to still work in a
corporation less than 25 percent want to
do so after university it's focused more
on flexible work on purposeful work and
there was another report that came out
just recently the trust report that
looked at the brand made in Germany are
we still trusted as a country as a
nation in the world that was in the past
stood for quality and for reliability
unfortunately less than 20 percent of
people still trust German CEOs to do the
right thing this number is much higher
in other countries we've come to a point
where we do not trust corporate players
we mistrust them so how can we change
that perspective how can we use the
resources the assets that these
companies actually bring with them to
solve problems not to create them we
think that the next wave after the
digital reservoir disruption will be the
purpose disruption we think that comp
that do not clearly know what their
purpose is why they're here to exist
will not survive this next wave when you
think when you look at the news you look
at Larry Fink you know the Black Rock Co
the one of the biggest P funds in the
world saying that they're not going to
invest into companies anymore that don't
take the responsibility serious when you
look at Ray Dalio that actually went one
step further he's one of the most most
known hedge fund investors in the world
he actually said that capitalism in its
current form is one of the biggest
threats to search to human society a
hedge fund manager and just this year
the Business Roundtable
a vastly industry dominated forum in the
US has signed a petition of 181 CEOs to
move away from a shareholder value only
focused principles to a full stakeholder
model so times are changing they may not
be changing quick enough but we're
getting to the next stage of getting
people ready but how can we put more
into this how can we make it more than
just an announcement just signing a
letter getting people into action let me
give you another example together with a
German family company we've looked at
how can we actually get plastics off the
streets now this company produces
household products based on plastics in
the past they were super proud of their
business model because they were
producing purposeful products but now
with all the challenges growing around
ocean bound plastics they had to
reinvent their entire business model so
they've committed themselves towards
creating a circular supply chain a fully
circular supply chain but they want to
get go one step further and take action
and that's where we're now starting a
recycling plant with them in India this
recycle plant is buying from waste
pickers in India by plastics that they
collect now again they are at the lowest
strata of society there are women
working on waste dumps like this working
under terrible conditions and having no
chance of escaping poverty we
this German family company they can
guarantee supply and demand they can
actually drive volumes that that's
secured as a stable income do these two
these waste pickers and more than that
they will provide health care
educational services to the waste
pickers to lift them out of poverty at
least in one generations time the
plastic is recycled into the company's
value chain and thereby starts to create
the first circular loop of their entire
value chain and they went even one step
further and made it a true social
business which means they invested the
money they know they can take that
investment back but beyond that every
profit is reinvested to create more
impact and get more waste pickers out of
poverty so it's a way for them to show
we want to do things differently we
don't just want to talk about it we want
to do things differently and this is
where we want to get if you look at
culture if you look at mindset of what
drives our behavior there's this Edgar
shines that is this culture pyramid
where at the bottom is what we believe
the things we believe are to be true
let's say companies are there to create
shareholder value then there are values
and attitudes that build on top of it
and what we can see where people do
that's actually just the top of the
iceberg now in the past we've said well
we can actually think ourselves into a
new way of acting we can build new
strategies we can design nice slides we
can create a call to action and sometime
at some point in the future there's
actually somebody gonna say it's gonna
take action well we don't have that time
anymore
we need to act today and this is why we
truly believe that we can act ourselves
into a new way of thinking when we work
with our clients when we work with the
social entrepreneurs when they do things
differently they start to see the world
differently they start to think about
problems in the way that it creates
opportunity to solve them and not just
through a donation based model that may
work in some aspects but then also
through a sustainable business model so
when we look at audiences like this at
students that are just starting to
careers we really want to look at how
can you use your potential how can you
use your act
and Business and Finance to actually
drive change in the world that we need
we think social is the new digital we
think that we have to look behind the
social fiction that is driving our
science fiction at the moment seeing a
lot of technological advances in the
world now it's time to build a social
utopia buy action that we take
thank you
[Applause]