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• SOCAP Europe: An intersection. A conference. A movement.

  Jocelyn Ling 1:11 pm on May 10, 2011 | 0 comments Permalink | Reply
  Tags: collaboration (8), education (7), finance (3), foreign aid (3), Government, impact (17), impact investing (10), innovation (8), social finance (7)

  I’ve recently caught the writ­ing bug and real­ized how incred­i­bly enlight­en­ing writ­ing is to orga­nize and share my thoughts. I had the oppor­tu­nity to start writ­ing for socialearth.org, a fresh entre­pre­neur­ial and socially mind­ful weblog orig­i­nat­ing down in the states and below is my recent piece on SOCAP. You can view the orig­i­nal pub­li­ca­tion here.

  ***

  

  Cap­i­tal­ism, as we know it, has evolved to focus on a one dimen­sional view of human nature – the pur­suit of profit and self preser­va­tion. The emer­gence of the indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion cap­i­tal­ized on this one dimen­sional the­ory, where human­ity has been per­suaded that the best way to attain hap­pi­ness is to enthu­si­as­ti­cally embrace this the­ory and sub­se­quently trans­form our­selves into a profit dri­ven gen­er­a­tion. In the later part of the 20th cen­tury, a pow­er­ful move­ment called glob­al­iza­tion swept across the world and the evo­lu­tion of cap­i­tal­ism was solid­i­fied glob­ally. The world now trended towards a ‘global’ eco­nomic sys­tem which resulted in the widen­ing gap between the rich and poor and between devel­oped and devel­op­ing countries.

  Today, the major­ity of the world is so entranced with the suc­cess of cap­i­tal­ism and the wake of glob­al­iza­tion that we have for­got­ten the true line between what is real­ity and the­ory. We  have for­got­ten that at the end of the day, peo­ple are multi-dimensional beings and we are slowly com­ing to an awak­en­ing to what has been deeply inter­twined in human­ity all this time: the need for mean­ing. Thus, the emer­gence of the non-profit sec­tor. A sec­tion on the other end of the cap­i­tal­ist spec­trum to ful­fil humanity’s search for meaning.

  How­ever, this purely dou­ble ended spec­trum with purely char­i­ta­ble cap­i­tal at one end and for-profit cap­i­tal at the other is break­ing down. Instead, a con­tin­uum is slowly tak­ing its place. As SOCAP’s web­site states, “A new form of cap­i­tal­ism is aris­ing that rec­og­nizes our abil­ity to direct the power and effi­ciency of mar­ket sys­tems toward social impact.” We are mov­ing beyond the myopia of pure finan­cial returns with the under­stand­ing that not every busi­ness or mar­ket is bound to serve the sin­gle objec­tive of profit max­i­miza­tion and that not every non-profit is bound to serve the sin­gle objec­tive of service.

  On May 30th to June 1st, pro­gres­sive impact dri­ven investors, social entre­pre­neurs and inno­va­tors are gath­er­ing in Ams­ter­dam at the his­toric site of the first stock exchange, to dis­cover what it means to be at the inter­sec­tion of money and mean­ing. The con­fer­ence, Social Cap­i­tal Mar­kets Europe, is a col­lab­o­ra­tion of co-creation and vig­or­ous due dili­gence to pro­duce an out­put of over 70 pan­els and work­shops track­ing 7 key themes includ­ing: impact invest­ing, invest­ing in frag­ile states and the mid­dle east, infra­struc­ture and inno­va­tion, social fund­ing, sto­ries of social enter­prise and tech­nol­ogy for social change.

  SOCAP Europe aims to cre­ate a plat­form at which “investors gather to col­lab­o­rate and learn from oth­ers who are find­ing a way to invest their money for finan­cial return as well as for the ben­e­fit of peo­ple and the planet; where entre­pre­neurs come to find out who has made a break through and who their next part­ner or next investor could be” – Kevin Jones, Co-founder of SOCAP . Much of the dis­cus­sion at SOCAP Europe is expected to focus on the social-capital con­tin­uum and to dis­cover, for any given social goal, which sort of social cap­i­tal, or mix of dif­fer­ent sorts of it, is most likely to succeed.

  “Tri­o­dos Bank, Doen Foun­da­tion, Vox­tra, Root Cap­i­tal, Unltd, Blue Orchard Finance, Kiva.org, and OPIC are among the pio­neer­ing orga­ni­za­tions that will be present at SOCAP/Europe. The gathering’s col­lab­o­ra­tive for­mat will include problem-solving dis­cus­sions, game-changing fund­ing model explo­ration, and oppor­tu­ni­ties to delve into world-class case stud­ies in entre­pre­neur­ial inno­va­tion” – SOCAP Europe

  The notion of social cap­i­tal mar­kets can seen ide­al­is­tic, because it is a dis­rup­tive idea to cap­i­tal­ism as we know it. There is a com­pelling case for explor­ing this con­tin­uum. I think there is also a com­pelling case in our self-interest to do so. We have already waited for far too long. The time to start this social cap­i­tal move­ment is now. Let the dis­cov­ery begin.

   

   

• Dambisa Moyo: Why aid is not working and how there is a better way for Africa

  Jocelyn Ling 9:27 pm on October 18, 2010 | 3 comments Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Africa (5), BottomOfPyramid (4), debate (4), foreign aid (3), Global Voices (3), Government, sustainable (5), world (12)

  I am so so unbe­liev­ably stockedex­cit­ed­hap­py­breath­lessi­nan­tic­i­pa­tion for this event. Seriously.

  I read her book, Dead Aid, when it first came out and it opened my eyes to a very dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive of aid, devel­op­ment and the finan­cial world. Her views are a chal­lenge and a strong vision on how to address the global poverty issue. Spread the word (and read the book!)

  
   

• Review: UBC iWeek Global Keynote Speaker- Paul Rusesabagina (Hotel Rwanda)

  Jocelyn Ling 3:20 pm on April 9, 2010 | 1 comments Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Africa (5), debate (4), Government, ubc (2), world (12)

  A cou­ple weeks ago, I attended a very inter­est­ing event, one that pro­voked two thoughts:

  1) There is always, always two sides of a story and

  2) We need to use resources around us — beyond what we have at hand in order to learn

  This event was in UBC as part of the Inter­na­tional Week celebrations:

  

  To pro­vide some back­ground: (Taken from event description)

  Mr. Paul Rus­esabag­ina was the man­ager of the Sabena Hôtel des Mille Collines, and shel­tered hun­dreds of Tut­sis and mod­er­ate Hutus peo­ple for a hun­dred days using all avail­able resources to him.  His coura­geous efforts thwarted bands of geno­ci­dal mili­tia while Rwanda descended into out­right geno­cide and civil war, and was cel­e­brated in the Hol­ly­wood movie pro­duc­tion, “Hotel Rwanda”.

  A recip­i­ent of numer­ous inter­na­tional awards, includ­ing the Wal­len­berg Medal and the Pres­i­den­tial Medal of Free­dom, Mr. Rus­esabag­ina is a pow­er­ful speaker with a story of hero­ism and human­ity in inhu­mane con­di­tions.  In addi­tion to his expe­ri­ences dur­ing and after the Rwan­dan geno­cide, Mr. Rus­esabag­ina will share his insights into the nature of the con­flict, the fail­ure of the West to stop it, and the chal­lenges of reconciliation.

  The event started out with a quick intro­duc­tion by Brian Sul­li­van and quickly pro­ceeded to Paul Rusesabagina’s speech itself. I won’t go into details of the speech, which was an account of his expe­ri­ences of the Rwan­dan geno­cide and what went down in Hotel Rwanda. It was incred­i­ble hear­ing his accounts first hand, but the real expe­ri­ence cam dur­ing the Q&A period. Prof. Michael Byers was the mod­er­a­tor for the session.

  Three things occured dur­ing the Q&A that took me com­pletely by surprise:

  1) There was a sub­stan­tial amount of peo­ple that are Rwan­dan geno­cide refugees that were present. I had no idea that event of this event man­aged to reach past the UBC com­mu­nity, which was impressive.

  2) The ques­tions regard­ing com­par­isons of South Africa and Rwanda’s econ­omy was very much unex­pected, con­sid­er­ing the dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal, cul­tural and eco­nomic con­di­tions of both countries.

  3) The response towards Paul Rusesabagina’s speech was cen­tered around his account­abil­ity and actions of Hotel Rwanda.

  Need­less to say, due to time con­straints, only 3–4 ques­tions were answered and the ses­sion ended. How­ever, sev­eral Rwan­dan com­mu­nity rep­re­sen­ta­tives spoke up on their ver­sion of Paul Rusesabagina’s actions, ques­tion­ing his motives, finan­cial account­abil­ity as well as alliances dur­ing the geno­cide. They had the Chan Cen­tre riv­eted with accounts of their per­sonal sto­ries of their sur­vival and encoun­ters with the military.

  I have been to numer­ous events at the Chan but this was the first one that I have ever expe­ri­enced such a strong out­come and dis­cus­sion after. Stu­dents were gath­er­ing out­side the Chan around these Rwan­dan geno­cide sur­vivors who were engag­ing in more per­sonal con­ver­sa­tion about their expe­ri­ences and there was buzz in the atmos­phere about new­found knowledge.

  My Main Take­away: Paul Rus­esabag­ina has been potrayed by Hol­ly­wood as a hero and revered for his coura­geous efforts dur­ing the geno­cide. How­ever, the dis­cus­sion at the Chan cen­ter which ques­tioned his alliances, finan­cial account­abil­ity, and actual self-preservation efforts. This  has made me realise that there are always two sides to a story, no mat­ter how well know one side is. It is our respon­si­bil­ity to always be aware of the other side.

  I leave you with a phe­nom­e­nal TED talk by Chi­ma­manda Adiechi telling the dan­ger of a sin­gle story. Because our lives and cul­tures are com­posed of many over­lap­ping stories, if we hear only a sin­gle story about another per­son or coun­try, we risk a crit­i­cal misunderstanding.

   

• Notes from an MNC: A different kind of business

  Jocelyn Ling 4:33 pm on April 1, 2010 | 0 comments Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Government, impact (17), world (12)

  As a busi­ness stu­dent, the term “Multi-National Cor­po­ra­tion” has been thrown around in my under­grad career, with­out much thought on my end to their impli­ca­tions and role in soci­ety. I have always accepted them as a norm in busi­ness, my thoughts some­times inter­jected with sto­ries of MNCs over­tak­ing small and medium busi­nesses, or caus­ing polit­i­cal tur­moil (i.e. Shell in Nigeria).

  How­ever, it took a course to change my entire per­spec­tive, approach and the way I viewed MNCs as well as the longest paper I have writ­ten in my under­grad life — 2,500 words. But before I divulge into my find­ings, I must say that tak­ing poli sci courses on top of my com­merce courses has been one of my best aca­d­e­mic deci­sions in UBC. Poli sci courses have given me a phe­nom­e­nal bal­ance of the­ory and the prac­ti­cal­ism of eco­nom­ics courses and I only wish I could take more!

  So, in light of fin­ish­ing my marathon paper, I thought it would only be fit to share a sum­ma­rized ver­sion of my research and thoughts around this area (Source — Myself, 2010):

  The first real­iza­tion I had on MNCs, was the fact that their pres­ence (aside from pro­duc­tion, resource allo­ca­tion and eco­nomic impacts) has re-defined what it means to have a firm-government rela­tion­ship. The con­ven­tional “obso­lesc­ing” bar­gain­ing model for depict­ing MNC-State rela­tions is now obso­lete (Rama­nurti, 2001). Instead, mar­ket and non-market strate­giz­ing is an iter­a­tive process of resource allo­ca­tion that responds dynam­i­cally to chang­ing con­di­tions, juris­dic­tion and level of gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion (Win­dor, 2007). Real­ity is, the suc­cess of many MNCs depends on the mar­ket per­for­mance that is tied inher­ently to rela­tion­ships with local and host gov­ern­ments. MNCs and gov­ern­ments are con­stantly in this sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship in which the future seems to be dom­i­nated with a push and pull of poli­cies and com­pro­mise. (Model of coope­ti­tion — coop­er­a­tion and competition)

  The sec­ond real­iza­tion that I had was one sur­round­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of sov­er­eignty. It wasn’t till a year ago that I learnt of the 1648 treaty of West­phalia ( yes, I know I was a lit­tle slow to catch on..) which marked the birth of the mod­ern state and the end of uni­ver­sal medieval­ism. Since, the mod­ern state has become geo­graph­i­cal con­structs of which polit­i­cal author­ity is defined and based upon geo­graph­i­cal perime­ters (Ander­son, 1986).

  What really fas­ci­nated me was the fact that it never crossed my mind until now that MNCs could be (per­haps?) the dawn of a new def­i­n­i­tion of sov­er­eignty. This is because MNCs by the very nature of their oper­a­tions have placed a new spin on the con­cept of sov­er­eignty with their trans­fer of resources, capa­bil­ity, knowl­edge and power within and amongst dif­fer­ent firms as the pri­mary con­cerns. The issue here is that although an MNC is incor­po­rated under local law of a host coun­try, indi­cat­ing that it is sub­ject to the same respon­si­bil­i­ties as a national firm, its sub­sidiaries and affil­i­ates in other ter­ri­to­ries con­tains ele­ments of a “dou­ble per­son­al­ity” (Ver­non, 1971). MNCs have a respon­si­bil­ity to the sov­er­eign that sanc­tions its exis­tence, but as an inter­na­tional unit, each affil­i­ate may have con­flicts of inter­est than of its host country’s.

  This means that in regards to inter­nal sov­er­eignty, the emer­gence of MNCs have placed con­strains of auton­omy and con­trol on the imple­men­ta­tion of inter­nal sov­er­eignty. How­ever, in terms of exter­nal sov­er­eignty it has forced gov­ern­ments to recon­sider its con­struct of mutu­ally exclu­sive bor­ders, ter­ri­tory and geo­graph­i­cally based polit­i­cal and eco­nomic gov­er­nance (Kobrin, 1998). Hence the emer­gence of free trade agree­ments (NAFTA, ASEAN…) , bor­der agree­ments, etc.

  

  Now there’s the excit­ing part, what if the increas­ing glob­al­iza­tion, need for FDI and growth of MNCs are bring­ing upon soci­ety a new def­i­n­i­tion of what it means to be part of a state and cul­ture on an eco­nomic and polit­i­cal level? We’ve already seen the rise of third kid cul­ture kids ( myself included) and the bleed­ing of world cul­ture and lan­guages into each other. Every 14 days a lan­guage dies. By 2100, more than half of the more than 7,000 lan­guages spo­ken on Earth—many of them not yet recorded—may dis­ap­pear (National Geo­graphic, 2010).

  I really won­der the cor­re­la­tion between MNC growth, glob­al­iza­tion and cul­tures. I guess time will tell. Until then, I leave you with a thought by Susan Strange.

  A meta­mor­pho­sis is occur­ring with struc­tural change in the world econ­omy with the state becom­ing, once more as in the past, just one source of author­ity among sev­eral, with lim­ited pow­ers and resources (Strange, 1996).