The arena for social entrepreneurship initiatives is not exactly a big one. But it is a rapidly growing phenomenon and even venture capital is beginning to find its way into social enterprises. When I started my social venture in October 2006 I found only about 10 social entrepreneurs (globally) that had been officially and seriously backed by venture capital companies. It took me about 15 months to attract investors to my company (Asaasco/GiverSign) and since then more and more VC-funded social entrepreneurs have been popping up.

Right now two Nordic companies have launched competitions for social entrepreneurs where the price is an investment in the winning idea(s)! That is in itself super-cool! But if you ask me I think one of these competitions is a joke…

The good news is that Nokia’s competition, the Growth Economy Venture Challenge, is super-inspiring and open for a world of ideas. Basically the only restrictions that Nokia are giving are that you need an idea that incorporates a super-simple mobile phone (duh…) and that the idea should enhance life for people in communities where the average daily income is less than $5. Other than that you can come up with ideas to treat illness and save lives, enhance business, educate, organize communities or whatever quality of life enhancement you can think of.

The price? A $1 000 000 investment in your idea!
(Requested stake in the idea is not stated.)

-

The “bad news” then?
Well, it is not really bad; it is just really lame… Kinnevik’s competition, Playing for Change, is a social venture competition with 8 winners and that is really cool! All 8 will receive 1-3 years of personal income, access to Kinnevik’s network and business professionals and a desk at their social business incubator, etc. Nice!

But, here’s the lame part: You may only enter the competition with an idea that supports kids’ rights to play.

Is that lame? Yes, that is LAME!

Because that is restricting YOU, a possible future social entrepreneur, to start your career at a very low priority level in the world of social problems and needs. Let’s just say that we kept the restriction to kids and changed it to: “improve social conditions for children”. Below are some facts to consider:

• Today, and in fact any other day, 16 000 children die from hunger-related issues.
• Rotavirus and pneumonia is killing 9 000 children every day.
• Another 3 000 kids die of malaria today, tomorrow and the day after that…
• All in all a total of 25 000 children die every day as an effect of poor social conditions that we can solve with entrepreneurship and solidarity.

Don’t you think that those kids would rather live than die playing?

Here’s another fact to think about:

• 100+ million children do not have access to education.

If they could choose between the right to play and the right to learn, what do you think would be their choice?

It gets worse though… As I read through the competition’s proposition I find this statement:

“We are looking for you that have an idea to enhance the world for Swedish children and youth…” (translated by me)

“the world for Swedish children”??? On top of the lameness above Kinnevik wants you to call yourself a social entrepreneur and submit ideas to help children play in the world’s 15^th richest country (and no. 1 on Save the Children’s “Children’s Index Rank“). COME ON!?

Strangely enough I think that the description of social entrepreneurship on Playing for Change’s website is very striking and well thought through:

“A social entrepreneur is a person with innovative solutions to society’s most fundamental social problems. They are ambitious and persistent persons who address the most important and most critical social issues and find new ideas for radical social change.” (translated by me)

That is a great definition of the social entrepreneur even though I think it lacks some business focus and it also fails to include people that indirectly work for social change by creating tools for whole communities to do good (kind of what I do). Now, is Swedish kids’ access to play a “fundamental social problem” or one of “the most important and most critical social issues”? If your answer is YES I’d die to hear it!

Kinnevik, you should take a look at Nokia’s excellent initiative to inspire social ventures and really think through your strategy when you start schooling the Swedes in the art of social entrepreneurship (which I think in itself is GREAT). It is serious business and you have the power to set the level of that seriousness. Unfortunately, the level of social importance you have set for “Swedish Social Entrepreneurs” and their ideas, by making Playing for Change the biggest endorsement of social entrepreneurship in Sweden ever, is a joke…

Final note: I think that kids’ play as a TOOL for social entrepreneurs to carry out their missions is great! Around the globe children are educated, organized, inspired and probably treated for illnesses by incorporating play into their lives. Even in Sweden I think social ventures giving refugee kids or handicapped children etc. access to play would be cool. If play is used by social entrepreneurs around the world let it be AS MEANS to save lives, educate the uneducated or give hope to those that have none.

Nokia – #rules

Kinnevik – #fail (please try again!)

Posted on January 16th, 2010 by Linus
Filed under: Advocacy, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Personal | 3 Comments »

First of all I’d like to say – 2009 was a really challenging year for me. I’d like to thank everyone that believed in me and my team during these unforgiving times and gave us the power and resources to make it through!

My man Morten Lund called the crisis last year a financial tsunami but he also pointed out recently that we, the digital entrepreneurs, are blessed with quick results, good working conditions and manageable financial needs. Read it all here.

Looking forward has never been more exciting though!
Asaasco just started the transformation into a more sales than R&D oriented venture with three new products in the pipeline. We completed all core functionality development of our amazing platform enabling SMAPP Media – the Social Movement Application! The world is going to see implementations of SMAPP in countless of communication processes.

The fact that interest for our services is the strongest from organizations operating in NICs (Newly Industrialized Countries) is of course very exciting! We are about to be part of change making projects in countries like Brazil, Malaysia, China, India and Indonesia. Places where we can contribute to a sustainable future for people and mother nature yet operate as a for-profit company. Strangely enough profit is what enables these processes to be sustainable.

This relationship between sustainable development and profits is at the core of the greatest entrepreneurial secret of all times – The ultimate business-idea! I know this secret because I just discovered it and will blog about it soon, or maybe bring it to a stage somewhere in your neighborhood.

2010. Have a great one

Posted on January 5th, 2010 by Linus
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Let’s face a weird fact – global warming, in many ways the end of growth for the western world, could be the way out of poverty for a billion people. How can that be? Well, it’s simple really:

Greenhouse gas is not worth anything, it’s simply waste. But, as with any waste – once it piles up in tons and tons and tons it becomes a threat to the producers of the waste. And around the waste a market for waste management starts to grow.

Greenhouse gas, and CO2 in particular, is different from most other types of waste:
A: It can be turned into valuable material, wood in particular, in combination with other resources. And
B: It moves freely across borders, from nation to nation and even over continents.

While I and many with me believe that technology will actually prevail, and save us from burning up, the “CO2 Reactor” will not work for decades. We need to capture this gas now, and we need to use proven “technology” to do it. Well here’s some news: There is a great, working process called Photosynthesis that has been around for a couple of billion years, and that actually works!

To capture and store CO2 NOW all we have to do is to beef up the planets photosynthesis capacity, harvest the captured CO2 and keep it on the ground!

Capturing and storing CO2 is slowly becoming a new business opportunity for many third world countries. The social and economic effects are many and quite amazing:

• Get paid to plant a forest: The main thing to grow if you want to capture CO2 is trees. Forests are emerging, particularly in Africa, as pure CO2 capturing ventures. The execution cannot be digitalized or outsourced, it is done by the locals.
• Get shadow and water: The trees will provide shadow and the root systems will make the ground water level raise considerably. A forest landscape on the edge of the Sahara will lower the temperature at the surface with as much as 6 centigrade!
• Introduce forest agriculture: There is forestry, meaning growing a forest, and forest agriculture, meaning growing crops in the forest between the trees. Yes, with shadow and moist in the ground it is possible to grow wheat and other stuff within the forest – on places where agriculture was impossible before.
• Commercialize Biochar: Forestry and forest agriculture produce tons of biologic waste, containing tons of captured CO2 that naturally decompose back into CO2. There is a way, called biochar, of permanently keeping this CO2 out of the atmosphere for thousands of years, and it has been known for thousands of years. Why is it not exploited? – It could be a billion $ biz…
• And so much more: Forests hold the main natural recourses for medical production. Forests do NOT consume clean water, they PRODUCE clean water (anyone saying anything different is lying!). Forests are housing the richest animal life on the planet, providing us with ecosystems, in turn providing food, protein-sources, tourism, good TV, and much more.

We need to look seriously upon the possibility and opportunity to make the entire area around the equator between the north and the south polar circles into a green zone. I’m not kidding…

Posted on July 13th, 2009 by Linus
Filed under: Advocacy, Climate change, Entrepreneurship, Funny, Innovation, Personal, Philosophical, Politics, Technology | No Comments »

Take a look at this great campaign, a masterpiece in the art of storytelling fundraising. With only one number to remember, 600 million girls, the viewer can focus on the story about the girl. THIS is what makes a great campaign, the art of creating a bond between the viewer and the ONE girl, representing 600 000 000 other girls. Enjoy:

http://www.girleffect.org

Posted on July 13th, 2009 by Linus
Filed under: Advocacy, Internet, Media, Personal | No Comments »

ANALOG RECORDING CONSOLE FOR SALE

AMEK ANGELA XL CUSTOM CONSOLE

This unique recording/mixing console was originally two AMEK Angelas from the early nineties, designed
by Graham Langley and his team at Amek. Only one XL version of the Angela was built and customized by
the well-known high-end audio engineer/designer Bo Hansén around 2005. This is the console now for sale!

The condition of the console is excellent (but not mint). Its current location is Gothenburg, Sweden, but
shipping can be arranged to other countries world wide, buyer pays for freight costs.
Weight: Appr. 400 kg. The Angela XL is 3 meters wide.

Price: Serious bids or per request. Leasing can be arranged!

Highlights:
24 x line input / mic-pre mono faders
24 x line input stereo faders (48 ch)
8 x sub groups ( 4 stereo faders)
24 x tape track output busses
24 x mono monitor returns
24 x stereo monitor returns
All (noisy) VCA automation removed
All electrolytic capacitors replaced with high-grade equivalents
Completely rewired internally with high-grade solid state cabling (band-cables removed)
New power supplies
800-holes balanced Moses & Mitchell bantam patch (as on SSL); self-cleaning,  gold-plated, configurable
48 x 30-segment LED-VU meters (assignable; input/mix/tape-track)
Ananlog master out VU meters
16 x 90-pin EDAC connectors for all in- and outputs
New leather front  and wood sides, and new rigid steel stand

More information: DOWNLOAD REFERENCE DOCUMENTS

Contact: linus@analogdigitalunion.com

Posted on May 16th, 2009 by Linus
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Yes! After a long long time, this ingenious idea has finally found its way to the world!

What is it? It is a way for people to compensate for the negative impact that their digital activities have on the environment.  It is simple: You use your computer to read this blog, that will consume electric power, in most cases generated by fossil fuels – emitting CO2 into the atmosphere.  You can compensate the emission simply by making sure that the same amount of carbon is sucked back down from the sky and kept on the earth’s surface. We, or our partners I should say, will do this for you by planting trees in areas of the earth where trees would never grow naturally.  Thus creating CO2 absorbing areas of the earth that would not be present without your compensation!

I got this idea one day when I looked at a GiverSign in my own email, thought about that our servers are all powered by wind and sun power, and realized that that part of my email was actually carbon free. Why not offer people to expand that to include their entire digital communication? Who would not like to send Carbon Free Email!?

You will also get an e-certificate that we created so that you can show everyone you know that your e-mail messages,  blog posts, and Facebook dwelling is CO2 neutral. And hopefully they will compensate their digital carbon footprint as well, and so the revolution begins… Click on the sign below to read more and sign up!

CO2Compensate.com – Carbon neutral computing for everyone!

Posted on May 15th, 2009 by Linus
Filed under: Climate change, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Internet, Media, Personal | 1 Comment »

22 million children need a fundraiser

The World’s Children’s Prize is looking for a Fundraising Manager anda Fundraiser who relish challenges and huge opportunities.

The World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child is the world’s largest initiative on rights and
democracy for the coming generation, also recognized in 2008 as “the most important
communication initiative on the planet” by the International Association of Business Communicators,with 16,000 members in 65 countries.

The World’s Children’s Prize educates and empowers the world’s youth. It currently reaches
22 million children in 94 countries. This includes the most disadvantaged children, like former child
soldiers and children orphaned by AIDS or genocide. Patrons include Mr Nelson Mandela and
H.M. Queen Silvia of Sweden. Hundreds of millions of adults are reached via the media.
As a Fundraising Manager or Fundraiser, you will help us develop the resources needed to one dayengage 100 million children annually.

We are looking for people who first and foremost share the values and core objectives of the World’s
Children’s Prize, and who see merit in facing major challenges and equally big opportunities.
The job objective is
- to develop a fundraising strategy and to raise funds in Sweden and internationally together
with the Executive Director, Executive Board members and international fundraising experts
on the Advisory Board, or, as Fundraiser, to assist the core team in achieving these goals.
Key skills and experience needed include
- track record in fundraising, ideally from a range of sources including individuals, companies
and foundations, and preferably in an international context. In particular an ability to ask for
funds personally and in partnerships with others.

The positions are full?time, although the Fundraiser could be part time. Start date ASAP. Please sendus your CV by 9 April, 2009.

For further information on the organization, job description and objectives as well as conditions,
please contact Executive Director Magnus Bergmar on +46(0)159–129 00 or e?mail your CV to
magnus.bergmar@worldschildrensprize.org. Applicants for the Fundraising Manager position, feel
free to also contact Executive Board member Björn Larsson on +46(0)8?755 30 03 or by e?mail to
bjorn.larsson@foresight.se.

Posted on March 18th, 2009 by Linus
Filed under: Personal | No Comments »

This GiverSign’s graphics was designed by Shepard Fairy, most famous for his vintage style posters for the Obama campaign.

I think it is beautiful! Don’t you?

Earth Hour 2009 – Sign up for Earth Hour!

Posted on March 15th, 2009 by Linus
Filed under: Advocacy, Climate change, Internet, Media, Personal | No Comments »

I am very happy to announce a new GiverSign partner: Plan! Plan is today one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid organization. It started 1937 in Britain as a foster parent organization helping children that had lost their parents in the Spanish civil war. Today Plan is working in 66 countries all over the world and has expenditure of over $265M in many projects, providing help and a better future for millions of children.

We will start a campaign in Sweden with Plan and we hope to advance throughout the Plan International network soon.

http://www.plan-international.org/
http://www.plansverige.org/

Posted on February 27th, 2009 by Linus
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Internet, Personal | No Comments »

Yeah! We teamed up with Meindbender to create a new showrell for 2009. As always  Robert Lundgren (my co-founder and CEO/composer at A/D Union) made a stunning soundtrack to Meindbender’s insane visuals…

Check it out:

Posted on February 27th, 2009 by Linus
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Funny, Media | No Comments »