Calling all social entrepreneurs

Today we have the largest generation of youth in history – a powerful force for change. In my contribution to the LinkedIn Pulse #BigIdeas series, I discuss why young social entrepreneurs are critical to the Sustainable Development Goals.

In Pakistan, 90% of the 120 million citizens who live below the poverty line have little or no access to healthcare. Yet, socio-cultural barriers prevent many women who qualify as doctors from working, especially as mothers.

Dr Sara Saaed (29) saw an opportunity to address both issues through a unique concept, ‘doctHERs’ - a network of clinics to enable people without access to healthcare through virtual consultations with qualified female doctors. Since 2015, doctHERs has directly impacted 15,000 lives through clinical services and 100,000 lives indirectly via community outreach. By 2020, it aims to scale its programme to over 500 clinics across Pakistan, directly impacting 1.2 million people.

People like Sara are exactly the kind of innovative and inspiring social entrepreneurs we at Unilever are trying to reach. That’s why we created the Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneur Awards, in partnership with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and Ashoka.  Now in its third year, with the highest number of entries this year – 927, from 99 countries – the competition illustrates just how important the Sustainable Development Goals are to young people, and the strength of their commitment to achieving them.

Sara was this year’s winner, and one of 7 finalists with equally effective and technology-enabled solutions to today’s challenges. Mark Boots (30), one of last year’s finalists, has built an incredible product bringing much-needed mobile solutions in international development.  His company ‘Votomobile’ now has offices in seven countries and over 40 staff. And Anu Sridharan, one of our finalists from the first year of the Awards – has been working with our Sunlight dishwash brand in India to take her text message service, ‘NextDrop’ to the city of Mysore, addressing the time wasting issue of intermittent water supply and helping residents make use of every precious drop of water. 

Sara, Mark and Anu are not alone. There are countless other examples of the inspiring ideas in the minds of young people who care deeply about the changes they want to see, can challenge the status quo, articulate their vision, and seek advice from others to achieve real impact.  

And anyone could be next.

Today’s world, though 4 billion years old, is still very young, with half of the global population under 25 - the largest generation of youth in history. Such a powerful force for change. And what we are increasingly seeing is that millennials are more purpose-driven than their parents’ generations, refusing to be passive observers in the shaping of their future.

More than half the people who turned out in force to campaign in Paris at the COP21 were young people. 84% of millennials consider it their duty to make the world a better place.  They want to make ‘doing good’ part of their lifestyle, not just leaving it to others. 83% believe they can change the world. And they can. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated on Youth Day, “No one knows better than [young people] the issues at stake or the best way to respond.”

I’ve been personally inspired and energised by the awareness and ability of youths to assess these issues, choose an area where they feel they can make an impact, then distil it into a simple solution. In fact, I’ve often seen young social entrepreneurs moving faster and more effectively than big companies, leaving us trailing behind in many areas. For example Vandebron (‘From the Source’) – achieved a breakthrough by creating the world’s first online marketplace for renewable energy. Founded by four millennials, this start-up enables anyone who generates renewable energy to sell their yield directly to other consumers. And it’s set to completely disrupt the Dutch energy market, delivering energy to over 80,000 homes to date.

Young entrepreneurs are creating new approaches to old and pernicious problems like food security, or climate change, which some have called the greatest "intergenerational injustice" of our time. And they are comfortable turning a profit whilst fulfilling their responsibility to create a better world.

For more examples, ideas and inspiration, check out Collectively – a platform for sharing stories on how to make the world better tomorrow, through responsible business. From small changes at community level, to game-changing ideas at a systemic level.

After all, the 2030 Agenda is a youth agenda. The time is now for young entrepreneurs to stand up and develop businesses that can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, securing a zero-poverty, zero-carbon, more inclusive world that we can all be proud of.