#StartingGood Social Enterprise Virtual Summit: Days 1–3 Recap

We can’t believe it! Day 3 of the #StartingGood Social Enterprise Virtual Summit has already passed!

After neverending to-do lists and a painful amount of technical difficulties (what would a virtual summit be without technical difficulties, right?), we are beyond thrilled that we can finally share all these insightful interviews and presentations oozing with tips and ideas to give you the tools to lead change.

We know we’re busy people and might not be able to pull all-nighters to watch all of these sessions, so we’re doing a breakdown of our key highlights of each session so you know if these are the ones you should watch!

Day 1:

Peter Singer, moral philosopher and leader in the Effective Altruism movement, shares his philosophy on what it really means to be ‘effective’ in our giving power, how better frameworks are yet to be made to measure the effectiveness of social enterprises compared to a non-profit or business.

“If it can be shown that starting a social enterprise is more effective than donating to a non-profit organisation, then we ought to support the social enterprise getting started”.

Watch this if you are interested in: morals and ethics, philanthropy, borderless world

Jan Owen, CEO of Foundation for Young Australians (FYA), shared FYA’s extensive research in the Future of Work and the top 5 skills that are now weighted the same as technically skills by employers — the same skills that were taught as soft skills that were nice to have.

Training for 1 job now gives you the skills you could use for 13 other jobs, which is why she says the future of work is “more of a jungle gym, than a ladder”.

Watch this if you are interested in: careers, young people, digital revolution.

Day 2:

Stuart Anderson, the Inventor of Flow Hive, shared his 10 year journey in inventing a more ethical way of harvesting honey and how he raised $16 million in crowdfunding. He also shares the his experience as an inventor in business and working in a small, rural town.

“I got really put off the idea of raising finance through banks or angel investors. We heard lots of difficult stories of inventors who had lost control of their project… that’s when we started studying [crowdfunding]”.

Watch this if you’re interested in: crowdfunding, being an inventor, prototyping, beekeeping.

Ernesto Sirolli, Founder of Sirolli Institute, shared his life’s work in enterprise facilitation and the idea behind his ‘Want to Help Someone? Shut Up and Listen’ TED Talk watched 3 million times. He is passionate about changing the current patronising and paternalistic ways of doing aid.

“We should not be going anywhere uninvited to do anything”.

Watch this is you’re interested in: international development, human-centred design, globalisation.

Day 3

Anthea Smits, the CEO of The Difference Incubator, spoke about her personal journey and how she has used failure as her teacher. Among all these conversations around celebrating failure, she gives a refreshing and realistic approach to moving forward.

“You don’t feel like celebrating while you’re in the middle of failure. But the pain and grief are our teacher.”

Watch this if you are interested in: self-awareness, failure, mental health for social entrepreneurs.

Paul Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Future Directors Institute, shared 6 steps to building a diverse and robust board by deciding what you need, finding the right people and structuring the boardroom. He says the best time to build a board is now, whether you are pre-revenue, been going strong for 5 years or needing to re-pivot.

Watch this if you: have or are highly involved with a social enterprise, not-for-profit or business.

That’s a wrap for the first three days! We hope you’ve been enjoying it and keep connecting with us! Join our Starting Good Social Entrepreneur Network Facebook Group and use the #StartingGood18 when you tune in!

A shout-out to the inspired participant and our Facebook community for sparking a discussion, sharing knowledge and offering each other’s help in an idea about connecting consumers to social enterprises after Peter Singer’s interview.

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Ten days left. Let’s do this!