The problem is more important than the idea.
“What good Am I?”
When my second son was in school I, rather rarely, read some of the homework he did. What always struck me that every 5 sentences he had to refer to a source confirming or contradicting his statement. Apparently, that was how you made your point for the teachers as referring to probably also meant that you looked all these things up. Thanks to Google that goes way faster than in the old days where you had to put your nose in the shelves of libraries.
So let me also started with a reference to make my point. It was Plato, with Greece going through a tough period some centuries BCC who claimed the following: “Plato believes that conflicting interests of different parts of society can be harmonized. The best, rational and righteous, political order, which he proposes, leads to a harmonious unity of society and allows each of its parts to flourish, but not at the expense of others. The theoretical design and practical implementation of such order, he argues, are impossible without virtue. “
You can let this sink in for a moment and here is why I like this statement. When being active on a full-time basis with the startup ecosystem (I don’t like this word either) we measure success in values and they always end up in money. The last word of Plato citing is the virtue. The longer and the more I am engaged in this startup and entrepreneurship fashion the more I see the need of more focus on the impact on society to improve the lives of those who need it instead of just chasing the money for a few. This is not just an “end of the year” emotional thought, but I am happy that this vision is more and more shared by people who are active like me in the same circles. Solving real problems in a sustainable way will hopefully be the end of the ongoing post-industrial revolutions. Who has a better name?
During the Social Innovation hackathon, organised by Re:Coded, I had the pleasure of doing a short training on “How to Pitch like a winner” and on Sunday I was part of the jury. It was a delight to meet all those young, motivated youngsters, refugees from the surrounding countries in the south and Turkish kids. Apart from the fact that they work together seamlessly, they put their thoughts and efforts together in finding solutions for the Challenge: Hacking the Glass Ceiling, Tech solution for gender equality. A bit too buzzword compliant maybe, but the participants got away with it. I was secretly very happy with the winner as it was one of my favourites. We were 7 in the jury, so it is hard to predict where it would go in terms of winners. What it showed me most of all is that social entrepreneurship is alive and kicking and will dominate, touching wood, more and more the agenda.
You are from Sweden and you are an amazing blues, jazz, folk, and singer-songwriter. Doesn’t happen every day but Louise Hoffsten, born September 6, 1965 in Linköping, Sweden is amazing. I love her cover of this Bob Dylan song, “what good am I” a lot and the lyrics are very meaningful. Enjoy the song here.
If you are more into a positive twist without too much depth you can also listen to Ed Sheeran and ignore all the above :-) Listen here.
Patrick Bosteels, co-founder Stage-Co and CoderDojo Turkiye
additional: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.bosteels and https://www.facebook.com/stagecoplatformhttps://www.facebook.com/StagecoMasters
