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MayJune2015

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34 BizEd MAY | JUNE 2015 percent in Asia and Oceania, around 17 percent in Latin America and the Carib- bean, and around 8 percent in the E.U. The GEM report also notes that while just over 26 percent of those surveyed in Africa view entrepreneurship as "neces- sity-driven," 71 percent view it as "op- portunity-driven," similar to numbers from other regions. That indicates that many African countries are moving be- yond "survivalist" entrepreneurship to instead look for ways to exploit market opportunities. (To read the GEM 2014 Global Report, visit gemconsortium.org/ docs/download/3616.) According to Forbes, there never has been a more inspired generation of young Africans. In 2014, it released its list of the "30 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs in Africa." The list included 30-year-old Ashley Uys. His company, Medical Diagnostech, makes a‡ordable and reliable medical test kits for malaria, pregnancy, syphilis, and HIV for South Africa's rural poor. Uys is a recipient of a US$100,000 Social In- novation Award from the South African Breweries Foundation. In its 2013 list of "30 Under 30: Afri- ca's Best Young Entrepreneurs," Forbes included Sizwe Nzima, a 21-year-old Capetonian who saw how elderly and ill patients had to travel long distances and wait for hours to collect medication for chronic illnesses. This inspired him to create Iyeza Express, a delivery service that delivers prescriptions to nearly 300 residents of Khyalitsha, an informal set- tlement in Cape Town. Nzima developed the idea for his company during a course at the Raymond Ackerman Academy of Entrepreneurial Development, based at my school, the University of Cape Town's Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB). Another UCT GSB student, Fran- cois Petousis, won the People's Choice Award at the 2013 Global Social Venture Competition at the University of Cali- fornia, Berkeley. His idea, Lumkani, is an early-warning fire detection system designed for shack communities, where a fire in one shack can quickly destroy the entire community. Lumkani, which means "be cautious," is designed to trig- ger alerts in every shack so residents can swiftly extinguish the fire or escape. In a recent UCT GSB publication, Petousis o‡ered this advice to social entrepreneurs: "Engage with the people and the world you want to impact. … It'll give you the personal connection you need to be inspired in your work. With that connection will come the deep care and values that need to be clear in any growing social enterprise." His words represent the entrepreneuring mindset that business schools need to engender in themselves and their students. BE SOCIAL INNOVATORS The mindsets of these entrepreneurs reflect a growing global belief that businesses should embrace the idea of "not just creating economic value, but creating social value," as Harish Manwani, COO of Unilever, said in a 2013 TED talk. "Companies cannot a‡ord to be just innocent bystanders in what's happening ... in society. They have to begin to play their role in terms of serving the communities which actually sustain them," Manwani said. "We have to move to an 'and/and' model, which is, 'How do we make money and do good? How do we make sure that we have a great business [and] we also have a great environment around us?'" I agree that companies and business- people need to look at the value their companies bring to their communities. They need to ask, "If we ceased to exist tomorrow, what would the world lack?" But this is a question for business schools to ask as well. What would the world lack without us? I argue that we want the answer to include more than simply "profitable businesses." At the UCT GSB, for example, we encourage entrepreneurs to develop business ideas that solve key social and environmental problems. For example, our newly launched MTN Solution Space, a shared workspace located at the heart of campus, is designed to bring entrepreneurs together to work, learn, and stimulate innovation. The initiative is sponsored by MTN Group, a leading telecommunications company in Africa and the Middle East. MTN Group shares the UCT GSB's ambition to engender innovation on the continent, through business model innovation, technologi- cal development, and the integration of mobile technologies. A related initiative is the Social Fran- chising Accelerator, established at the UCT GSB Bertha Centre for Social In- novation and Entrepreneurship in 2013. The school formed the accelerator in partnership with the International Cen- tre for Social Franchising, a nonprofit based in the U.K., U.S., and Australia; and Franchising Plus, a Johannesburg-based franchising consultancy firm. Supported by funding from the Rockefeller Foun- WHAT WOULD THE WORLD LACK WITHOUT BUSINESS SCHOOLS? WE WANT THE ANSWER TO INCLUDE MORE THAN SIMPLY "PROFITABLE BUSINESSES." Africa requires more engineers and technicians to achieve its key development targets. —THE WORLD BANK

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