Jacen Greene - The rule of one : the power of social intrapreneurship

T echnology will keep on changing the world. There is nothing new about it. It has been happening since human beings have inhabited this planet. Technology is changing faster and faster. Where it took a century for change to happen, it takes a decade now. Soon it will be done in a day or less. But the big question is: What direction will this change be directed at? It can create a world of three zeroszero poverty, zero unemployment, zero net carbon emissionany time it wants. But are we directing the technology that way. Technology has the power to take us anywhere we want to go. But where do we want to go? Have we decided that?

When I founded Grameen Bank, I wanted to find a way to provide credit to those who needed it the most, but were turned away by the traditional banks. Through our work over the years, we have established the fact that it can be done in a financially sustainable way anywhere in the world. Again the question is: Are we willing to do it? It is no longer a question of whether it can be done.

Utilizing information technology and having it play a bigger role in addressing poverty was a key and an important next step, and former Intel CEO Craig Barrett and I saw an opportunity to bring technology to other fields which do not get much attention from the technology world. In doing so I soon met Kazi Huque and, later, Narayan Sundararajan, from Intel USA. They saw the possibilities to use the power of technology to ensure that people at the bottom have the same access to information technology as those at the top. Over the years, they became true entrepreneurs within a large corporation. Grameen Intel got started on a small scale with the same energy as a Silicon Valley start-up. The venture continues to inspire the creation of new gadgets, new software and, one day, hopefully, new chips.

This is a practitioners guide that shares some of the lessons they learned along the way. Forming a social business was only the beginning. Both Kazi and Narayan, along with Jacen Greene, touch upon the challenges they faced and the ways they went about tackling those. They outline how they brought business, technology and research expertise to address a host of issues in healthcare, education and agriculture.

Through the various chapters, the reader will benefit from learning ground-level realities. The authors have shared their experiences very candidly. They have covered areas where they have been successful, as well as what they would have done differently. The creative approach they outlined in the book can be used by any foundation, social business and development agency.

I hope more individuals will step up to become social business entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs in a large corporation, or part of a social business start-up. Individually or as part of a corporation interested in playing a direct role in changing the world, we can overcome many of the problems faced by society today. What is needed is a dedicated and focused effort towards those goals through a business format which doesnt distract it by imposing the mission of making profits for the shareholders of the company.

Professor Muhammad Yunus

Founder of Grameen Bank

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, 2006