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Social Entrepreneurship – An Answer to Global Problems Entrepreneurship can Subsidize to Achieving Global Goals and Make a Modification

By Madhurima Roy

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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The best way to start a wind of change is through entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, who have embraced the same, are the actual difference makers creating positive impacts in the society. The startup age has helped the entrepreneurs with the social cause not only to continue their entrepreneurial spree but also to create some actual modification in the society. They can be viewed as the modern day revolutionaries who bring innovative ideas on a plate and shape them into reality.

Hunger, over-population and pollution are three of the biggest head-scratchers in the world today. Mankind has been trying to shred these difficulties for decades now but to no avail. However, with the emergence of more number of startups every day, the inflow of more number of unique and promising ideas has climbed the graph.

Startups are the hubs of groundbreaking ideas and as Sebastian Stricker sees, "Entrepreneurship can really contribute to achieving global goals and make a difference." Stricker is the founder of ShareTheMeal and is currently the CEO of Share.

#ZeroHunger

With his latest consumer goods startup Share, Stricker distributes one meal to a person in need for each nutrition product the startup sells. The idea hails from their 1 + 1 principle; the concept is that every share product a consumer buys, the help directly goes to a person in need. Consumers purchasing Share's products can also track where their contribution is going. ShareTheMeal, on the other hand, is an app of the United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) and Stricker encourages people to fight world hunger with their smartphones by donating an amount as small as US$ 0.50 to feed one child for a day.

Highlighting how initiatives like these are helping millions, Stricker says, "This might appear as a small step, but if you consider that with ShareTheMeal, we financed more than 31 million meals to children suffering from malnutrition up until today – as well as 1.7 million meals with Share in just nine months on the German market, you see what the power of a community, willing to make change happen can do. This immensely strengthens our belief that ending hunger by 2030 is truly possible," Stricker elucidates.

Coming back to the topic of how much potential entrepreneurship holds to revamp the society, he says, "I think that entrepreneurship can really contribute to achieving global goals and make a difference. When we take responsibility in our businesses and show that besides our good impact we can still grow a well-functioning start-up, the idea of social entrepreneurship definitely has the power to become a role model and change how business is done today – and this would definitely decrease many of our global problems."

Saving Cities from Choking

A startup that has geared up to combat air pollution is Yulu Bikes and its co-founder Amit Gupta with his struggle to save the day laid the bricks of its foundation, while he was already a part of his first venture InMobi. Although they were doing very well in the InMobi front, Gupta felt a desire to give something back to the society. Believing in the power of entrepreneurship, "I wanted to solve some social problems using entrepreneurship," he says. "I feel that entrepreneurship is a good way to make an impact. After giving a lot of thought, I picked traffic congestion and air pollution, which are two big problems in our country. That's how the journey of Yulu started."

"It is very clear that we have to decongest our city and we also need to make sure that the air quality goes up. As you might know that one-third of the air pollution in any typical city is contributed by vehicles, which means that with Yulu Bikes, we cannot only decongest cities but also can improve the air quality. We are trying to bring a big social change. The hash tag represents that Yulu Bikes are bringing the positive change, and the people who will be using Yulu Bikes, will be pedalling a change," he concludes.

Madhurima Roy

Senior Correspondent, Entrepreneur India

A journalist for more than 4 years, I have been covering businesses & start-ups, technology and business leaders. While writing is my only language, I also indulge in dancing, painting,.. and anything creative!
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