Graduating in fashion design gave me the skill to express my passion through my creations and a postgraduate degree in business administration has equipped me with the tools to market and sell my products. But to me, at the end of one’s life, the reality of success is not measured by how much money you have made, but by how much you have made the world a better place. Adam Smith, philosopher and pioneer of political economy believed that ‘business and society are profoundly interdependent’ and after my exposure to philanthropic and development sector organizations, I plan to create a business model; a hybrid of social welfare and revenue generation.
To further my education, I have decided to undertake Social Entrepreneurship as a major field of study, specifically because social entrepreneurs create innovative solutions to social problems and implement them through commercial revenue for state’s progress. American system of education is based on the sharing of experiences in social sector, by a student population that comes from diverse backgrounds and analysis of case studies of models implemented all over the world. It is this exposure that will assist me in creating my own models that would encompass best practices and lessons learned that are adaptable in my own cultural and geographical context.
Being a citizen of a third world country and having lived through the ordeals of energy crisis, poor economic conditions, lawlessness and chaos, I have dreamt to be in a better place and also to bring my country to stability and progress. Thus my decision of studying social entrepreneurship has been powered by my desire to play a fundamental role in bringing prosperity to Pakistan. Social entrepreneurship is very well suited for the challenges we face today. According to Dr. Alex Nicholls, Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship at University of Oxford, ‘social enterprise can offer solutions for the wicked problems of the 21st century’. I plan to conduct my research project on the socio-economic issues of Pakistan and propose how social entrepreneurship can be utilized to tackle many social ills prevailing in our society.
After returning to my country, my foremost objective would be making the concept of social entrepreneurship common in Pakistan. I would work towards shifting the paradigm of Pakistani businesses operations by spreading awareness and knowledge of social entrepreneurship through educational degrees and seminars. Starting with Iqra University, I would introduce social entrepreneurship as a major field of study and then spread it to other universities as well because at the moment no business school is offering social entrepreneurship in their curriculum. I am stressing its importance because research says that ‘there is a positive correlation between revenues, profits and social responsibility’ and I believe we can successfully counter the economic downfall in Pakistan through social entrepreneurship. Because of global examples of Ashoka, Schwab and Skool Foundations, we know that the free market approach of social entrepreneurship is the most powerful road to social progress. Further, affecting revenue generation through social work; social entrepreneurs create a financially sustainable and long-lasting change.
Our young generation wants coherence between their work and private life. They want to live consciously and acknowledge their responsibility to give back. Building upon that and further acting on my social change movement in Pakistan, I would like to start a teaching/mentoring program to encourage the making of capable young social entrepreneurs and empowering them to start their own social ventures. This can be done through training and linkages with venture capitalists. The post-training mentoring sessions would ensure sustainability of the projects. Tapping upon already available social and human capital, these efforts will bring about a sustainable social change.
Finally, I want to learn and apply the principles of social entrepreneurship in my own, existing and new entrepreneurial ventures. I would like to introduce an integrated hybrid business model tackling social value and commercial revenue through a single unified strategy. This model would offer a bold, sustainable infusion of modern capitalism into humanitarian principles. When the traditional work of for-profits is integrated with some practices from the nonprofits, it drives a social change. There can’t be a better example of a social change than what Grameen Bank; a microfinance organization did for poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. I strongly believe that my creativity, further polished by an exclusive combination of my fashion and marketing degrees and my focused experience in the field of entrepreneurship will aid me immensely in coming up with innovative ideas for application and commencement of unique social welfare projects.
Sundas Liaqat 