David Bornstein

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David Bornstein

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In his book How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, author David Bornstein profiles several social entrepreneurs from around the world.

After extensive travels in Bangladesh, India, Brazil, North America and Eastern Europe, David Bornstein has emerged as a leading expert in the global rise of "social entrepreneurism." In this program, host Tim Zak asks how we would even know a social entrepreneur if we saw one on the street. More important, why should we care? Who invests in social enterprise and what is at stake for our world if we don't?

Bornstein draws parallels between the characteristics and styles of both the business entrepreneur and the social entrepreneur, while itemizing the qualitative differences. What types of investors will have the 20-year vision and the patience to see "social return on investment?" What are the vast entrepreneurial opportunities that emerge in the wake of disaster?

In light of the successes and failures of recovery efforts after hurricane Katrina and the tsunami, Bornstein calls for a change in the operating principles of traditional structures, such as government services and foundations. These changes include more transparency, easier communications, better performance metrics, and more accurate assessments of what the impact of those organizations have on us -- as individuals, as families, and as communities.

The author describes a compelling near-term future: "Far-thinking business people, who recognize that in order to have businesses that are going to continue to be successful twenty years from now, we can't have a generation of children grow up illiterate; we can't completely muck up the environment; we can't continue to have millions and millions of people who are unhealthy, living without health insurance, and so forth; we can't continue to have this kind of inequality that leads to a disillusion of the social fabric."