Snf

The inaugural Singapore Network Forum organised by UK was held at Orchard hotel. This year, the topic was on social entrepreneurship. Personally, I have no idea what that entails but I guess it definitely had to do with entrepreneurship. So what's it?

Social entrepreneurship has got to do with system-changing solutions to social problems or bnefitting the marginalised sector of society. It also has to be sustainable.

Sounds difficult and confusing but it is different from Corporate Social Responsibility, which ultimately focuses on profits and its shareholders before giving out to society, and Charity, which depends on donations to survive.

Students from SMU, NUS, NTU, Stanford presented their projects with some being an eye-opener. However, the real eye-opener would be Mr Jack Sim, director of World Toilet Foundations. Humourous and intelligent, his presentation offered an insight of the seriousness of sanitation. Jokes aside, his was also the first presentation which made the event more interesting.

A panel of speakers including Dr Vivian Balakrishnan led the discussion on social entrepreneurship, a term which I felt is still quite ambiguous. I was truly amazed by the interest of the public as they discussed strongly, outlining the lack of involvement and also possible future of it.

After the whole event, the initial i-am-supporting-my-friend me became this-is-so-enlightening-and-perhaps-I-can-do-something-about-it me.