ASSIGNMENT ONE | | | | Entrepreneurial Leadership begins with a vision, an overall idea for ho to make their business ideas a success, and then they passionately pursue it. Profit-oriented means recognizing that the business comes first. Once profits are generated, the entrepreneur can make decisions about how the profits can be used – to expand the enterprise.
Entrepreneurship is not about taking risks - it always has been about identifying and avoiding or mitigating the risks. It is the media and movies that have created this romantic idea of a risk taking entrepreneur. http://merefundae.blogspot.com/2008/10/risk.html
BILL Gates and Paul Allen lunched Microsoft with the vision of a computer on every desk and in every home all running Microsoft software. Their vision helped Microsoft became the world’s largest marketer of computer software. It guided the company and provided clear direction for employees as Microsoft grew, adapted, and prospered in an industry characterized by tremendous technology change.
In a new book called Leap, author Rick Smith recounts how Bill Gates started Microsoft with a combination of experience, calculation, and luck. Smith argues that the approach is the opposite of big risk-taking: entrepreneurs like Gates spend years validating an opportunity and minimizing their risk. Gates had validation that both he and Allen were highly competent with this new technology, and he could see that the topside potential was huge.
Far from being one of the world’s great risk takers, Bill Gates might more accurately be thought of as one of the world’s greatest risk mitigators. And in that, he is not alone. The simple fact is that everyone is afraid of risk at some level. You don’t have to be fearless to make dramatic changes in your life. Transformative change isn’t propelled by raw courage. It is “sparked” by a series of events that build exposure and experience, both of which help to create asymmetric risk. Through sparking, the upside opportunity is confirmed while downside risk is mitigated. Ultimately, the leap—when it comes—is not one of faith but of experience, even of comfort, just as it was for Gates.
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is admired by many, a number of industry insiders criticize his business tactics, which they consider anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
Gates while in Nigeria in September 2011, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the state Governor, to eradicate polio cases in the state. He said his association was determined to eradicate polio worldwide and other related diseases. According to him Indian with a population of over one billion had one polio case recently due to measures taken by his foundation. He said the situation in Nigeria needed urgent attention with about six cases by 20 http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/running_small_business/archives/2009/09/bill_gatess_asymmetric_approach_to_risk.html http://allafrica.com/stories/201109281219.html10. http://www.sba.gov/ Ann Cotton, founder and Executive Director of CAMFED International - an international organization dedicated to eradicating poverty in Africa through the education of girls and the empowerment of young women
Social entrepreneurs are change agents for the social sector. They are mission-driven, determined to achieve results and committed to maintaining accountability to the communities they serve. Ann Cotton recognizes a social problem and use entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture for social change. She has managed to translate her visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people.
Like most social entrepreneurs, Ann Cotton seemed to be possessed by her ideas, committing her life to changing the direction of her field. She is both a visionary and an ultimate realist, concerned with the practical implementation of her vision above all else.
Social entrepreneurs effect systemic transformation by tackling not only the problem at hand, but also the roots of that problem. They rely on innovation to improve the world through market solutions. Social entrepreneurs use their skills and creativity to try and solve an urgent social problem, with the goal being to make a positive impact.
The best social innovators are prepared to pay not just the price of working all the time and not getting rich, but even the price of their convictions in order to truly create the change that they want. In other words, they will change their minds. Almost like a religion, social entrepreneurs desire to spread the “good word” through the integrity, thoughtful reflection and determination.
Ms. Cotton helps young girls in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana and Tanzania by financing tuition fees, books and school uniforms so that they can go to school. But what Cotton’s organization offer.
In 1993, Ann Cotton set up CAMFED (the Campaign for Female Education), dedicated to providing education for girls in sub-Saharan Africa.
CAMFED is award-winning with International Charity of the Year 2003 under its belt. Ann is the 2004 Social Entrepreneur of the Year for the UK, Honorary Fellow of the Open University and a 2005 Beacon Prize winner. In 2005, Ann was awarded the prestigious Skoll Award for Entrepreneurship and in 2006 honored in the Queen's New Year List with an OBE. In June 2007 Ann received an honorary doctorate in law from the University of Cambridge is much more than money –although that is already quite extraordinary.
Her decision to set up CAMFED followed a study of the constraints on the education of girls in rural areas of Zimbabwe as part of an MA in Human Rights Education
Because these teenage girls have to be mentally prepared as if they were about to enter into a new world (and school is a new universe for most of them), they receive from Camfed a holistic package that includes practical means and personal confidence.
For example, Ms. Cotton teaches them how to turn the lights on and how to get water from the tap. As she works with the poorest of the poor, Ms. Cotton also helps them deal with money: most of them have not held more than $1 in their hands at any one time in their lives.
Ann Cotton’s mission goes beyond education. Everybody wins when girls have a chance to attend school: they have fewer kids, and at a later age, which in turn creates a positive impact on infant mortality rates and maternal health and mortality.
Even better, Cotton’s actions break the cycle of poverty for ongoing generations. A woman who has had a chance to go to school will do everything in her power to ensure that her own daughters receive a proper education.
Ms. Cotton’s advice to fellow social entrepreneurs: when in doubt, involve the community to find answers. She makes sure that parents and relatives contribute to their daughters’ success. She also partners with the village community, which often provides food for the girls who are in school and even raises buildings for them when they are away in the city.
“The community has the answer,” Ms. Cotton likes to say. The world is very fortunate to have Ms. Cotton ask the right questions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7oVveczXO8 http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/global-x/topics/Ann%20Cotton
http://www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk/aboutus/entrepreneursresidence/cottona.html