ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: Reclaiming Social Entrepreneurship | Daniela Papi Thornton | TEDxBend

ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: Reclaiming Social Entrepreneurship | Daniela Papi Thornton | TEDxBend

Here’s Great Tip: Reclaiming Social Entrepreneurship | Daniela Papi Thornton | TEDxBend


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Social Entrepreneurship is a buzz word. In Daniela Papi-Thornton’s talk, she explores how the concept has narrowed down over time and is often used simply to refer to social businesses. But, as she explains, “we don’t need more social businesses, we need more social change” and that requires more than just starting new businesses. It requires system change leadership. Daniela explores the difference between being a social business founder and a system change leader and then unpicks how we talk about, fund, and educate for social entrepreneurship, as well as what needs to change in our education and funding systems to fuel more system change leaders. Her talk is useful for anyone who is interested in social change, for educators looking to teach the next generation of system change leaders, and anyone who has heard the term social entrepreneurship but wants to know what it’s really all about. 

Daniela Papi-Thornton has a unique perspective on social entrepreneurship, developed as result of six years working for social change in Cambodia and her role as an educator at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. When focused on the role of the social entrepreneur as a “hero,” volunteer travel and social change education can have negative impacts on future social change leaders. Instead, she offers tools and perspectives that will help educators, parents, and budding change makers reposition themselves and rethink how we teach, fund, and incentivize social entrepreneurs. Addressing “heropreneurship” can help us better equip the social change leaders of the future to tackle our global and local challenges.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at

21 Replies to “ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: Reclaiming Social Entrepreneurship | Daniela Papi Thornton | TEDxBend”

  1. A very interesting talk – just wish you’d keep the Interpreter on screen so this motivating speech could be seen and heard by everyone.
    I can say from experience this is definitely a social area that needs more change.

  2. When the first time I heard about social enterpreneurship I was wondering what is the different between social enterpreneurship and CSR (Customer Social Resposibility) program? Then I start to research and I get the answer that there is no difference. Then I keep start finding the answer by books and internet till right now. I still believe that the real answer is about building collective community and measure more than just money. Now I started a free public class find a wilingness academic lecturer to teach about philosophy, politics, and critical thinking. And I try join any collective education communites.

  3. What an insightful video. I notice how a clear vision took action in a system to make an important change improve the social enterprise where is being applied, not only the enterprise but the world.

  4. Inspiring speech!! Very much captures what's missing in the social entrepreneurship sphere!

    I loved this quote: "Almost every entrepreneurship course and accelerator program ends in some sort of pitch day. Where the students need to pitch their world-changing solution. […] We're spending more time teaching [students] how to perfect their sales pitch than we are trying to teach them to understand the problem they claim to be trying to solve. And the judges of those contest often know more about business scaling then they do about the impact and social change."

  5. Daniela has pin-pointed a BIG problem with business pitch contests and more importantly nailed that educators focused on "leadership skills" are missing the need for "system change-makers". Every educator and aspiring entrepreneur will benefit from this presentation!!

  6. Excellent talk! 🙂

    So refreshing to hear how individuals can change systems with passion, dedication and innovation.

    I adore Daniela's enthusiasm and passion for her work in this talk.

    I would definitely be interested to learn more about social entrepreneurial courses at Oxford Said Business School and how they could assist my work.

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