Social entrepreneurial e-empowerment

Abstract

Muhammad Yunus, micro-lending advocate and founder of the Bank of the Poor, defines social enterprises as doing business to solve social, economic, and environmental adversities. The complexity of today global context hinders the emergence of innovative endeavors; this inner enhancement of capabilities springs out from worldwide entrepreneurs that reveal procuring the best environmental conditions and technologies to nourish new ingenious ventures whether of social or any capitalist profile. Social entrepreneurs noticeably understand that making an intensive use of new technologies engenders innovation and scales impact effects in society; that is why ICTs, and especially the Web 2.0, have constituted catalysts to accelerate collaborations for social change: social innovation labs, social e-enterprise incubators, social innovation centers, social innovation park, et cetera. This chapter reviews the main experiences of social entrepreneurial empowerments, pinpointing those pioneering projects that exploit new technologies to provide services and get access, with no boundaries, to a significant number of communities. It is structured as follows: it starts analyzing the emergence and development of social enterprise, its encouragement and empowerment. Later, some key initiatives for social entrepreneurs are examined, in particular those offered virtually (eempowerment). The chapter concludes with a brief summary of final thoughts.