Positive Contributions to Society through Social Entrepreneurship and Partnerships
Despite progress made over the last decades with respect to poverty reduction, notably in China, there are still significant unmet social needs and massive efforts required to reach the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
At least 700 million people still live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than US$1.90 per day. Hundreds of millions of people lack access to necessities such as banking services, sanitation, electricity, and safe drinking water.
Lack of access to such vital services and infrastructure has broader negative implications for health, education, and gender equality.
While Hong Kong is one of the wealthiest cities in the world, it has a higher income gap between the rich and the poor than most advanced countries.
At least 1.3 million of the 7.2 million citizens of Hong Kong live in abject poverty, with the elderly taking up the highest percentage while children take up 20 percent.
It takes charitable organizations, government programs, and responsible corporations to address these pressing social and economic issues.
Alongside conventional actors, a rather dynamic movement of social entrepreneurs has emerged and gradually gaining traction, who address social and environmental issues in business-like and innovative ways.
They start their businesses with a passion for providing solutions to pressing social and environmental problems. However, to reach scale, social entrepreneurs need the support of others, often including some partly or wholly subsidized funding, at least during the early days of their social ventures.
Here is where venture capitalists, extend not only seed funding for social entrepreneurs, but also support social enterprises in other ways such as technical and financial know-how.
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