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Social Entrepreneur Profile: Steve Koon

Last March I connected with a global team from Kaospilot, a group of mostly Danish students from the international school of new business design and social innovation.

One of the projects they were developing during a three month stint in Shanghai focused on social innovation. I was sniffing their trail, tracking down the same social entrepreneurs to talk with about their work in China.  They saved me a lot of the brunt work by passing along their virtual Rolodex a.k.a. putting me in touch with some of the best and brightest social innovators they had come across in Shanghai.  Steve Koon was one of them.

Steve, originally from Hong Kong, spent years working in the investment field before reorienting his career towards social responsibility.  While taking a class on social entrepreneurship at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Public Policy, Steve and some classmates were inspired to adapt the curriculum for classrooms in the developing world.  Hence AvanteChange was born. The organization puts students from the Philippines and Thailand in charge of engaging government officials and professionals to create socially responsible for-profits.  Steve invited me to sit in on the course he was teaching at Shanghai’s Fudan University which is, as far as he knows, the first formal class on mission-oriented business in Mainland China.

So one Sunday in May,  I headed out to Fudan to meet Steve, to learn more about his perspective on social enterprise in China and to sit in on the discussion with students as they fleshed out their own socially responsible business plans.

Twenty five undergraduate and graduate students trickled in to the lecture hall, taking a seat for the voluntary course that meets every other Sunday.  I later learned that participants were from many different academic departments, having heard the buzz of Steve’s course through friends and student groups on campus.  Steve entered with his wife and partner Sammi, and jumped right into things.

Steve began his lecture with an explanation of what a social enterprise exactly is,  offering a clear definition of a new concept to first-comers.  He differentiated  between a not-for-profit that depends on donations to operate and a social enterprise that has market-based mechanisms for generating a profit while being committed to a social mission.  After updating each other on the major donations made by CSR programs for relief efforts after the Sichuan earthquake and aftershocks (along with the political undertones of who gave how much and why), the students broke up into teams to resume conversations about their own schemes to start a social enterprise.

I jumped around, listening to and participating in some of the days discussions. Here are a few of the projects his students were developing:

• A dating service that organizes volunteer opportunities for singles,  covering costs of operation by charging an annual fee for subscribers of the service.   Not only would this help younger Shanghainese students meet a special someone, but it would provide volunteer coordination services and helping hands to needy NGOs in the city.

• A service that would help elderly people rent out their homes and relocate to an assisted living community, offering an additional source of income that could support their transition.

• A job placement Web site for not-for-profits, accessed by students who have recently graduated and are unsure about their career paths (or for those students who are sure they don’t want to enter the corporate world, but don’t know what their next step should be.)

When the class reconvened, student delegates from each team explained the progress that was made during the session and described their plan for the upcoming two weeks.  Steve listened carefully to the presentations, interjecting with bits of advice and reality checks that students quickly jotted down, taking to heart.  Steve started making connections between the different brain-children, joking about ways they could collaborate, encouraging each other to offer feedback and remarks.

The class ended with each group ready to move to the next phase, which included drafting a formal business plan.  Steve let his students know that he was recruiting for his own social enterprise, Ebay for Kids, and a group of open ears gathered around the chalkboard after class to hear their professor’s offer, all eager to learn from and work alongside Steve.

Steve is determined to see one of these ideas develop into a real-life case of social enterprise,  so that future semesters can have a go-to example of how effective students can be.  “My plan is to really focus on one of these projects, and see it happen, so that students have a success story to look up to. I hope to expand the class to over a hundred students, from different universities next fall.”

In the meantime, his Fudan students already see Steve as a role model.  While still hesitant to dive head first into an innately risky socially responsible start-up, they are inspired by the idea of improving their nation without having to sacrifice financial stability.  They see Steve and Sammi as a team to look up to.  One of his students that I chatted with on the way out confessed to me that his “parents would probably never let me take a job that wasn’t secure or traditional.  But Steve’s ideas ares so exciting, and can make so much money, that it is hard to turn down.”  Steve is not only planting the idea of social entrepreneurship in young, bright minds, but is offering the logistical support to make these ideas happen, a combination that will certainly be making waves in the near future.

To contact Steve, e-mail him at skoon[at]mac.com.

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