SWF09 Interviews: Dev Appanah and Elnor Rozenrot

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2009-03-26 08:35:00 UTC
Topics:

SWF09 Interviews: Dev Appanah and Elnor Rozenrot from Nathaniel Whittemore on Vimeo.

This interview with Dev Appanah of LGT Venture Philanthropy and Elnor Rozenrot of Innosight Ventures and dovetails perfectly with the post I just published about social entrepreneurs being increasingly for-profit by default. Indeed, my example of the washing machine on wheels project came out of this interview. Perhaps the most interesting part is the point that Dev brings up towards the end. Basically he shares the story of talking to people incubating businesses in Asia who say "Why raise equity or debt capital when we can just write grants?"

The question he begs is implicit: Are we breeding generations of "leaders" in the developing world who know how to access Western development capital but not build wealth-creating businesses? And if so, are we undercutting the potential for future economic growth and development?

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
PREVIOUS STORY:
For-Profit By Default?
NEXT STORY:
Facing Forward: The End of the Social Entrepreneurship Blog on Change.org

COMMENTS (0)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.