Hey Changemaker!

Happy Sunday :)

We have just kicked off Day 4 of the #StartingGood Virtual Summit and are super excited to share today’s sessions with you:

Michel Bauwens, Founder P2P Foundation | Founder Journey P2P and the Commons

After working at a telco in Belgium in the ’90s Michel realized he was not happy, and in fact, as he puts it “part of the problem” He took a two-year sabbatical and began looking at two key notions of how positive change can happen for people and planet.

One is peer to peer:

“I think the big change today is the capacity of billion of people literally to connect to each other, to organize together and even to create value together” - Michel Bauwens

The other is the commons:

“(It’s} any shared resource that is driven and maintained by a community and has its own rules and norms. I look at how I think we are transitioning from a system that was based on capital state and nation to a system that is based on productive commons. So global open design communities, but share their knowledge. Generative markets, so markets that work for the commons and do not extract from the commons. They don't kill them.” - Michel Bauwens

Watch: Michel Bauwens in conversation with Tom Dawkins CEO of StartSomeGood here

Sasha Dichter, Chief Innovation Officer at Acumen | Innovation, Impact Investment + Lean Data.

As Acumen’s Chief Innovation Officer, Sasha oversees Acumen’s three fastest-growing verticals: Lean Data, which brings customer voice into impact measurement; the Acumen Fellows Programs, with more than 400 Fellows globally; and +Acumen, the World’s School for Social change. In his previous role as Acumen’s Director of Business Development, Sasha led global capital raising, including executing a successful $100M capital raise.

“I think there's a strong and healthy tension in everything that we do. You know, social change through markets has a tension, reaching low income customers and ensuring that they are paying so that the business can be sustainable has a tension. And yes, being a nonprofit that is deploying capital to for-profits also has a tension. So obviously, that's something that we debated endlessly over time.”- Sasha Dichter

Watch: Sasha Dichter in conversation with Tom here

Patricia Letayf, Co-Founder Five One Labs | Entrepreneurship in Iraq: Overcoming Challenges and Embracing Opportunities.

The mission of Five One Labs is to help refugees and conflict-affected entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses while also supporting the development of post-conflict societies using entrepreneurship. The name Five One Labs comes from the 1951 Refugee Convention that gives refugees the right to work,

This session is particularly fascinating as Patricia shares the universal aspects of entrepreneurship, equally true there, here, everywhere, like the importance of co-founders, while also highlighting what was unique to their extraordinary setting, or post-conflict societies more generally, including a lack of language and legal protections.

Watch: Patricia Letayf in conversation with Tom here

Feeling Social? You're invited to join us in the facebook group - StartingGood Social Entrepreneurs Network and continue the conversation!

If you are enjoying the summit please spread the good word. Give us a shout out on social media using #StartingGood19 and invite your friends to join you at starting.gd

Onwards and Upwards!

Kate, Sammi, Tom and the whole StartingGood Team

P.S. If you’re feeling the buzz but already know you are way too busy to listen in this month, no sweat, you can lock in unlimited lifetime access to #StartingGood19 for just $97USD, and go at your own pace.