The seventh annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit gathered last month in Silicon Valley, a fitting location for an event that celebrates the power of innovation to improve lives, create economic growth and change the world. Here in the US, and especially in the San Francisco Bay area, we are quite familiar with many of the high-tech startups that have made us more efficient, effective and connected. But today, entrepreneurs and early adopters are also flourishing in some of the most remote communities of the world.
People living in isolated communities in Africa are often the first to embrace new technologies like mobile payments, before they have taken root in the US. Entrepreneurs in India are using small microfinance loans to build businesses, often generating enough revenue to create jobs in their communities. And when we look at some of the biggest challenges like insufficient electricity through the developing world, we see entrepreneurial approaches like home solar power kits being introduced alongside more traditional solutions like major power plants.
Entrepreneurship connects all the world’s people, as both the source of breakthroughs that improve the way we live and work and as an engine of job creation and economic growth. And while startup businesses embody an entrepreneurial spirit, so too do many of the nonprofits that develop innovative solutions to longstanding challenges, as well as the governments that support entrepreneurs.
This year’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit, in fact, featured an entire panel devoted to the ways the US government catalyses investment in emerging markets. Two of the participants on this panel were partners of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). As the US government’s development finance institution, OPIC helps US businesses support sustainable development in some of the places where it is needed most.
One of the partners being featured at the summit was QuantumID, a small startup that developed a handheld cloud-based cargo-tracking technology that has helped make air transport more affordable and efficient in some emerging markets.
Our other partner is Root Capital, a nonprofit social investment fund that works to empower small rural farmers, from Latin America to sub-Saharan Africa, by providing financing for things like seeds, fertiliser and farm equipment, together with training, so that they can grow more food and connect with larger markets. Root has established an innovative set of processes to judge the creditworthiness of farmers who do not have the traditional collateral used to borrow money. With a repayment rate of close to 100%, it has shown that even poor farmers can be a good credit risk.
At first glance, these two partners are different in almost every way. But they both embody the need for a variety of entrepreneurial solutions, not just in technology but also some much older industries, like agriculture, where so many farmers around the world still struggle to produce enough food for their immediate families.
Today, as we look to support projects that will have a meaningful impact on people’s lives, we realise that many of the best solutions often come from entrepreneurs who identify new approaches to old problems, and identify some of the new challenges that our always-changing world will face.
These innovative thinkers and early adopters exist everywhere – in Silicon Valley, but also in sub-Saharan Africa, in the legendary startup garages, and in even more humble venues that may lack electricity. This spirit to start a business or develop a new product or service is universal, and its impact can be found around the world.