The Joburg buzz...

I was sitting at Dopio Zero near Emerentia with my parentals on Sunday at about lunch time, and is was wild, not bad wild, that kind of intangible buzz that only a big cosmopolitan city can have. Energy! And lots of it. There's something about this city - It's so good to be be back.

My first 11 days in Joburg

the journey has certainly begun!

My approach to date has been to just gather as much information as I can by meeting people who are both interesting and interested in social business. Given the fast growth of CSR in South Africa over the last couple of years, people are generally very receptive of the idea BUT there is little and mainly absolutely no knowledge of the concept.

However, there is a serious trend towards investing in more sustainable projects and companies are also looking for ways that they can use their company expertise in a lot of cases. So maybe that's the social business gap?!

Here is an overview of the interesting meetings I have had so far:

1. Amy Hertz who is running the social entrepreneurship certificate programme at GIBS which is the leading business school in South Africa. I had really interesting discussions with her about development in general, the difference between social entrepreneurship and social business and exchanged lots of contacts.

2. Bottom of the Pyramid Hub Team (GIBS) - they invited me to join a meeting in which they were discussing a book they are currently writing about BOP businesses in South Africa. So interesting, but very focussed on profit generating ventures.

3. Charles Rolinson who started an enterprise called Wizzit Bank that provides banking to the unbanked through cell phone banking. Fascinating work!

4. A CSR executive at a "big four" audit firm in South Africa, who gave me a very good idea of how CSR works in South Africa.

He explained where social business would fit into the black economic empowerment (BEE) scorecard which is a tool used to manage economic transformation in South Africa. Unfortunately, from what I can understand, social business would not fall under the "enterprise development" category which earns far higher points because it is not a profit maximising enterprise. This would mean that CSR programmes would receive a higher score (and thus be eligible for government tenders etc) if they rather invested in a social entrepreneur's venture. But this is something that I must look into to clarify.

5. An executive director of the same audit firm who is charge of infrastructure, government and healthcare. She has arranged me meeting with her sector leaders of education, healthcare, water and rural development which will give me an idea of the needs in South Africa.

That's all for now on the social business front :)