SKOLL 09: Social entrepreneurs will emerge from credit crisis as leaders, predicts Jeff Skoll

The time has come for social entrepreneurs to lead the world out of the financial crisis, says billionaire philanthropist Jeff Skoll.

In his closing address to the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford today, the forum's founder said: ‘Last year I claimed social entrepreneurs had arrived, now it's time for the next step in our evolution. Now it's our time to lead and to show the world the way forward…A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.'

Skoll drew a parallel to the work of Charles Darwin and the debate that raged for many years around his theory of evolution until a totally unrelated event - the discovery of the double-helix DNA structure in 1953 - proved that Darwin was right. Skoll called the discovery of the double-helix an ‘exogenous shot' that propelled Darwin's work to the mainstream.

‘Now we have a new revolutionary, exogenous shot that may well propel social enterprise into the mainstream,' he said. 'The economic crisis could consolidate social entrepreneurship as the most compelling model for social change.

‘I don't know exactly how the economic crisis is going to play out but it seems clear to me social entrepreneurs are going to emerge not only as survivors but as leaders.'

Skoll pointed to positive steps that had already been taken, like a developing partnership between two high-impact social enterprises - Partners for Health and Kiva. And he highlighted the fact that YouthBuild USA - a social enterprise that worked in both affordable housing and education - had already seen a $50m increase in its funding thanks to one of US President Obama's new stimulus packages.

The importance of education featured strongly throughout the final session, as did a series of short videos.

Lord David Puttnam, producer of the films Midnight Express, The Killing Fields and Bugsy Malone, among others, treated the packed auditorium and those watching the proceedings on video in spillover rooms, to a world premiere of seven minutes of a new documentary that he described as ‘very much a work in progress' that he is producing. The film deals with the failure of the current education system to prepare students for the challenges of tomorrow.

Puttnam linked a better education system to the ability of the world to survive the challenge of climate change.

In a nod to the famous insight by HG Wells, Puttnam said: ‘The future is a race between education and catastrophe.

‘If we are going to survive we desperately need the next generation to be smarter, better prepared and more innovative than any before.

He added: ‘Please believe me the fallout of 20 years of financial folly which we are currently experiencing will be nothing as compared with the fallout of 20 years of environmental folly.'

Puttnam told the social entrepreneurs in the audience they were vital to avoiding this catastrophe because they more than other people understood the breadth and depth of the change that needed to take place.

New Skoll awardee, social entrepreneur Soraya Salti, vice president of INJAZ al-Arab gave a speech that dealt with education as well, and her vision to transform the Arab education system from one of rote learning to one that embraced shared learning and entrepreneurialism.

This type of education has been especially embraced by girls and the audience was treated to a film of one of those girls in action in a youth enterprise competition. Even in three short minutes of film the young girl named Waadi kept the room spellbound as she manoeuvred her way through the pitfalls of the competition displaying her confidence and empowerment.

In a highly emotional speech filled with vivid imagery Salti said she was hoping to find one million Waadis each year by 2018 across the Arab world.

Salti presented Jeff Skoll with a book with the words: ‘This is from the land of the prophets and you are a modern day prophet that has reached every corner of the Arab world.'

The new director of Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, Pamela Hartigan was ‘mistress of ceremonies' for the final event and said after the book presentation there was ‘not a dry eye in the house'. Hartigan herself was warmly welcomed by applause and cheers when she first got up to speak and indeed was warmly applauded throughout the conference.

She too focused on the importance of education - in particular the role the Skoll Centre would play in fostering a greater understanding of social entrepreneurship across academia.

She said: ‘I wish to share a secret with you that I hope will be a secret no longer - the centre is not only an entity that co-hosts a forum every year.'

She said that the increasing interest in social entrepreneurship by undergraduates in all fields meant the centre will be hosting an event in April for 600 students to learn more about social entrepreneurship.