What if societys challenges create the most exciting opportunities

well it’s wonderful to be here with you

all today and i want to ask you a simple

question

have you ever been to the home of nelson

mandela

i have in 2008 i had the privilege of

traveling to south africa with a range

of people from all over the world people

from every

uh every nation and every corner

of the globe as i went there we were

able to visit the home of the quite

amazing and inspirational

nelson mandela and we also met some of

the heroes of the civil rights movement

right across africa see i started

on a journey of trying to live a life

of impact things that mattered to me

things that had inspired me things that

had stirred my mind and my heart and

caused me to

think differently and try and most

importantly act and live differently

with that group a small team of us were

then invited to go

and visit the amazing nation of

swaziland

swaziland is an incredible place it’s

beautiful

uh it has rolling green hills and it has

the amazing

large red african sun that sets every

night over the flat top trees

it has amazing people with generous

hospitality and

big laughs and bigger hearts

it also has some more sobering things

that it’s unfortunately

infamous for and swaziland is a nation

that’s been declared a national

emergency state because

of hiv and in swaziland right now

one in four adults carries that

infection

and so in that context and this amazing

place of

of a people and a community in a nation

of both huge promise and

and great pain i

met rose

rose was an amazing lady i one day was

taken into

uh her village jumped in a four-wheel

drive

drove down the tarmac road and kept

going for what seemed like an eternity

and then we went off the bitumen tarmac

road and went on to

the dirt road and we kept going and

started to wind up a large mountain and

we kept going and kept driving

and then the dirt road ended and we were

ended up driving over gravel

really just not much more than a simple

walking path

we kept driving and we kept driving and

we kept driving

until eventually the four-wheel drive

couldn’t go any further

and so we were asked to get out of the

car and we continued to walk on foot and

wind up

and up and up the mountain

on the top of the mountain i met a woman

who has

really changed and reframed the way i’ve

thought about

impact the way i thought about

innovation

and the way i’ve understood that both of

those two things act really powerfully

and amazingly together because

innovation at its simplest i’ve been

asked a lot

in my work i’ve worked as an innovation

consultant

i’ve worked as the social entrepreneur

in residence to a global design

agency i’ve had the privilege of

advising and working alongside the

global

chief innovation officer working with

places like

world vision international and the

united nations

i’ve had the uh the privilege of serving

as a judge and a mentor on global

innovation challenges

the last one just last year run right

out of here south australia

and reaching around the world had over

700 teams apply

from 70 nations around the world but in

all of that i’ve been asked a lot

what what is innovation this word gets

used a lot what

what is it actually and for me the best

definition i’ve ever heard is really

simple innovation

is simply finding a new and

better way than what already exists

a new and better way

and rose taught me a new and better way

when we got to the top of the mountain

i sat down and there she was big smile

amazing woman and we began to learn

about her story and

we began to learn about a fairly common

story in her community

rose was a mum she had children

she was also running a small business

and seeking to

create a life for herself and her family

and the people she cared about

but it was very very difficult and quite

a few people like rose were struggling

to be able to send their children to

school and

and about afford education and the

things that were

around that they also struggled around

some simple things like provision and

access

to nutritious healthy food and

access to opportunities to create a

livelihood and have genuine economic

empowerment

and an agency for their own lives and

what was happening

a lot in their community was quite a few

large charities were working with them

and those charities were

providing things like the schooling and

the food and

but rose wasn’t

satisfied we’re just living a life where

charity was the

the foundation that enabled her and her

children her family to live

and so rose began to create

a different way i met rose because

i was there to tour interview

a community bank that she’d set up and

in their community in swaziland they

didn’t have normal banking

they didn’t have the infrastructure that

we take for granted they didn’t have

branches they didn’t have buildings they

often didn’t have

electricity and and the kind of access

to computing

technology and and yet rose had done

something really really amazing and she

created

a community bank she’d found a way

she’d found a new and better way to

bring an impact and rose taught me three

things that i want to share with you

today

those three things really since 2008 in

my life

have been the three things that that i

follow as i seek to continue to walk out

and live this life

of innovation for impact and the first

thing that rose taught me

is that you need to find and meet

a need meet

and need you know so many people in the

innovation world

look in and so many of us who see the

kind of stuff that happens in

startups and technology and the amazing

things that are happening around our

world we

read the news we we scroll through our

phones we

we have a look at the stories of people

who have made a difference

and and we can be mistaken and forgiven

for thinking

that innovation and succeeding in

innovation is all about

finding your great next idea

and if i only found a great idea if i

only found that one idea that was going

to

change the way things worked it would it

would pivot me it would

it would take me to great success it

would enable me to break through and

and do the things i wanted to do and so

people try and find

that one idea or they see people talk

about their great idea

and yet falling in love or trying to

find the idea

isn’t the secret to innovation

the secret to innovation is finding a

problem

it’s finding a need that you care about

that drives you that you’re passionate

about

and then not just finding that need not

just

being aware of that need but then

choosing to act

to do something about it

for rose what drove her was the fact

that

she wanted to have a sense of confidence

and a sense of pride and

ability to be able to provide for her

children her family and she wanted that

for her friends

and she wanted that for others and she

didn’t just want to be someone who sat

and

and asked for handouts she wanted to be

someone who created a future

for herself and for the people she cared

about

that was the problem that was the need

that was driving her

and then she didn’t just see the need

she didn’t just deeply understand the

need she chose to do

something about it and this is what i

love about that community bank that i

saw that day

it wasn’t fancy it wasn’t slick

it was very basic it was incredibly

simple

it was using the tools they did have

access to

to hack away to find a way to do

something really meaningful they began

to actually pull their resources and

on her own rose was was creating a small

micro business

and and and making things and selling

them to people around who might want

them and

and on on her own she wasn’t able to

break through just with that as hard as

she worked from the time she got up

to the time she fell asleep exhausted at

the end of the day

and yet for her she wanted to do one

thing about it and so

creating a banking system where the

small

small amounts of surplus could be

tallied and counted and

pulled with others and gathered and over

time create

revenue and create capacity and

opportunity to do something slightly

bigger

and then slightly bigger and then

slightly bigger and that community bank

model was the first of its kind

in that region that was amazing and it

was because

rose she saw a need she was deeply

connected to it and she did something

about it

that’s what we can do i mean our world

you don’t have to look too far to find

needs all around us

you don’t even have to be as grand as

looking at the big environmental climate

challenges of our day you don’t have to

be as grand as looking at some of the

social and community

challenges in our own cities and and the

suburbs we live in and maybe lots

of us experience in our own lives and

families and

circles you don’t have to look as grand

and as far as understanding the big

economic needs and

what’s going on around around us

you can just look somewhere see

something

it’s not that hard but the secret is

then choosing to do something about it

and again please don’t fall for this

second mistake

don’t fall for thinking that you have to

do

the best thing the perfect thing the

right thing

often it’s choosing to do something

and just starting to move and starting

to act can be a powerful catalyst

for momentum uh the book the art of war

has an amazing phrase has really stuck

with me and it simply says opportunities

are multiplied

when you seize the first one

do something doesn’t have to be the

great thing the perfect thing the best

thing let it be your thing

that responds to a need and meets a need

and

all of a sudden you can start the

journey of innovation

for impact the second thing that rose

taught me

was once you’ve begun to meet a need

it’s time for you to form a team

a great thing about rose is she wasn’t

doing it alone she

she wasn’t trying to just have her idea

and forge ahead and just do her thing

and as she was talking to people about

the problem she experienced

she realized that there were other

people experiencing or

connected to or passionate about the

same need

and the more she sought to listen and

learn about that need and that problem

being experienced by other people

the more she was actually connected to

some other people who cared about that

need

and so rose didn’t go off and do a

community bank by herself

rose partnered up with some others and

collaborated and they began to pull a

little bit of their energy and

we’re going to find other people who

might have some other ways of acting and

moving

and again there’s a great saying it says

if you want to go fast

go alone but if you want to go

far go with others

form your team once you’ve found a need

that you care about

once you’ve chosen to just do something

about that need

talk to others listen ask questions

learn discover be curious about what

others are experiencing and what others

see in that area of need and

and as you do you’re going to find more

and more other people

who care about it like you do and form a

team

forming a team is a powerful thing it

can also be a frustrating thing

i mean it means that always your ideas

aren’t the ones that necessarily get

adopted it

it might mean that there’s compromise

needed it might mean you have to

negotiate and exchange back and forth a

little bit

sometimes it’s easier to just want to

charge off and do your thing

and if you want to go fast for a while

you can do that

but you won’t go far a former team

what rose did with a team is as other

ladies in her community began to gather

and form this collective community bank

and as they began to pull their little

bit of resource and their small amount

of resource together they began to

find something really really powerful

they then collaborated

with a group called the vision fund and

the vision fund opened them up to

connect with other people

who were doing some similar things in

other communities

it was really amazing and rose

discovered that she went

into the power of multiplication into

the the power of collaboration and doing

something far more

than what she could just do alone

meet a need form a team

and then thirdly rose taught me that

it’s really powerful to find your tribe

i’m not talking about literal

but for rose she was connected to this

community bank this collaborative

then she was connected to the vision

fund globally what that did

is they connected her not just to new

markets and new people who might want to

buy their products

but it connected her to other people in

other parts

of swaziland that really were passionate

about this need that she saw and she was

doing something about

then connected her to other people

across africa and other people

around the world ended up with our group

people from around the globe and this

bloke from australia

who had heard about what rose was doing

and who wanted to jump in a four-wheel

drive and

drive and hike and walk up a mountain to

see for myself

because rose was connected to a global

movement and guys this is so powerful

you know often when we’re doing things

in even a small team or we’re trying to

get an innovation off the ground

you speak to speaker to people in the

world of startups like i do

i have the privilege of leading startup

adelaide which is the peak body

for people running innovation companies

and just having a go and

beginning something new and creating a

new startup company

but often people when they’re doing that

they can be

slugging away in ones and twos and

threes and smaller teams and

we all hit hard times as an innovator

when you’re seeking a new and better way

it’s going to be hard

it’s going to be times where you’re

going to be tested and challenged

it’s going to be difficult you’re going

to hit times where your motivation is

low where

your sense of strength and energy is low

well your sense of optimism

for what you want to do is low and in

those times

being connected to a broader tribe

finding your

tribe that becomes a movement of

energy that can sustain you is really

powerful

in san francisco silicon valley there’s

there’s a culture there’s a saying

that if you want to go and be part of

the innovation tribe

in silicon valley you have to choose to

understand that you have to give

before you get and you can get plugged

in to that tribe and you can get plugged

in

to that movement of people who help you

and give you advice and encouragement

and support

but you don’t go first to try and get

from that tribe you first go

with an attitude of radical generosity

even if you’re starting small to say hey

i’m here

i’d like to connect i’d like to plug in

i’m here

what can i do how can i give how can i

support

and that exchange of energy is a

powerful force and in innovation and

startup land

it’s a powerful force to plug into that

now there

is a global tribe happening right now a

global movement

of innovation for impact in toronto some

of

my collaborators are running a thing

called the mars discovery district and

they are totally changing the way that

innovation across north america

is conceptualized they’ve taken

companies who’ve

tried to do new technology work and and

they’ve actually turned that into a

force for good helping society

it’s been amazing you know jp morgan the

investment company actually predicts

that very very soon

that innovation for impacts so startups

or companies wanting to use their profit

for purpose

is going to turn into a 10 trillion

dollar market every year

making it one of the largest places to

invest one of the greatest opportunities

around the world

10 trillion dollars you know deloitte

did a survey just recently

of over a thousand companies around the

world and discovered

that if a company right now whether it’s

small starting up or large

if it actually doesn’t have a clear

social or environmental purpose

then it’s not going to exist in 10 years

time

think about all the success stories we

hear if they’re not actually a force for

good in our world

they’re not going to be supported this

exchange is happening around the world

this

movement this tribe is a powerful one

and the great thing is guys you can

reach out and do it from your desktop

from your laptop from your phone here

you can

begin to look up things like the b

corporation movement

the social capital movement you can look

up things and just seek

innovation for impact and there are

communities that would love to hear from

you

one of them exists right here in

adelaide

and one of them is this tedx movement

you’re in this room right now and a

crowd can turn into a tribe if you

connect around these things but

startup adelaide is an amazing movement

it’s a tribe happening in our city and

i’m really inspired by these people

and there are some amazing people

disrupting and reframing

using innovation for good in new ways

that are really inspiring i’m

learning about teams that are reframing

education

there’s a team right now in adelaide who

are identifying and finding potential

student leaders

in schools and regions that they get

overlooked by everybody else

and they’re finding a new way through

their innovation to resource and support

these amazing student leaders there are

teams right now that are reframing human

impacts

groups that have come from europe and

are basing now in here and are looking

for people

to help them and they’re reframing a new

app that’s going to be helping and

connecting

the parents and caregivers of children

with a disability

to help break through the isolation

barrier in their lives

there are people right here teams that

are reframing farming

and farmers in our community do it tough

sometimes and

and these people are actually taking

satellites and aerospace

and they’re using that technology to get

it in the hands of farmers with simple

little tools

and helping these farmers predict

rainfall and be able to respond

powerful ways these are the teams

that are part of a tribe that are

changing the world

rose is an amazing lady my suspicion is

if you’re watching this if you hear

that there’s a seed in you that’s pretty

amazing too

we can all find a need

that we care about we all know that we

need to find new and better ways

in our communities and our cities in our

world

anyone here can form a team

and you can all find your tribe

and i finish with this

we’re in a unique moment in human

history like

never before there are things happening

in our lives in our world

that humanity has never seen

and in that regard you and i are

stewards of this moment

what are you going to do with it

innovators what are you going to do

people passionate about a problem or a

need

what’s your choice going to be don’t

worry about doing the

best thing the coolest thing

what’s your thing

this moment is an opportunity and you

can start

today thank you

you