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