Sparkin’ up our future leaders.

I was invited by Maria Antonakos of Opus Philanthropy to speak to her Philanthropy class in the Commerce program at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton. She asked me to talk about social finance and ‘a little bit about how you ended up doing what you do”.

I prepared the short presentation below to give the overview of social finance, social enterprise, and social innovation but somehow ended up getting into some fun rants about making choices to venture toward a just and sustainable society. I learned that they were just beginning to make their career choices and over the conversation I realized what an extraordinary privilege we have in our society to take risks and know that if we fail there is a strong support structure around us. Our main fears of failure relate to ego – not survival. Ironic really because if we don’t take risks and venture forward to create a better future we are playing with the possibility that we actually put our survival at stake. A bit drastic maybe but worth a thought. Bottom line, while some think that now’s a terrible time to start a business, if it’s a social venture I don’t think there’s ever been a better time.

Apparently my rants inspired them as I’ve now been invited to speak at their World Congress in the Student Development track. Based on the amount of fun I had – I can’t wait to do it again!

Full presentation available here (Keynote format)