SECON 2021
Social Enterprise is defined as “Organizations that address a basic unmet need or solve a social or environmental problem through a market-driven approach.” (https://socialenterprise.us/about/social-enterprise/)
The 21st Annual Social Enterprise Conference (SECON 2021) is a yearly dialogue, debate, and expression around Social Enterprise held at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School halls. This conference brings together like-minded people will to willing to discuss issues involved within social enterprise. By bringing together leaders in industry they look at solutions that can enable businesses and people to be more of consequences in business and develop solutions.
I am currently taking a Social Entrepreneurship at Campbell University where my class and I were invited to attend SECON 2021. I found this conference to be very insightful and see future problems that society is being confronted with today.
At SECON 2021, I attend the seminar on “The Future of Capitalism” where it expanded my mind to how businesses can contribute to social enterprise and help redefine capitalism. In this seminar, they discussed how the 1980’s version of capitalism has changed with technology and businesses and people need to see how social enterprise can impact society for the better. One thing that was interesting was how they focused on the coronavirus and how businesses changed in order to combat and change society. Where basic needs of countries were not getting met, necessities like clean water, soap, and food. The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted how as a society and businesses can meet these basic needs for people and enable them to assist in a more socially aware enterprise; where people can work together and answer these basic issues. The speakers discussed how businesses responded to the coronavirus and joined together to deliver the needs of the society of developing a streamlined production in soap and delivering them to other countries in need. It is with examples like this that we can see how businesses can work together to better society and see a lasting impact.