(photo from Boston Globe Article)

I am passionate about entrepreneurship and individual empowerment, it is no secret. Part of my personal mission is just that, to empower individuals for societal advancement through value-based entrepreneurship. I believe profit is an important indicator of impactful ideas and a resource for continued development. I have written on the “selfless-ness of entrepreneurship” here.

I recently came across an article here about a man with a similar vision who is doing some fantastic work in moving the vision forward. His name is Iqbal Z. Quadir, founder of the The Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT. Quadir founded Grameenphone in Bangladesh, a company valued at $3 billion that brings telephone service and prosperity through employment to millions who have not had it until now. He teamed up with the Grameen Bank to bring about the company. Grameen Bank was founded by Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Prize recipient. A large part of the profits going to Grameen Bank help fund the powerful micro-credit business it helped popularize that brings additional prosperity by giving opportunity and expecting responsible action with micro-loans (I’m a fan of Grameen as well…). The Legatum Center’s purpose follows suit, to bring technology and development to impoverished countries through for-profit ventures. There are powerful advantages to private action such as this:

MIT Economics Professor Bengt Holmstrom, a member of the Legatum Center executive committee, said there is merit in Quadir’s view that pouring more aid money into Third World governments will simply feed and empower politicians and fuel corruption. Holmstrom said the center’s “focus on entrepreneurship and self-help, and its bottom-up approach, are really distinguishing features.’’…

Entrepreneurship is what has brought developing societies out of poverty in the past and is what will continue to work in the future. As individuals are empowered, additional social values become more important to them, leading to more substantial changes in government, societal philosophy, and further progression. Utilizing the prestige of a school like MIT to fuel this mission is simply another powerful step to substantial global impact:

“To take the credibility of MIT, and the smarts of their graduate students, and to layer it [with] the game-changing idea of for-profit innovation, can be part of the salvation and the path out of poverty for literally tens of millions of people,’’ [Ira A.] Jackson said.

The article lists a small handful of current projects underway from the center and each stands to make a powerful impact.  Here are a few:

■Nada Hashmi, a second-year fellow, is developing a venture that she plans to start in Saudi Arabia, where she grew up, that will run high-tech health vans to allow city hospitals to treat patients in rural areas. Hashmi, who is earning a doctorate from Sloan in technology innovation entrepreneurship and has a background in computer science, said the center’s weekly meetings with successful entrepreneurs helped the fellows see ways past the obstacles to creating a company in a poor country.

■Robin Bartling, from Kassel, Germany, who also studied at Sloan, used his fellowship last year to prepare the launch of a business marketing high-potential foods from small producers in Latin America. He made a product-scouting trip to Peru and Colombia, where he gathered 80 or 90 ideas. He learned that the traditional quinoa plant, grown in the Andes, yielded a gluten-free grain alternative for people with celiac disease. Bartling and his wife have launched a company, VICO Brands, that will work with farmers to produce quinoa-based products such as cereal and energy bars.

It can be summed up with this statement from the article:

“It is simple but profound: Entrepreneurship and innovation can change the world.’’

‘nough said…

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