Mr. Paul O'Hara:

I thank Senators Quinn, Mac Conghail and Healy Eames for proposing this public consultation. I thank everybody for hearing it.

I wish to give the historical context to this global movement and introduce Ashoka and how it can change a nation. The Members will then hear the contribution of two great social entrepreneurs as part of this submission and I will close with some ideas on how Oireachtas Members can work more closely with social entrepreneurs.

The Ashoka movement was built by Bill Drayton, who could see that all the major social transformations throughout history had been driven by individuals, either visibly or invisibly. He was thinking about people such as Maria Montessori and Florence Nightingale who transformed their fields. They were, of course, not considered social entrepreneurs at the time, but effectively that is what they would now be known as. They saw a problem in their field and they used all the entrepreneurial endeavour of a business entrepreneur to see that the field was transformed. Bill Drayton spent a lot of time in India and was very challenged by the development gap between there and North America where he had grown up. He thought a really key lever of development was identifying these individuals in local community who had transformative ideas across the fields of education, health care and so on. He set about trying to identify them back in 1980. He coined the term "social entrepreneur" and through identifying social entrepreneurs effectively, initiated the field, which has now grown.

The Ashoka network alone has 3,000 social entrepreneurs across 72 countries. The movement has grown far beyond that. The media is covering it widely and there is hardly a business school that does not have a module on social entrepreneurship. The majority of the top business entrepreneurs in the world, Richard Branson and Bill Gates and people like them, are backing social entrepreneurs in some shape or form. It has started to enter the mainstream of politics. José Manuel Barroso has been the champion of social innovation at EU level. President Obama opened an office for social innovation at the White House in the first year of becoming President. In Ireland, the Taoiseach is getting behind this movement, and the hearing today is a testament to it as well.

Let me expound upon the role and value of a social entrepreneur. Their primary function is to solve problems in society, but they also serve a very important role as mass recruiters of change makers.

Therefore, in order to achieve their vision, every social entrepreneur has to recruit thousands of people behind what it is they are trying to achieve. That has a significant impact because some of those change makers will go on to be social entrepreneurs themselves and it changes their identity and sense of responsibility as citizens. In that regard, it is a snowballing movement that is irreversible, which is a hopeful thing to think about. The reason so many people are into it is because it is extremely satisfying to give of yourself to society. I am sure Members of the committee are familiar with that. More and more people are recognising that fact. In the Harvard Business School, more students are taking social enterprise studies than finance, which is demonstrable of this shift.

The role that social entrepreneurs play includes trying to change policy, which is why they will be interacting with the Oireachtas. Some of them are creating entirely new markets that we did not have before. They are building bridges between business and society, which were unbuilt over a few hundred years since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Those bridges are important in tackling major social problems, with the Government, civil society and business working together. Social entrepreneurs are at the nexus of that in many of the big transitions. As I said earlier, they are master change makers, creating a new culture in society. They are also cultivating empathetic ethics, which is an important transition for societies to take.

As regards the overall vision of this movement in Ireland and across the world, from Ashoka's perspective, we are seeking to build societies where everybody can be a change maker. Social entrepreneurs are the key to bringing us there. If one can imagine a world where everybody has the confidence and skill to solve problems where, or even before, they arise, it will equip society much better to deal with the social, economic and environmental challenges we face. It will also be a critical success factor. If Ireland wants to be successful in the global economy, a key thing will be the percentage of the population that are change makers. That is true for any company, city or country. The majority of the skills for change making are learned skills that we can all cultivate from a young age: creativity, leadership, the ability to work with others, and empathy. All these skills can be practised over time.

Ashoka started in 1981 and spread across the world. It started in western Europe initially in 2003. We have since invested about €50 million in supporting 360 social entrepreneurs across 18 countries in Europe. We are trying to build the field from the bottom up. We have supported 12 social entrepreneurs in Ireland, two of which the committee will hear from shortly. As regards the impact of social entrepreneurs, 83% of them will have changed a system at national level within ten years. That is a significant impact that they are all having. More than 90% of them have their ideas independently replicated, which is another very good indicator. If it is copied by somebody, it is a sign that it is a good idea.

We have built this network of 360 social entrepreneurs, as well as 220 business leaders investing. We also have 100 corporate partners and 50 staff across 15 offices in Europe. We now want to use that powerful network to build societies where everyone can be a change maker.

Change Nation was born out of a recognition that a lot of the solutions to Ireland's challenges exist both at home and abroad. A few years ago we started to experiment with importing solutions, the first of which was Ciel Bleu, an organisation in France that provides adapted physical exercise for older people. That is now functioning in about 30 nursing homes and community centres, with more than 1,000 elderly people availing of those services every week across the country. It is doubling in size year on year, so hopefully more than 2,000 people will be involved 12 months from now.

As part of Change Nation, the vision was to bring 50 of the world's top social innovators to Ireland to start working on challenges we face in the fields of education, health care, sustainability, inclusion and job creation. Last March, the 50 people came here and, at this point, some 20 solutions are up and running which impact on people's lives in Ireland. There are another 20 still in the pipeline. Many of the leaders of these ideas are sitting in the Visitors' Gallery, so one can see that they are quite a young contingent - the next generation of change makers in Ireland.

I will cite a couple of examples. One is Roots of Empathy, which is a programme from Canada that has been proven to reduce bullying, aggression and violence amongst young people. It increases pro-social behaviour as well as social and emotional intelligence. For the last 15 years, this has been proven in thousands of schools in Canada and New Zealand. It started in Ireland a couple of years ago and is now in 160 schools across the island of Ireland. The goal with Roots of Empathy is that every young person will have an opportunity to participate in the programme by the end of 2016. That is being done in partnership with Barnados and the HSE. We hope to get the Department of Education and Skills on board with that one as well.

Another example is JUMP Maths, which is a Canadian innovation. Using a new methodology for teaching mathematics, it allows even the weakest children to come up to a much more significant grade based on a new understanding of cognition and of how people learn maths. Under the leadership of the Minister of State, Deputy Ciarán Cannon, that will be piloted in schools across Galway and the Athlone region, starting in September next year.

Project Echo is being championed in the Seanad by Senator Fidelma Healy Eames. It is an innovation from New Mexico that uses video technology which allows consultants to distribute knowledge to general practitioners. It significantly reduces waiting lists and costs in the health care system, thus empowering GPs to deal with more things at a local level. It is done by case learning through video-conferencing. As a starting point, we are seeking to pilot that in the treatment of mental illness, neurology and diabetes. That is progressing along but is a little bit stuck in the HSE. Hopefully, however, the committee might be able to help with that.