Digital Opportunity Trust Research Project
During the duration of the DOT social entrepreneur project we were tasked with conceptualising a robust set of tools that emerging entrepreneurs in all regions of Africa could use to jumpstart their small businesses. It was pivotal that we understood the localisation of each region in order to find a common ground set of features that would work for each region, while understanding what made each region culturally unique. Once our concepts came to fruition, we then embarked on a month long research project to Tanzania, Ghana, and Jordan to test our ideas with local entrepreneurs. These are our findings.
During the duration of the DOT social entrepreneur project we were tasked with conceptualising a robust set of tools that emerging entrepreneurs in all regions of Africa could use to jumpstart their small businesses. It was pivotal that we understood the localisation of each region in order to find a common ground set of features that would work for each region, while understanding what made each region culturally unique.
Once our concepts came to fruition, we then embarked on a month long research project to Tanzania, Ghana, and Jordan to test our ideas with local entrepreneurs. These are our findings.
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KEY FINDINGS
“Entrepreneurs are coordinators,
conductors, not creators; 90 percent
of my time is planning, feeding
fabrics together, getting feedback.”
“You need something that’s real. It’s
about testing. … Your optics change
on the ground. … I’d rather be wrong
today, than wrong tomorrow.”
“If it’s all in [Ideasource], this would
become one of my most used apps.”
Entrepreneurship and the social enterprise scene can
greatly benefit from these offerings.
The practice of social innovation is alive and well in each country
we visited, boasting a spectrum of entrepreneurs from novices to
experts. Well-connected communities of social entrepreneurship
as a craft are still nascent, and users found that the four concepts
tested all contributed to a powerful community-building that
would help social enterprise be self-sufficient, sustainable, and
locally relevant.
The preference is for digital innovation.
The vast amount of networking within social innovation
communities begins digitally, mainly through social media. Users
confirmed their interest in digital tools to increase potential
linkages, curate networks, connect to those interested in similar
causes, provide flexibility to undertake innovation projects out
of the office, and continue using and sharing online resources.
Digital’s opportunity is its omnipresence, which makes users feel
supported and uninhibited.
While digital spaces are all about opportunity, physical spaces
are primarily about legitimacy—having a known place to meet,
connect, share, and dream together helps people understand
what they are making is real, impactful, and tangible.
Entrepreneurialism is coordination and facilitation.
Most of a social entrepreneur’s successes come through wellplanned,
tested strategies and a willingness to tolerate a certain
amount of risk. Helping young innovators understand value,
balance risk, and calculate how to prioritize their time and
energy will enable them to connect the dots more capably as
they build their businesses.
Empower through shrinking.
By moving people towards actionable goals, DOT can help
social innovators get real versions of their ideas out faster. The
ideological challenge will be to help youth understand that
micro-versions of their dreams are even more valid than their
visions because they can actually exist in concrete form. There’s
a power in leanness and making something small, through
research, strategy, piloting, and pivoting.
The system needs to be holistic.
Users want a complete package of everything social
entrepreneurship. While some worried about the application
feeling heavy, the benefit of connecting every aspect of one’s
work is essential for greater success and greater impact. This is
ideal as long as DOT makes informed development choices about
when to use data and leverage existing APIs.
10
THE FUTURE OF DOT:
BRINGING CONCEPTS TO LIFE
11 9
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