Hello, everyone. And welcome to module two of this course. This is focused on building a social business. In this module, you will learn about the various building blocks of what it takes to develop a social business, from the initial identification of the problem, to finding a solution, to identifying your stakeholders and to finally running the operations of your social business. The key learning outcome of this session one, is to be able to identify a social problem and to have a deeper understanding of its causes and effects. As you have learned from listening to speakers such as Professor Muhammad Yunus and Korean Bozena of Grameen Danone in Module one, the seeds of a social business start when you have seen a problem in your community or locality that you are passionate about solving, it boils down to why are you doing this? You must ask yourself, What is that problem? And if you have to break it down, what are the causes and effects of that problem? To fully identify the social problem, let's use the problem Tree tool. There are three key features of the problem Tree tool. Number one, the trunk, which is the problem itself. Number two, the roots, which are the causes of the problem. And number three, the branches, which are the effects of the problem. It is important to first identify the trunk of the problem, because that then allows us to identify the roots and then the branches. >> If you see the tool, we started the trunk of the tree. >> When we identify the problem itself, remember, the definition of this trunk also helps and narrowing down on the causes of the problem. Otherwise, you might have quite widespread roots. Take, for example, the problem of lack of job opportunities for low income youth. In developing countries such as India, there is a large demographic dividend comprised of over half of the population under the age of 25. Millions of youth applied to join the workforce annually, but a vast proportion remain unemployed due to the low level of skills earned during high school or undergraduate study, or perhaps a lack of ability to receive and complete high quality, well rounded education. When we move into the roots of the tree, this is where we identify the causes of the problem. In other words, why this problem exists the key here is to ask yourself why? And here you may arrive at most of the root causes for the problem, and at times you may also come to a hidden cause. In the case of this problem, you need to ask yourself, why does a skills mismatch exist for low income youth in this sector? The three causes of this problem are, one, lack of knowledge of quality education. Number two, lack of financial capacity for paying educational fees. Number three, lack of available skills training. When sketching out the roots of the problem, you should ideally be able to identify the primary as well as a secondary causes. It is important here not to give solutions to the problem while defining the causes. The causes need to be more general and social business entrepreneurs need to be more creative in finding solutions to the relevant problems. Once we move into the branches of the tree, this is where we need to identify the effects or the symptoms of that problem. In the case of this problem, a skills mismatch has many effects on society as a whole, for example, without access to quality education and purposeful vocational training, the cycle of unemployment continues to perpetuate. In addition, we also have under employment, whereby a student who could have been trained for a white collar job, only has the skills to work in a blue collar job. This leads to the inability to ascend the social mobility ladder, and the continuation of low standards of living and low incomes. On a societal level, there will continue to be a supply demand gap, where the demand of skilled professionals across different sectors is high. But there is continually a low supply of trained workers to be placed in these jobs. This will eventually lead to a slow growth economy. By correctly identifying the effects of this problem, you can also visualize the impact that you can create through your solution. Now that we have walked through the problem tree, let's understand why social business theorists and practitioners use this tool. There are three main reasons. Number one, It helps us to break down the problem into manageable and if in herbal chunks, this will initially help in a clear defining of objectives, and it will later help in better management of resources. Number two, It offers better understanding of the problem. Number three, It allows us to understand that there are interconnected as well as contradictory causes, and often when there will be a vicious cycle, the effects of the problem will actually lead to causes. To conclude, most social business practitioners work on the causes and are hoping to eradicate the problem. But often at times, the problem can be too large for one social business to address on its own, a large ecosystem is needed to facilitate and foster multiple social businesses to address the same problem. It is important to note that one needs to work on the effects of the problem, and be preventative instead of curative, and in this way work towards eradicating the problem. As the next step, I'd like you to think about what's the problem that you are passionate about. Why, what are its causes? What are its effects? What part of the problem are you keen to work on in building your social business, and how can you use the problem tree to develop your thought process further? In the next session, we will learn how to develop a solution to the problem, using a theory of change tool.
