By Linn Rosaker
By utilizing individual gifts, blessings, talents and resources people have the great opportunity to build a better world one person at the time.
“By using our imagination, dare to think and dream of a new world we can really create a better society,” said Warner Woodworth BYU professor of organizational psychology, to The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum.
The Forum was held Thursday, May 10, in the Marriott Hotel as a part of the monthly UVEF meetings.
Mark Thomas, a representative for Ceberians, an Internet filtering company, said he attends these meeting to meet people from the community and share ideas.
Woodworth, who has spent the last three decades developing and teaching micro-entrepreneurship tools and methods for third world countries, was invited to talk about how business entrepreneurs can become social entrepreneurs.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world,” Woodworth said.
Woodworth has helped a number of non-profit organizations start creating permanent improvements in the quality of life for poor people in developing countries.
One of these organizations is Unitus, which helps individual entrepreneurs start their own businesses with micro-credit lending.
Micro-credit lending “promotes self-employment and economic self-reliance through small ”micro” loans that provide necessary money to start small businesses,” Woodworth said.
Jeff Burningham, who attended the UVEF meeting as a representative for Mindwire Interactive, a newly started web-integrator firm, said he one day hopes to be able to help other nations by contributing knowledge as well as money.
Woodworth said students should read and become more educated about the conditions in poorer parts of the world that are in need of this kind of aid.
Understanding these needs can give students opportunities to help and serve the society and the world by contributing time as well as knowledge.
Woodworth said the great thing about entrepreneurs is their ability to see a need and then invent something to fill that need.
He defined a social entrepreneur as “one who conceives, organizes, manages and assume the risks of an enterprise created for the good of society.”
All people who have the fortune of an education should become social entrepreneurs and help to do good in their communities as well as in the world, Woodworth said.
