Alex Budak

10,000 years ago our ancestors began coming together in makeshift villages and using the most primitive of tools to improve life for themselves.  10 millennia later, it’s hard to comprehend how dramatically technologies have evolved and changed and, concurrently, human society and the planet as well.  Growing up in Silicon Valley, I’ve seen from a young age the latent potential inherent in technology, but it wasn’t until I began traveling around the world, and studying it in the classroom, that I saw how technologies — utilized for the social good — could fundamentally change the world in ways neither our ancient, nor even our recent, ancestors could have imagined.

In just the last decade, we’ve seen Google make accessible nearly all of the world’s information; hundreds of thousands of people from around the globe dedicate their time to sharing knowledge in Wikipedia; and computers shrink from mainframes to mobile phones.  It’s the exponential growth of these technologies that hold so much promise, but it’s up to social entrepreneurs to ensure that these chips, bits, and “ones and zeroes” be utilized to improve the world. 

Imagine the promise of a child in the developing world as he or she receives a “one laptop per child” PC, and how, thanks to this technology, is able to connect not just with their village, or country, but quite literally with the entire world.  Think of the way Ashoka Fellows take the lessons of social entrepreneurship, and utilize technology in new ways to boldly solve problems.  Indeed it’s a lesson drawn from many of the best entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley — to create solutions bigger than oneself — to create a public good for humanity.

Despite how far we’ve come in 10,000 years, there still exist so many social problems that beg for solutions.  Thanks to the promise of technology, and the inspirational work of so many social entrepreneurs, the solutions, more than ever, seem within reach.

It’s my hope that, because of work going on now — and in the future — by social entrepreneurs leveraging technology for the social good, I’ll look back in a few decades and hardly recognize from where we’ve come.

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I originally posted this on the Ashoka Tech Blog.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on these issues — whether you agree, disagree, or just want to talk social entrepreneurship.