Made in Germany: The Business Magazine

Our studio guest this week is Felix Oldenburg, CEO of Ashoka Deutschland.DW: For more I am joined now by Felix Oldenburg, Country Director of Ashoka Germany. Now first of all, you have to explain the name. Ashoka is the name of an Indian emperor, the one who spread Buddhism in India. His symbol, the wheel, is still part of the Indian national flag. How does all of that relate to your organisation? Felix Oldenburg: Well, in fact, Ashoka was started in India thirty years ago, and the Ashoka name means in Sanskrit "overcoming obstacles." And thirty years later, the idea of Ashoka and the organisation has spread to seventy countries. DW: And now this idea, or part of the idea, is to support projects like the one we've just seen in this report. What exactly do you do? How does it work? Felix Oldenburg: It's like a high-tech fund for the social sector really. We find projects with great ideas to solve societal problems in an early stage of their development, just at the stage where it will be decided whether they stay local or whether they indeed go on to transform society and solve a problem large-scale. DW: And do you support both those that want to stay local and those that want to expand, or do you differentiate here? Felix Oldenburg: For us the concept of the social entrepreneur really is the person who not only has a great idea but want to and will change the world no matter what. DW: And how do you find them? Do they apply, or does somebody ring you and say, "This company is really good"? Felix Oldenburg: This is a long and very intensive search process, not unlike venture capital, really. So we go out, find these people and often, after many months of interviews and due diligence, when we are convinced they will go on to change the world, we go and help them financially and with all sorts of other support, to go on and do just that. DW: What's necessary to convince you? Felix Oldenburg: A new idea that can solve a problem. And you have to have the energy and the creativity to see it through. And we're also looking for a high degree of ethical fibre. We have to trust that this person will focus on the problem first, and on their own interests second. DW: And how many such companies exist so far? Felix Oldenburg: We have found two and a half thousand such Ashoka fellows. DW: Over those thirty years? Felix Oldenburg: Over those thirty years. So you can think of it as a universe of ideas that could be replicated elsewhere in the world to solve the world's toughest problems. DW: Now that sounds a bit like the ideal world. I mean the bottom line is, are such companies still profitable? Felix Oldenburg: Well, if you have an idea to change the world and solve a social problem, you're going to be much faster if you are not relying on small grants or on the government. So if you can find that idea and implement it in such a way that it can grow out of itself, it's going to be much more powerful. DW: And in the meantime, you finance these companies, because somehow you have to pay for it. Felix Oldenburg: For a while we do. But we also have a defined exit, so we make sure that these entrepreneurs really connect to each other and to the business sector and to others in the social sector, to do large-scale change. DW: And, of course, we've just seen that there are private investors giving money to a project like Regionalwerk AG. If I'm interested in supporting such a company, how do I find out about it? Felix Oldenburg: Well, you could go on the Ashoka homepage, but really this is a big trend. People see the traditional boundaries of responsibility between the state and the social sector break down and become much more interested in becoming change-makers themselves. Interview: Monika Jones