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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 429 – 434

(Elsevier) The 2012 International (Spring) Conference on Asia Pacific Business Innovation &
Technology Management

Technology social venture: A new genré of social

entrepreneurship?

Kamariah Ismaila, Mir Hossain Sohela, Umee Nor Ayunizaa

a
Management Faculty, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.

Abstract

Technology social venture (TSV)’s represent a unique genre of social venture which attempts to satisfy
a social need through technological innovation in a financially sustainable manner. This paper attempts to
differentiate TSV from social entrepreneurship on the basis of two factors – innovative use of technology
and its capacity of replication. Followed by the Archival research method, this exploratory study used the
cases of Benetech Inc and Verdant power in this regard. The study concludes that TSV’s are different
from traditional social ventures and argues for further research to establish it as a separate academic field.

© 2012
2011 Published
PublishedbybyElsevier
ElsevierLtd.
Ltd. Selection
Selection and/or
and/or peer-review
peer-review under
under responsibility
responsibility of theof thePacific
Asia Asia Pacific
Business Innovation and Technology Management Society Open
Business Innovation and Technology Management Society (APBITM).”access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Keywords: Technology social venture; social venture; societal development; technological innovation.

1. Introduction

Entrepreneurship is essentially creative in nature. It is a matter of exploration, exploitation and

initiation of new things, new ways of doing things, new methods of production, new use and new markets
for products and services. It is seen as a pathway to the solutions of some major problems facing modern
society and innovation is an integral element of it to ensure economic growth and prosperity [1]. Various
types of entrepreneurship are emerging, e.g. traditional commercial entrepreneurship which emphasizes
on growth, profitability and ultimately wealth creation and social entrepreneurship (SE), on the other
hand, emphasizes on innovating ways to solve major societal problems rather than creating individual
wealth [18]. Along with these two types of entrepreneurship, a new genre of entrepreneurship is emerging
recently named Technology Social Venture (TSV) which falls at the intersection of SE and technology
innovation. Despite the fact that technology can’t provide solutions to social problems [2], some of the
largest philanthropic organizations like Melinda and Bill Gates foundation, McArthur Foundation etc. are
attempting to innovate technology based solutions to solve social problems. The current literature on

1877-0428 © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Asia Pacific Business Innovation and Technology
Management Society Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.03.211
430 Kamariah Ismail et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 429 – 434

technology and innovation is yet to discuss this growing phenomenon [3] . The objective of the study is to
differentiate TSV’s from SE and encourage researchers to initiate further research on different aspects of
TSV, to establish itself as new genre of entrepreneurship.

2. Background literature

2.1. Social venture

Social entrepreneurship involves the initiatives aiming at what is deficient or non-functioning in the
society, introducing new solutions to create a sustainable society through application of entrepreneurial
logic [4]. Social entrepreneurship is somewhat similar to traditional entrepreneurship with some basic
differences [5]. It is generally agreed that entrepreneurship involves three elements: opportunities,
enterprising individuals and resourcefulness [6,7] which are also the basic elements of Social
entrepreneurship. Both the entrepreneurs use the process of continuous innovation, adaptation and
learning as their modus operandi [8]. The two basic factors differentiating social ventures from traditional
entrepreneurial ventures are –

First, social value creation is at the heart of the social entrepreneurial process [9]. Social
entrepreneurial ventures address social problems which are either ignored or inadequately met by the
traditional entrepreneurs or government sector. Whereas traditional for-profit ventures are directed
towards making economic profit resulting in individual or shareholders gain, although they also benefit
society trough introduction of new products or services, creating employment opportunities and most
importantly, indirect transformative social impacts. These transformative social impacts can be an
important motivational force for the traditional entrepreneurs. The fundamental difference is in the
mission statement - social entrepreneurship’s premier mission is to create sustainable social value for the
public good whereas commercial entrepreneurship’s mission is to create economic profit and may be
social value as the byproduct of the process.

Second, the dimensions of social ventures are yet to be identified as they always overlap the
boundaries between the ‘for-profit’ ventures and social mission driven ‘non-profit’ ventures. Some
definitions limit social entrepreneurship to nonprofit organizations [10], while others describe social
entrepreneurship as for-profit companies operated by nonprofit organizations [11], or organizations that
create a firm at a financial loss [12]. Still others equate social entrepreneurship to philanthropy [13], while
some scholars prefer broader definitions which relate social entrepreneurship to individuals or
organizations engaged in entrepreneurial activities with a social goal [14,15]. Irrespective of the forms
these ventures use, social ventures serve the society by operating at the nexus of public, economic and
social authorities [16].

2.2. Technology social ventures

Technology social venture (TSV)’s represent a unique genre of social ventures which attempts to
satisfy a social need through technological innovation in a financially sustainable manner [16]. Basically
it is the merger of social and technology entrepreneurship which uses knowledge bridging mechanism [16]
 Kamariah Ismail et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 429 – 434 431

for technological innovation to serve social needs. Like social entrepreneurship, TSV’s also address the
double keystones of social value creation [9] and financial return [17], but they do so using advanced
technology.

Economic Social
Economic Social

SV TSV

Public Technological
Public

Figure 1: Social venture and Technology social venture [16]

TSV’s differ from social ventures in some unique ways. Traditional social ventures are driven by
human-power and rely on volunteers and employed social workers as human resource. The growth of the
social venture requires more human resources which demands more funding for the hiring and training of
additional human resources to ensure the growth. On the contrary, although TSV’s often requires more
initial funding than traditional social ventures but they can be replicated across regions or projects with
less expense and at a faster rate [3]. They also argued that this quality of replication helps the TSV’s to
maximize the social impact as well as achieving principle of scale and reaching sustainability.

Several philanthropic organizations e.g. The Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation, The MacArthur
Foundation etc. have started to address social problems using technological innovation. Recently,
academicians have also highlighted the transformative and innovative power of the TSV’s. As for
example, Prahalad, in his article ‘The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’[19], has shown the capability
of the technology empowered organizations to cure social ills through several case studies. One of those
cases is Voxiva, which innovated a technology solution to track diseases, monitor patients, report crimes,
manage programs and respond to natural disasters in many regions of the developing world through the
use of internet, phone or text-messaging [16]. The founders of the organization had previous knowledge
and experience of information technology, public health, non-profit organization development and human
rights law which helped them to bridge multiple knowledge domains to dream, start and develop the
specific venture.

3. Case 1: Benetech incorporates

432 Kamariah Ismail et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 429 – 434

Benetch Inc. was founded by Jim Frutcherman in 1999 as a non-profit venture which combines
technological solutions with social entrepreneurship business models to serve the disadvantaged
communities which most big companies don’t serve. It has developed itself as a technology incubator
where a company team and a board decides to finance the initial technology and business development
plans for different ideas meeting the criteria of social entrepreneurship domains. The firm has already
received several social venture industry awards like Skoll Foundation award for social entrepreneurship
(2003), Schwab Foundation Award (2003) and Social Capitalist award (the only technology organization
to receive the award).

Table 1. Projects developed by Benetech Inc.

Project Description
Bookshare.org An accessible internet library of scanned books and publications for people
with print disabilities.
Route 66 An internet-based instructional program that provides literacy instruction to
adolescent and beginning adult readers.
Martus An attempt to improve global human rights and the social justice sector by
bringing efficiency and security to the documentation and reporting of abuses.
HRDAG The Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) develops database
software, data collection strategies and statistical techniques to measure the
human rights violence.
Miradi A software tool designed specifically for the management of complex
environmental projects.
Source: Adapted from http://www.benetech.org

In the past few years, Benetech Inc., with the support of its financers and partners, have expanded
Bookshare to serve over 80,000 users who cannot read traditional books. The Human Rights program
(HRDAG) contributed to reveal the truth of human rights and offered a chance for reconciliation in
conflict zones across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Another new and exciting software application,
Miradi, helps the environmental groups plan and manageing conservation projects. The Benetech projects
are now creating new hope for tens of thousands of people whether its helping war-torn Liberia come to
grip with its past or helping a blind child discover the joy of reading.

The vision of Benetech is to innovate technology that is socially useful, affordable and accessible to all
[20] (www.benetech.org). It dreams of a world where every person has the access to information needed
for education, employment, health and social inclusion. In the coming years, Benetech is trying to inspire
others in the field to follow the Technology Social Venture model in building a movement to break down
barriers that have excluded the disadvantaged groups from participating in technological revolution.

4. Case – 2: Verdant power

Verdant power is the world leader in the design and application of marine renewable energy solutions.
It was founded in 2000 and headquartered in New York, USA. Its mission is to develop new technology
systems that augment important human needs e.g. access to clean energy. Clean technology is not only an
important requirement for today’s sustainable industrial development but also the sector can play a crucial
role in economic growth and job creation [1]. Clean technology significantly affects the various areas of
industry like renewable energy, manufacturing and diverse kinds of services. It is not only a business
 Kamariah Ismail et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 429 – 434 433

opportunity but also provides the chance of ‘doing some good’ to the society from a local or global
perspective [1].

Verdant power systems employ underwater turbines to generate renewable and reliable clean energy
from the natural water currents of oceans, rivers and manmade channels. The company not only design
and commercializes its own technology, but also develops projects around the world.

Table 2. Projects developed by Verdant Power

Completi Expected
Project Description
on Year Electricity Generation
Initiated in 2002, Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy
RITE 2012 1MW
project is being operated in New York city’s east river.
Through the Cornwall Ontario River Energy project,
clean renewable energy will be generated from the
CORE 2013 15 MW
natural currents of the St. Lawrence river near
Cornwall, Ontario.
Source: Adapted from http://www.verdantpower.com [21]

Verdant Power is constantly searching feasible water bodies and new opportunities for collaboration
around the world. The company is assessing the water resources in the UK, South America, China and
India to start new projects. The technology introduced by Verdant Power can create an amount of
electrical energy many times greater than what is consumed today around the world. This new
technology (electricity generation from river-water currents) can achieve 80-90% capacity factors,
approximately twice of the wind and solar power systems. This energy is emission and by-product free,
sustainable, predictable and indigenously sourced energy (www.verdant power.com).

5. Conclusion

The objective of the study was to establish technology social venture as a new type of social
entrepreneurship which falls at the intersection of two fields – SE and technology innovation. The above
mentioned cases show that both the organizations used innovative technology to solve societal problems
rather than on volunteering and employed human resources. Moreover, the technology innovated and
used by both the organizations were easily and rapidly replicated in different projects and different
perspectives – which conforms to the unique characteristics of TSV’s. Although TSV is receiving
considerable practitioner interest recently but there has been a little research on the various aspects of its
venture development process, opportunity recognition, financing process etc. to establish itself as a
separate academic field from social entrepreneurship. The researchers hope that, future studies, both
conceptual and empirical, in this area might answer the unresolved questions arise in the study. This is a
topic for future and more extensive research.
434 Kamariah Ismail et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 429 – 434

Acknowledgements

The authors’ are grateful to the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for their generous support with the
Research University Grant with the research vote number ; Q.J130000.7114.02H08.

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