Social Entrepreneurs, What Makes Dina Abdel Wahab A Hero?

Read further about social entrepreneurs at the following website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/06/24/DI2005062401071.html

Why you believe this person has been highlighted as a “hero"?

Introduction

Dina Abdel Wahab is pioneering school-based integration of special-needs and normal children, a first important step toward achieving society-wide integration. It was the first important step toward achieving society-wide integration in Egypt. She believes that the preschool period offers an especially promising opportunity to change attitudes and it flagging the way for broader reforms of the society.(World People's Blog, 2006)

By 2016, at least two million Egyptians are disabled or have special needs and half of these are children. Only about 1% of the children and adults received services from the government. Abdel Wahab focused on excellence in learning for all children and try to develop a stimulating environment for children to learn and play together. Also, the teachers and parents learn to see special needs in a far more tolerant light.(World People's Blog, 2006) Abdel-Wahab was trying to expand her idea to preschools throughout the Middle East. With the cooperation of parents and supporters, they were able to influence politicians to make better policies to contribute to the education system. 

So, What Makes Dina Abdel Wahab A Hero?

We all know that social entrepreneurs make difference through business. They want to help solve some of the world’s problems. And, business ventures can make money and improve the world at the same time. A traditional entrepreneur sees an opportunity to make money by fulfilling a consumer or business need whereas a social entrepreneur sees an additional opportunity to improve quality of life by fulfilling a social need.

Dina Abdel Wahab began crusading for access to preschool services for all children in Egypt after the birth of her son Ali, who has Down syndrome. Social entrepreneur Dina Abdel Wahab adopting a mission to create and sustain social value and formed an integrative education model for special needs children into mainstream education in Egypt. Most importantly, she acting boldly without being limited by the resources currently in hand.

How This Work Contributes Toward The Importance of Entrepreneurship for The Global Economy?

Dina Abdel Wahab is the founder and Managing Director of the Egyptian Child Care Corporation. Dina Abdel Wahab started the schools in Egypt for the nation's often-neglected children with disabilities. I think there is one thing I really admire is that she not only find the need and fill it but also improved the world and made the world a better place. For special children to learn from normal children and also to learn compassion, acceptance, and helpfulness. Through a better education system, the world gain more positive strength to grow more social and traditional entrepreneurs. More excellent entrepreneurs help the world fix more issues and positively change the world. 

Reference

World People's Blog. World People's Blog " Blog Archive " Dina Abdel Wahab – Egypt. (n.d.). http://word.world-citizenship.org/wp-archive/362. 

Consider a business idea that you know about that has failed. Take some time to research information about this business, why do you think it failed? What mistakes do you think the entrepreneur made when developing this business?

 Introduction

It took hundreds of millions of years for dinosaurs to evolve, but it takes only a few years for HTC. In 2008, HTC and Google jointly launched the HTC Dream, the world's first Android phone. In the next two years, HTC continued to launch new smartphones. As a pioneer, leading the global smartphone market and competing with iPhone. However, In 2011, Samsung, another major smartphone maker, regrouped, and HTC lost its leading position in Android. Moreover, afterward, challenges from China, Lenovo and ZTE’s cost-effective phones appeared on the market, and HTC’s market share continues to decline. At the same time, iPhone sales remained unaffected and continued to rise. 

In 2014, after the bad experience from One X to New One, HTC pinned its hopes on HTC One M8. It was an upgraded version of the HTC One. While continuing the integrated all-metal body, it sharpens the heavy and tough design of the HTC One to be smoother and more rounded to fit the grip. The durable body highlights HTC’s excellent industrial design and the effort has finally paid off. The M8 has made HTC profitable again. In HTC's 2014 second-quarter earnings report, HTC turned losses into profits, with a profit of US$92 million. In addition, the $2.2 billion in sales is almost equal to HTC's sales for the entire year last year. 

However, In 2015, Xiaomi's low-priced phones swept the market, and HTC fell into a tough battle. In 2016, more brands, the Oppo and Vivo ultra-high cost-effective models squeezed the market and of course, it gives HTC the fatal blow. In the meantime, iPhone sales continued to hit new highs. In the past few years of trend integration and sudden changes, HTC has failed from where it was at its most brilliant. All this seems to be a dream, a dream that has experienced rise, glory, loss, decline, rebirth, and death. 

Honey at that time, poison at this time. Many elements that once made HTC thrived, became the stumbling blocks for HTC's progress later on. In 2013, HTC even spent $1 billion in marketing and invited Iron Man actor Robert Downey, Jr. to represented its products. But, it is not only HTC that has failed, but also Nokia, Motorola, LG, and other manufacturers.

So, Why Did It Fail?

i. HTC focused too much on hardware research and development has never put its effort into cloud services, software, and mobile games. HTC’s innovation did not fill the need of consumers while its competitor, Apple, has developed its operating systems, hardware, and services to a whole new level such as the App Store, iCloud, Apple Music, iOS, Mac OS, and iPad OS. Apple's WWDC is always talking about apps, content, and services. After all, HTC did not follow up on the trend and lack of the understanding of what consumers actually need. Excellent products are just the foundation. They are only one part of the whole service. User experience and the content, and the services must be equally excellent and coordinated to have a long-term victory. 

ii. The Teamwork

In 2010, HTC hired many former managers from Sony and Microsoft. Their abilities were not good enough to lead this company to reverse the situation. Teamwork has become an omnipresent phenomenon all over the world. Companies have transitioned to teamwork as a vehicle to increase effectiveness, competitiveness, and productivity.

Reference

Millward, S. (2015, September 2). Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem. https://www.techinasia.com/htc-rise-and-fall-infographic. 

How The World Economic Forum Aims to Approach Education for Increasing Entrepreneurship Worldwide?

 

The World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum is a not-for-profit, independent, and impartial international organization for public and private cooperation such as political, business, and cultural leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas. 

How The World Economic Forum Aims to Approach Education for Increasing Entrepreneurship Worldwide?

The World Economic Forum emphasizes innovation and economic growth since they depend on future leaders who have skills, attitudes, and behaviors to be entrepreneurial in their professional lives. They thought also that entrepreneur who has entrepreneurship is the engine of the economic growth that could create new ideas to solve current challenges in the global economy. And, a great strategy is needed to scale them up. The World Economic Forum has launched some initiatives focusing on the evaluation and assessment of entrepreneurship education practices to facilitate policy changes. By creating a common framework and crucial resources available to all stakeholders to help build collaboration and partnerships.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Entrepreneurship is the skill of starting new businesses, especially when this involves seeing new opportunities. I think starting new businesses means more jobs, more innovations, and of course, more opportunities. However, saying is much easier than doing. To start a new business and to maintain its success, need an excellent strategy to connect and use all the resources. Although strategy can be trained by a great education system, those necessary resources also play crucial roles in the developing processes. Even though you are Albert Einstein, you still need a great team and resources to make your ideas come true. 

For example, Tesla is a successful electric car manufacturer found by Elon Musk. However, he doesn't always so successful. In the beginning, most people don't think electric cars are our future vehicle because they cannot find chargers easily enough, and the battery performance was not good enough as well. But, electric cars can solve our carbon emission issue. Elon Musk sees the need and takes the financial risk to do it. It has created new opportunities for moving on to a better future. So, in general, an entrepreneur means someone who sees a need and takes on the financial risk to start a business to fill that need. In this case, Elon Musk sees the need for zero-emission cars and takes the risk to start the electric car business, even though it was not sharp in the past. 

But, how can a country or the world encourage more people to pursue their dreams like Elon Musk? According to an Initiative published by the World Economic Forum Global Education in June 2011, it can be achieved by a great education system, provide essential resources, and proper policies. For example, we may easily find a need but hard to take action. Therefore, create incentives for action to help them overcome the barriers is the start point of the initiative. Then, build trust and an interest in collaboration can help the entrepreneurial ecosystem to create opportunities for key stakeholders from various sectors to get to know each other.

Academic institutions are central in shaping students' attitudes, skills, and behaviors, including new entrepreneurs. Education should be better linked with practice to ensure that future skills match future jobs. For example, more well-educated people mean higher chances to build a good team for a startup company to provide good services or products. In addition, foundations often helping to link various stakeholders, mostly capital or human resources for building the entrepreneurial ecosystem. As mentioned above, the founding systems and the links to various stakeholders can help the entrepreneurs by lowering their financial risk, encourage them to fill the need they found.

When someone pops up with a strategy, the next step is to prioritize efforts and measure the results. Therefore, appropriate policies must be in place to set metrics. And, the proper incentives need to be in place for the key stakeholders involved in implementing the policies such as employ students before graduating so that they can be more readily integrated into the workforce. It is obvious that greater coordination is needed at any level. 

In today’s environment, technology plays an increasingly important role in the educational process, both as a delivery channel and a teaching tool. Technology provides a mechanism for reaching greater economies of scale as well as providing broader sharing of practices. For example, with the lack of better battery technology and faster construction of its Gigafactory, Tesla's success can be far less than it is today.

Why They View This As A Priority?

The Forum does strive in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance. For better competitiveness to create more opportunities, sustainable growth of the economics, and positive changes of the future, the Forum invests in developing entrepreneurial and innovative skills to build sustainable economic development, create jobs, generate renewed economic growth and advance human welfare. 

Reference

Unlocking Entrepreneurial Capabilities Report_2011