A young social entrepreneur mixes profit and charity

THE IDEA THAT CAPITALISM AND SOCIAL CAUSES can co-exist may be anathema to some, but a growing number of businesspeople are using their corporate savvy and innovation skills to address sweeping social or environmental issues alongside the traditional business goal of generating profits. It’s called social entrepreneurship, a 30-year-old term that is still gaining awareness even by those who practice it. “I had to Google it,” says Rumeet Toor, owner of Jobs in Education, an online employment board that also helps fund her Toor Centre for Teacher Education, a teacher’s college and general training facility in Kenya that opened earlier this year. “I didn’t even know what a social entrepreneur was until someone asked me to give a talk about it.” Continue reading →