When we started our medical business in the Middle East region, we realized that budget is not the only challenge, but the lack of experience, know-how and an eco-system for a sustainable development.
Considering this, our company has offered free training courses for spine- and neurosurgery in Iraq. First goal has been to introduce our products (spinal implants, surgical instruments) and get connected to surgeons and hospitals. After 5 workshops we have realized the impact of what we were doing: local surgeons became more experienced, they started to cooperate with their colleagues from Germany holding the courses, and a special spirit of change was all around.
Between 2012 and 2015 we have held 28 courses with almost 20 participants, have met Ministers, have hosted high ranked political delegations, invited our competitors to join into the program, and have re-invested a huge part of the profit we have made in other businesses for our training courses. Finally, we implemented with 3 hospitals in different countries our approach of German Medical Centers (GMCs) — small islands inside the hospitals and regions with a sustainable approach for patients, staff and the regions.
But how to create new resources to finance and achieve social impact, without dependency on donations and the current economic system. Or, on a larger scale: How to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 if the required investment of 5–7 trillion USD is simply not available?
We have established a foundation in Liechtenstein (DOR Stiftung, https://www.dor.ngo) and have started to research on social impact, impact investment and all different approaches. Inspired by articles and books of Prof. Muhammad Yunus, we focused on Social Business: help people to get started, re-invest profits and make use of the tools our economy developed throughout the last 500 years to overcome the problems our society is facing today. But, to get started Social Business requires an investment. To have a huge impact it needs a huge investment. And thousands of people to support the Social Start-Ups and the Social Business.
In 2016 we started to evaluate the potential of blockchain technology. This is where DORIUM was born.
