David Galipeau_E9: The World of Citizen 4.0 [7–6–2020]
David Galipeau, Founding Partner of SGDx, and Director at the Yunus Near Future Lab, headquartered in Bangkok
Note: References with links are listed at the end of the show notes.
INTRO:
1:00 Shares his passion for venture and impact. Goes back to his business/finance/econ undergrad. And a transition into the commodity world. Talks about 20 years in Europe from his initial barefoot around the world. Seeing the world as a large place with a lot of variation. New concepts of finance in measuring risk, led to passion during first dot-com bubble. Studied in Switzerland. Moved into Development Sector at UN. Joined the UN in 2005 in Geneva.
4:00 Reduction of poverty, and how investment can help, led him into impact. 10 years ago, he started working for Regional Centre with UNDP in Bangkok — working on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The work around Social Innovation, Social Impact, and Social Entrepreneurship took front and center.
5:00 Unpacks Social Entrepreneurship, Social Impact, and Sustainability differentiators. He talks about the personal nature of these terms, making the worlds difficult to align. Talks about the 17 goals of the SDGs, but the private sector is in the process of applying the goals. Suggest there is too much time being used to define these terms — compares to the word ‘investment’ or ‘innovation’. However, he recognized the sophistication of tools being brought to the market.
8:00 We discuss subjectivity and personal brand risks, and how this may prohibit further advancement. Investor, owner, or beneficiary are stakeholders. Rural impact is an easy impact, but when rural impact is described, it can be more subjective. Believes we need a ‘universal set’ of accounting principle regarding impact, to ease investor demands for measurement, on a global basis.
SECTION1: The Journey to Information Integrity
“Information Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values.”
11:30 Ties Information Integrity into impact side — comparing for-profits vs. non-profits, and the honest goals they target, and how they record. Touches on stakeholder demands, and responsibilities surrounding goals and how they are reported. Satisfying and bringing in new consumers is the objective. Always comes back to dollars and cents measurement.
14:00 Uses the fashion idea as a trigger for thinking about positive impact, and some of the complexities that surround utility and shaping behaviors. Talks about shaping behaviors are secondary, and how subjectivity can distort information integrity. We talk about happiness vs life-satisfaction.
17:00 Discusses new technologies and how impact can be measured. Breaks it down into input side, and output side. Talks about impact within the company. Uses disadvantaged example of disability access. Water inputs, and greener inputs, and efficiencies are also easy wins for startups. Talks about buying from other social enterprises. Then looks at products and services, along with governance (slave labor), marketing, and who you are delivering to. Talks about lateral educational component and creating new revenue streams. Business owners have three areas for demand: Sustainable Capitalism — shareholders, consumers, and business. Talks about the business being stuck in the middle, and a change from shareholders — e.g., going to global markets or serving disadvantaged. Mentions demands from consumer with Circular Economy (See links below).
22:30 Discusses hunt for talent in impact — especially in Asia. We discuss common shareholder, and what drives the Founder. He discusses his work with Social Innovators, and how impact is dear to their hearts. Discusses the difficulty of allowing VCs on in the business as equity stake, be scared of ‘impact dilution’. VCs being sensitive is important. Talks about ripple effects. Also talks about convertibles, to retain some additional control of impact.
25:50 Talks about Early Stage vs Growth Equity pivots, and how resistance from stakeholders can be different at these stages. Talks about historic context 20–30 years ago, where researchers didn’t want to commercialize their product, and could bring in impurities in the research. Now it’s not true, in his view. Using Ai, automation, and innovation, can make commercialization a positive impact bringing in new real opportunities, in David’s experience.
SECTION2: Sustainability in Venture
30:00 Tells more about his social innovation experience with the UN, and the principles of the SDGs. Talked about pushback when working on projects throughout Asia. Profit conflicted with sustainability motivators. Where the project NGOs aligned within pre-defined goal framework. David argued that project based SDGs wouldn’t scale. He had to get off the traditionally view of ‘investment’ under experience with UNCEF. “Can’t have scalable impact if model doesn’t grow” — and this is going global within the UN system.
32:40 Talks about Jed Emerson’s work with Blended Finance and how it applies to VC, and UpSkilling, in his experience. Talks about Jed’s book, The Purpose of Capital. Hope to get Jed on the show soon — another leader in the impact space! (Links below)
34:30 Talks about upskilling and how alternative forms of financing tie together.
35:30 Talks about Cross Subsidy models, using the Hospital as public good example with full cost on front door, and offer help out back door. Also discusses Scholarship Models in education. Draws distinction from the above from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
SECTION3: Our Future on the Near Horizon
37:00 Talks about work with Dr. Yunus at SDGx. Talks about the potential for positive impact in the coming years. Dr. Yunus coined “Pro Poor Technology” nearly 20 years ago. Now the focus is extended to micro-finance, small scale agricultural finance. Talks about IoT, robotics, and frontier technology that can also apply to Digital Transformation (also see Episode 7 with Joe Blair) and other pro-poor technologies.
39:00 Discusses regulations with Asia and venture building. Looking into intelligent cities, technology transfer, and climate with their upcoming fund — with an SDG component. Discusses Scale Ups they want to bring global.
41:00 Talks about wealth creation in the new developing world. The East / West mindsets, and discusses new class of Chinese female VCs — based on on-child-policy managing wealth with more impact aligned value-systems. Caring, and wellbeing is a new positive and inclusive shift — from patriarch to matriarch. Opportunity for future research surrounding new money managers in China.
47:25 Starting talks about his “Citizen 4.0” ideas — shifting away from consumer, and perhaps a less complicated citizens-first model within Digital Transformation framework. He believes citizens are the key to “intelligent cities”, with a greater balance toward people and planet.
SOURCES:
-David Galipeau [LinkedIn]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/galipeau/
-David Galipeau [Twitter]: https://twitter.com/galipeau
-David’s Personal Website: http://www.galipeau.com/
-David on Twitter, Sustainable Capitalism: https://twitter.com/galipeau/status/1250663788266872837?s=20
-UN Social Innovation Finance (UNSIF or SDG Innovative Finance): https://www.undpsif.org/
-SDGx: http://www.sdgx.io/
-Yunus Near Future Lab: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yunus-center-near-future-lab/
-UNDP Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html
-UNDP SDG Impact: https://sdgimpact.undp.org/
-UN Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): https://www.globalreporting.org
- Sustainable Capitalism | Vivian Bertseka Lemmer | TEDxINSEAD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8CTOjQhJFo
The ‘circular economy’: we’re investing in a sustainable future [2019]:
-Jed Emerson [Blended Value]: http://www.blendedvalue.org/
-Jed Emerson’s book The Purpose of Capital: https://smile.amazon.com/Purpose-Capital-Elements-Financial-Natural/dp/173245311X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+purpose+of+capital&qid=1593828681&sr=8-1
-Article on UpSkilling (Forbes Allison D. Salisbury): https://www.forbes.com/sites/allisondulinsalisbury/2019/10/28/as-pressure-to-upskill-grows-5-models-emerge/#404a1f5e680c
-Investing in Cross-Subsidy for Greater Impact [Stanford]: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/investing_in_cross_subsidy_for_greater_impact
-Social Venture Impact Investing [See “Scholorship Models”]: https://www.sauder.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/2019-03/SVII_Canada_S3i_FINAL_Report.pdf
-Technology Transfer from VC perspective [Dept. of Energy]: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/07/f25/Epic_Ventures.pdf
-What is a Scale Up: https://technation.io/news/what-is-a-scaleup/
-US Ai Ethics Guideline [White House 2020]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Draft-OMB-Memo-on-Regulation-of-AI-1-7-19.pdf
-Book Rec: Race After Technology — Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code [Ruha Benjamin]: https://smile.amazon.com/Race-After-Technology-Abolitionist-Tools/dp/1509526404/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=race+after+technology&qid=1593832543&sr=8-1
-Book Rec: Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: https://smile.amazon.com/Life-3-0-Being-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/1101970316/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=life+3.0&qid=1593833010&sr=8-1
- Rec read: Japan’s ‘Society 5.0’ initiative is a road map for today’s entrepreneurs: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/02/japans-society-5-0-initiative-is-a-roadmap-for-todays-entrepreneurs/
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Song Credit: The Croft — By Joakim Karud
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