“Development has been colonialist. It doesn’t have to be.

In the beginning, business was the cause, not the solution of poverty. My view of it is: a multinational corporation is no more evil nor good, just like a sickle is no more a tool to harvest rice or an instrument of aggression.”

With the fortunate opportunity to hear some thoughts from Paul Polak, one of the leading actors in market-based solutions, I wanted to use this space to capture some of his words.

“I’ve been getting a lot of questions about balance and I think I’m the worst person to ask about that … if you want to break through, it’s really hard to be balanced.”

Why do you do what you do?

“I’m not a church-goer, but it is very spiritual for me … I don’t know why I do it. But the simple answer is it’s what I think I was put here to do.”

Challenges of social impact?

“To me the biggest thing is not making impact — any nonprofit can do that — it’s making money.”

In social innovation design, a concept that I appreciate is using the business system as your design opportunity. Paul provided a couple poignant examples of this — whether providing solar-powered water filters at a price 80% lower than competitors, or operating not only in international locations, but local ones.

I asked him if his intuition came from traditional business experience or a lack thereof, and he attributed his success to being somewhat of a “natural entrepreneur.” His unapologetic, yet unassuming confidence was refreshing.

“Here’s the process: go to any poor rural area and identify the five most valuable resources produced in the area that bring income to the area. Are there any ways where you can compete in economies of scale of a huge plant? … What’s the highest margin product? Curly fries and french fries. Well, all you gotta do is try it out.”

When asked if he would have changed anything about his life and career:

“I wouldn’t change very much. I would have started earlier … I started when I was in my 40's. I would jump into it and find a way to survive economically because oftentimes you can’t survive unless you work for a big organization you don’t like.”

And for several questions from the audience, he provided a response to this effect:

“I don’t know the answer to that. I think the best thing is to try it out, test it out and push it to the limits.”

As for my response to that: what better call to action for those aspiring to re-imagine a better world?