Stanford Entrepreneurship Videos

One of the premises of the way the Global Fund for Women thought about distributing capital to social entrepreneurs was that there already existed a network of people who knew where critical things were happening on the ground, says Ramdas.

Ramdas reveals that she was attracted to the work of the Global Fund because women were doing things to both change their own circumstances, and also to transform what existed in their own communities. She was amazed that there was an organization that was willing to put the resources directly into the hands of women.

How do philanthropies measure success? The Global Fund for Women makes general support grants, not project support grants. This is a huge issue in philanthropy, because general support grants are much harder to measure.

The Global Fund for Women was not started by wealthy women. It was started by three working women who were deeply committed, passionately immersed, in a notion that you could promote social change by investing in women. It does not require a lot of money to invest in philanthropy for social change.

Entrepreneurs don't just pick one issue to work on. Ramdas addresses the fact that there is no singularity in women's issues. Issues related to women are across all segments. She quotes the same by giving examples of HIV AIDS, war and economic development.

The Global Fund for Women (GFW) is overwhelmed with requests for grants-3,000 every year, in many languages, says Ramdas. International advisors give feedback on priorities for social areas in their communities. GFW also have a basic set of criteria -- is it a group of women instead of an individual, do they have a clear articulation of how they will challenge women's positions within that society? GFW doesn't give a grant until they have an endorsement from the ground, she says.

In social entrepreneurship, many issues are blended and need to be addressed together. Ramdas shares two examples of social entrepreneurs very close to her heart. She talks about entrepreneurship being the willingness to work and assume risks at the same time for implementing changes in the society.

Ramdas considered work in grass roots versus at the philanthropic level. One of the things that pushed her to reflect on that decision, was where she could best use her skills and how they would lead to the best results.

Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women stresses that the United States is presently in a secure position and stable than most other parts of the world. She believes that it is right time to build the true spirit of entrepreneurship. She stresses that civilizations from other countries are all a part of the global community.

Ramdas answers the questions, "How to approach womens' rights in other countries, without seeming an activist?"; "What are the universalities of human rights?" GFW has found that women in their respective countries are extremely good judges of what issues are most important, what risks are involved, and the best ways to address these problems without creating direct confrontation or conflict. They often fund groups of women, rather than individuals. Women's issues that are the most controversial around the world include: lesbian rights, reproductive health, abortion rights.

Ringold partnered Alex Zaffaroni, a pioneer in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, to help start biotech companies. The upshot was, they started Maxygen, run by CEO Russell Howard. This is a derivative company, using a technology invented for one purpose being applied to a whole host of other problems, says Ringold.

To be an entrepreneur you need to have passion for what you are doing and this will lead to other opportunities, says Ringold

Ringold talks about Surromed's goals: 1) To improve the use of existing drugs and diagnostics 2) Right medicine for the right patient in the right dose at the right time. Ringold talks in detail about the limitations of diagnostic techniques and drug use today and how Surromed tries to find a solution to some of the problems. He shares a report by McKinsey which summarizes the status of drug discovery.

Ringold talks about the fundamental differences between sole entrepreneurship in the academic setting versus entrepreneurship in an industry setting: a change in dynamics from a sole activity, to teamwork from different disciplines to solve fundamental problems. Industry has learned this long before the academic environment - that you need to bring people together from various industries and disciplines, with different skill sets to solve fundamental problems, he says. It is rare that a fundamental problem, which leads to an applied product can be solved by a team of engineers only. It is the intersection of disciplines that leads to innovation and discovery - teams need to be built of different disciplines and skill sets in order to be most effective, he adds.

Ringold informs us that drugs for lowering blood pressure and those to lower cholesterol are among the leading pharmaceutical products today--and these are not treating a disease. The fundamental opportunity lies in the surrogate market, he says.