Elijah Johnston – Fostering Social Innovation & Hackathons for Social Impact

January 08, 2017 by Amra Naidoo in Podcast

I am excited to introduce to you one of my very good friends and someone who I find extremely inspiring. In this episode, I interview Eli Johnston who does a lot of very interesting work bringing together corporations and entrepreneurs to accelerate social innovation. He does this through his work as the head of corporate innovation at the Impact Hub in Singapore which is a co-working space and community for social entrepreneurs. If that’s not enough, he is also the co-founder of Own Your Brilliance that brings students together from around the world and gives them to tools to get started on their journey to becoming social entrepreneurs. In this spare time, for the next 9 months Eli is also teaching a class of 10 women from all over South East Asia. They are house helpers also known as foreign domestic workers in Singapore. And he is going to be running a Venture Club through an organisation called Aidha which teaches financial literacy, business and entrepreneurship to these incredible hardworking women on their days off. Eli will be working with the women to build their business plans for a venture in their home countries and for the first time in Aidha’s history, these businesses will be designed as social enterprises. Honestly don’t know how he does this all! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this episode, it was definitely one of the more fun ones for me to record, especially as I find that Eli is someone who can be a lot of fun but also very deep in his thoughts and motivation to change the world. I’m keen to hear what your thoughts are after you’ve had a listen!

3 Easy Things You Can Do To Create Impact These Holidays

December 22, 2016 by Amra Naidoo in Podcast

The silly season is in full swing! And although, I love this time of year because of the special time I get to spend at home with my family and friends, I can't quite wrap my head around the craziness in the shopping malls and supermarkets. Apart from being absolute chaos, are you noticing the consumerism and materialism? #guilty This is a quick episode about how you can do good over the Christmas season with 3 simple and EASY-PEASY tips to make this time of year truly the GIVING time of year.

Prashan Paramanathan - Venture Capital Fundraising as a Social Enterprise & the Public Benefit Company Structure

December 11, 2016 by Amra Naidoo in Podcast

Episode 9 & 10 of the Doing Good Podcast are interviews with Founder of Chuffed, Prashan Paramanthan. In this episode, Prashan shares a ton of wisdom from his journey raising VC funds, how others can learn from their fundraising process and general advice for social entrepreneurs who are looking at securing investment from other non-traditional sources. Prashan also talks about Chuffed’s company structure and why they made the decisions they did to set it up that way. If you don’t already know much about Chuffed, I recommend listening to episode 9 before tuning in to episode 10. Looking forward to your thoughts!

Prashan Paramanathan - Crowdfunding for Social Impact, Social Entrepreneurship and Raising Funds as a Social Enterprise

December 11, 2016 by Amra Naidoo in Podcast

Episode 9 & 10 of the Doing Good Podcast are interviews with Founder of Chuffed, Prashan Paramanthan. In episode 9, we talk all things tech for good, crowdfunding for social good and more. You get a better understand of what exactly crowdfunding is and how it can be used to create huge impact. Chuffed is a unique social enterprise in its structure and is the first of its kind to receive venture capital funding. If you would like to hear more about the business side of things for Chuffed from Prashan, you can check out episode 10 with his advice on getting started, how to fundraise and more. Enjoy!

Clair Deevy - Facebook & Corporate Responsibility: Women in Business, Tech For Good, Social Impact

November 29, 2016 by Amra Naidoo in Podcast

This is an episode that I have been wanting to do for a while. Everyone knows Facebook, but not many people would be aware about the work that Facebook is doing in the community to create social impact. In this episode, I interview Clair Deevy who is the head of Economic Growth Initiatives for Asia Pacific at Facebook. Clair is someone who really inspires me, and in this episode, we talk about some of the initiatives that she is looking after. One of the programs we talk a lot about is She Means Business - an initiative to support female entrepreneurs. Another one you may have heard of is Safety Check which has been used around the world for natural disasters and human tragedies. Clair is a seasoned professional in terms of executing high impact initiatives that not only create positive social impact in the community, but also are in line with business objectives. Something that is increasingly becoming more important as businesses take on a bigger role in creating impact in their communities and supply chains. We speak about the work that she is doing now, how she got to where she is, and her thoughts on how others can get started. If you are working in any type of business or multinational organisation, I highly recommend this episode as an example of things to consider when thinking about business and social impact. Enjoy!

Amra Naidoo - We Can All Do Better

November 15, 2016 by Amra Naidoo in Podcast

I was planning on releasing an episode from another amazing guest but given recent events, I think it’s an important time to stop and reflect about a new era that we have well and truly entered. This is an episode about tolerance and finding common ground to overcome some of the biggest problems the world is facing. These thoughts have been weighing heavy on my mind for a few years now, but over the past few months I’ve been putting it altogether. Challenging my beliefs and assumptions. Although many of us are genuinely concerned with the direction the world is heading in, I believe that we can all do more. We can all do better. I was honestly a bit nervous about releasing this episode, because I don’t want to sound like I’m coming to the defence, or attacking any certain type of person. I am not discrediting real experiences or feelings from people either. I also don’t want to come across as preachy. My aim is to open up dialogue and challenge you to think further about your role, whatever your opinion is, and how you can do better. The purpose of this podcast is not only about doing good and hearing about different ways to do good. But it’s also about challenging misconceptions and challenging beliefs, ideas and assumptions. It’s open having open discussion and critique in a supportive community that cares about a sustainable future for every being. The fact that I even feel the need to preface this episode with that little disclaimer means that I am anxious about the response that it’s going to get, even though the whole point is to open dialogue. How ironic is that! Despite my anxiety, I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas, so long as they’re constructive!

"The greatest challenge of the future will be to find common ground - to close the increasingly growing divide between class, race, gender, wealth and beliefs."

Maria Alejandra Garcia - CGIAR, Rural Women, World Food Day & Ending Poverty through Agriculture

October 15, 2016 by Amra Naidoo in Podcast

This is a very special episode in partnership with CGIAR and CGIAR Gender and Agriculture Research Network to recognise, International Day of Rural Women (15th October), World Food Day (16th October) and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (17th October). CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future. CGIAR science is dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services. Its research is carried out by 15 CGIAR Centers in close collaboration with hundreds of partners, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, development organizations and the private sector. Now the participation and inclusion of rural women is so important to meet the growing need for food and eradicate poverty. Women are central to many development projects around the world. In this episode, I interview Maria Alejandra Garcia who is an Assistant Researcher at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia. She works on projects related to rice production in Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia, which is culturally seen as "male crop" in the region. As such, the work that women do in rice production is often not recognized and therefore not supported. Maria Alejandra’s work is to understand how gender plays a role in agriculture and what can be done support rural women in having access to the same resources and opportunities as men. This episode brings to light the importance of good research, how it affects development programs, government policies and business decisions, and what happens when women are left out.

Chris Annadorai - Operation Sumatran Rhino

September 12, 2016 by Amra Naidoo in Podcast

Chris Annadorai is the Director of Operation Sumatran Rhino which will premiere through Nat Geo Wild’s new series Mission Critical, a new monthly programming initiative featuring powerful stories of the most incredible and endangered animals on our planet.

David Nosibor - Social Innovation in Mazars

September 12, 2016 by Amra Naidoo in Podcast

In this episode of the Doing Good Podcast, I’m interviewing David Nosibor. David is the Innovation Evangelist at Mazars, a global audit and accounting firm. David describes himself an intrapreneur, that is, someone within an organisation that is entrepreneurial and is making change from within. We find out what he does to promote innovation within a company that is typically seen as traditional and how he has incorporated social impact as part of his work. We touch on how Mazars, as an auditing company thinks about corporate social responsibility. How involved should a multinational corporation be in social good, social impact and sustainability. Do corporations have a responsibility to social impact? David and Mazars think so. Among the topics we discuss, one that I find most interesting is on Mazars award-winning human rights audit and consultancy service for businesses. They are the only audit and accounting firm to offer this service and are ongoing advocates for businesses to demonstrate respect for human rights. David is a very familiar face to me. We met about two years ago when Mazars was launching a social entrepreneurship competition called Mazars For Good. We actually then got close over a shared appreciation for soca music from Trinidad and Tobago which we discovered over a Twitter exchange! David is a lot of fun to chat to in this interview so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.