Chalmers Guest Lecture on Social Entrepreneurship

Imagine ten minutes of observing a room full of passionate students as they share and discuss their visions for a sustainable future. So many emotions, hopes and dreams expressed even without hearing specific words. Imagine noticing how the room gradually warms up, and eventually reaches a point where the positive energy in some groups spread to others around them, reaching almost the entire room by the end of the exercise.

That’s the potential of generative social fields - to create conditions where people have positive social interactions that create a good feeling and atmosphere. This is not the only kind of social field, but it’s probably the easiest one to recognise. And by paying attention to how these generative social fields make us feel and influence how we think and act, maybe with time, we can start creating more of these positive interactions with people we meet in life.

Social Entrepreneurship in Practice

Today, I had the privilege to give my third guest lecture/workshop for students at Chalmers University of Technology, with the goal to explore social entrepreneurship in practice. Specifically focusing on how some friends and I co-founded the non-profit tech agency Greenheart Co-operative.

This time was my most in-depth and cohesive presentation on this subject so far. See the presentation slides here. I’m really happy with how it all turned out, and especially the questions and discussions this sparked (some of us kept going for a full hour after the official end)! I especially want to give a big thanks to my partner Sara (check out her website) for your help and feedback to structure the presentation!

Although it felt like we barely had time to scratch the surface of some topics, I’m really happy with the format of my presentation. And who knows - I might write more in-depth about social entrepreneurship and related topics in the future.

It Matters How We Show Up

Coming back to the social fields - it matters how we show up, because our interactions ripple out and influence our surroundings, just like we’re influenced by people around us.

Given the potential to transform the energy in a room, today’s exercise to explore future visions could prove to be valuable in more ways. If you want to try it yourself, see the second part of the presentation. Maybe bringing this exercise into everyday life could help us strengthen (or even regain) our ability to imagine how things could be better. If anything, this kind of imagination is what social entrepreneurship is about.

To imagine different futures, we need good conditions. For example by making time, finding a safe space and being fully present. But perhaps most importantly, it matters how we show up.

So, let’s help each other show up in ways that allow us to imagine!