Responsible Careers: Profiles from the Unreasonable Institute

Responsible careers imply taking risks and letting go of business as usual to get business done better.  A key element of responsible career success is access to like-minded professionals, mentors, business knowledge and financial support to translate ideas into viable social enterprises that will contribute to build an equitable and sustainable world.

An increasing number of organizations and structures exist to do just that.  One of them, the unreasonable institute, was mentioned in our justmeans social enterprise section in January, bringing home the point that social entrepreneurs cannot thrive without collaboration or co-work.  As predicted by Marcia, co-work is flourishing at the Unreasonable Institute, through their boot camp for social entrepreneurs.  The Unreasonable Institute provides mentors, business knowledge, and financial support to social ventures through a first 10-week intensive boot camp in Boulder, CO.

The boot camp will culminate with a Global Summit online which will take place this Wednesday, August 4th.  During the Global Summit, each the 22 entrepreneurs that were selected for the boot camp will have 6 minutes each to 'unleash' their ventures to the world.  These 22 entrepreneurs come from 15 countries and offer an incredible array of good work and responsible career paths.  In preparation for the Global Summit on Wednesday, here are a few examples of the entrepreneurs' responsible career paths behind these social ventures:

Jehan Ratnatunga - Who Gives a ****:  Jehan graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2005.  According to his LinkedIn profile, Jehan is currently an Associate at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).  No question that being an associate at BCG spells success for many people.  But Jehan has bigger goals.  Jehan wants to build his responsible career around creating the first brand of toilet paper that invests all its proceeds in giving access to hygienic toilets in developing countries.  Knowing that there are 2.6 billion people that do not have access to hygienic toilets, this social venture is of tremendous importance to reduce the spreading of disease through improved toilet hygiene:

Jehan Ratnatunga, Who Gives A **** from Unreasonable Institute on Vimeo.

Raina Kumra - Light Up Malawi: Raina earned her undergraduate degree from Boston University, and graduate degrees from NYU, MIT, and Harvard.  She worked for top companies including L'Oréal, Paramount Pictures, and Newsweek.   She left it all behind to create her own firm, the Agency for Holistic Branding.  At the Unreasonable Institute, she is focusing on projects that will bring 100% renewable energy to the country of Malawi through Light Up Malawi:

Raina Kumra, Light Up Malawi from Unreasonable Institute on Vimeo.

Guido Núñez-Mujica - LavaAmp:  According to his blog, Guido is an undergraduate student in biology and computational physics in Mérida, Venezuela.  Guido is also the force behind LavaAmp,  a pocket-size thermal cycler that enables rapid DNA tests for infectious diseases.  LavaAmp is a promising device to enable early diagnosis and determine early treatment of a variety of bacteria-, parasites- and virus-based diseases:

Guido Núñez-Mujica, LavaAmp from Unreasonable Institute on Vimeo.

These profiles highlight an important aspect of social entrepreneurship and of responsible careers.  In their own way, each of these social entrepreneurs rejected the traditional measures of career success (i.e. working for a big firm and making a lot of money).  Instead, they are comfortable with determining their own career goals and measures of success.  Is it being comfortable rejecting the conventional definition of career success that makes a social innovator make responsible career choices?  Is it a higher tolerance for risk?  Or the feeling of doing the right thing?

I look forward to a conversation of what makes a responsible career choice an imperative for social innovators!

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