Ashoka Approach

ASPIRe Enables Social Entrepreneurs to:

ASPIRe Enables Social Entrepreneurs to:  

  • Build for the many, agency for all – it’s about creating the opportunity, access, and affordability for all   
  • Distribute the ability to solve instead of distributing already created solutions    
  • Design and resolve for diversity   
  • Ensure value is created for everyone in every interaction   
  • Solve problems as micro responses which allow actors to find solutions to their problems, instead of giving solutions to them.    
  • Empower with data  

Systems Change Thinking  

At the heart of every social entrepreneur’s ambition is to fundamentally change the system within which they work, so as to impact the largest possible number of people, without the need for the entrepreneur to replicate their organisation or themselves. For example, rather than promote the idea of building a school (as admirable as that is), systems change supports people who are transforming the way children learn, at a national or even international level.   

To achieve systems change – to truly fix a system – it is the impact, not the organisation that needs to be scaled. And that means being open to others taking credit and joining in, as long as the desired outcome is achieved.  

For more information on Systems Change Thinking, log onto- https://www.ashoka.org

Societal Platform Thinking

A Societal Platform is a development mission in a specific focus area (such as, but not limited to, education, healthcare or economic opportunity) that aims to catalyse systemic change at a population scale. Such a mission leverages an open and shared digital infrastructure, as a public good, which distributes the ability to develop solutions to an ecosystem of co-creation partners and amplifies, by aligning and enabling, the impact of developmental initiatives taken up by key actors of the society across the state, civil society and/or private sector.  

The societal platform is open, technology-enabled ecosystems that provide ‘co-creation’ spaces where innovators can design, develop and build a wide array of solutions. They engage an open network of execution partners — from government institutions and entrepreneurs to citizen sector organizations and individual citizens — to deliver these solutions viably in a rapid, scalable manner.   

For more information on Societal Platform, log onto- https://societalplatform.org/  

Highlights of the ASPIRe program: 

  • Supporting Ashoka Fellows design for impact at population scale:  an intense journey during which our fellows invest time and energy to build, test and refine the infrastructure needed to redesign their missions to reach population scale.   

  • Developing an enabling/conducive ecosystem: Bold new ideas that truly challenge the status quo to require support from visionary changemakers who can see the potential for large scale change. We are galvanizing a network of visionaries from Business. Technology. Academia and Social Sector who want to contribute to making change happen at scale.   

  • For developing know-how for Social Entrepreneurs: All learnings are carefully being curated and documented, with the intent is to create a model that can be leveraged to generate a wider and deeper impact by many other social entrepreneurs.   

ASPIRe leverages the 40+ years of Ashoka´s experience in systems change thinking and the innovative know-how of Societal Platform to create, test, distil and curate platform thinking for the good of all.   

Why ASPIRe?