BBC features video diary of the Skoll World Forum
July 1, 2011 by Sally Farhat KassabThis past April, BBC reporter Leo Johnson visited Oxford to attend the Skoll World Forum. He recently posted a video diary of the event (above), where he follows the buzz around the growing field of “impact investing” – an issue that dominated the conference. He talks to Nadine Kettaneh, of Willow Tree Impact Investors, who focuses on impact investing in the Middle East; Andrew Mitchell, of Global Canopy Programme, which tests innovative ways to protect tropical forests, and many others about the topic.
“Social entrepreneurship is a bimodal thing,” Mitchell tells Johnson at the Forum. “On the one hand, you’ve got social entrepreneurship, on the other side you’ve got financial profit. There’s a whole spectrum in between that people here are struggling with…. You’ve got something called impact investing coming along, which says, this is making profits, but nicely. Then, how much profit? Is it going to be 4 to 5 percent or really can I make 20 percent at microfinance, for instance? That’s an interesting debate that’s happening at this conference.”