Pioneers on the road to my dream

Finally, after trying for 10-months, I'm going this Monday to Mobile Monday Beijing.

What is Mobile Monday you may be asking? Mobile Monday is an international knowledge sharing network for the wireless industry. It helps people like me know who is doing what in the industry and what important trends to try and keep on top of.

I know the best time to have gone to Mobile Monday would probably have been last fall when I was looking for work in the industry, but circumstances conspired against me. What is it then that makes me decide to go this time for sure?

The answer is the topic, Mobile Social Ventures! Now I'm currently doing a few projects on corporate social responsibility and in my time at the World Bank I did a fair bit of work on development, and even the use of technology to support development, but in the context of my current private sector consulting activities, it's often hard to see the links between these social engagements and the business-orientation of my industry as a whole.

Yet murmurs have been growing for a few years now about new business models whereby businesses, no less profit-oriented than they are today, nevertheless make contributions to society either as a by-product of their main businesses or (ideally) as the core offering of the business itself.

Next Monday's talk promises to highlight some of these emerging business models that help wireless companies make healthy profits through the provision of social goods.

I'm always hesitant about putting my dreams on paper, but I've been saying for some time that a goal of mine is to develop the consulting skills necessary to aid the financial and business planning of mobile social ventures such as we will be talking about at the meeting. I hope that some of what we discuss on Monday and some of the people I meet at the discussion will help me move one step closer to this dream.

Peace.