Abstract

In 2006, Alice Min Soo Chun (Chun), a design and architecture professor in New York, was sitting with her son in a Children’s hospital in the city. The kid suffered with severe asthma. She expressed her concerns about how they had to go to the hospital quite frequently, where she saw several children with asthma, allergies, and severe breathing conditions. This instigated her to delve into research about the disease and its causes. Her research findings indicated that the world’s energy consumption patterns and pollution from fossil fuels were the prime reasons behind the disease. She was also able to draw a profound link between climate change, children’s health and extreme poverty. According to Chun around 1.6 billion people around the world had no access to electricity and a majority of them resorted to dangerous fossil fuels like Kerosene to light up their homes, to study and also to do their daily household chores, which had deeper health, safety and environmental concerns. Chun was moved by the deplorable conditions of the people who lacked electricity, especially the poor and the disaster stricken. Her research soon led her to solar panels, thus forming the very base of her social enterprise ‘Solight Design’. The enterprise was involved in providing sustainable, environment-friendly and innovative solar solutions that would appeal to environmentally conscious consumers while providing light and power to those that need it the most. Chun along with her team members helped the needy all across the globe, especially people affected by Nepal earthquake, Haiti disaster, Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and also with the Syrian refugee crisis, by providing them with free SolarPuffs so that they could fight out of darkness. Chun believed that a simple gift of light could bring a huge change in the lives of the deprived people. By 2017, Solight Design was successful in establishing relationship with the United Nations, over 24 countries and around 200 retail stores across the country including ‘Whole Foods Market’ and ‘MOMA Design Store’. To achieve her vision of a grid-free world, Chun realized that she had to increase the availability of her products while also trying to lower the costs further, so that every poor person could afford it. Will Chun be able to increase the scalability of her solar products? Can Solight Design continue to remain sustainable in the long-run, considering the cost factor involved?

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand ‘Social Entrepreneurship’ as a multi-dimensional concept by studying its several components
• Identify the key characteristics which differentiate a social entrepreneur from a business entrepreneur
• Discuss the issues and challenges in ensuring and managing the sustainability and scalability of a social enterprise
• Analyze Constraints faced by social entrepreneurs in making growth-related decisions of the enterprise
• Appreciate the importance of and impact created by social enterprises on the society, economy and the environment

Keywords

Social Enterprise, Solar lighting, Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Immigrants, Innovation, Natural Disasters, Solight design, Change agents