Right now as you’re reading this article, there are more people living on less than $2 a day today than there were people in the entire human population of the world back in 1950.
These 2.7 billion people live in poverty; although this represents one of the most significant problems in the world, Dr. Paul Polak believes it also represents one of the greatest opportunities for ethical entrepreneurs.
Paul states that through using an effective, ethical business model, entrepreneurs who want to make a great positive impact in the world can earn handsome profits by creating innovative products and services based on the wants and needs of those living in poverty.
Although this may sound like talk from any other ”business expert”, Paul actually walks his talk.
He’s spent the past 30 years working with thousands of farmers in countries around the world - including Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe - to help design and produce low–cost, income–generating products.
He’d spend his days there walking with these farmers around their one-acre farms, sipping tea with their family, and learning about their lives, problems, wants, needs, desires and fears.
Through his research, he came up with innovative product solutions for poor farmers - the $25 treadle pump and small-drip irrigation systems starting at $3.
These solutions alone helped increase poor farmers’ net income by $288 million annually while moving more than 20 million people out of poverty.
Today, Paul Polak is the Founder and CEO of Windhorse International, a for-profit social venture with the mission of inspiring and leading a revolution in how companies design, price, market and distribute products to benefit the 2.7 billion customers who live on less than $2 a day, combining radically affordable technology with radically decentralized supply chains to earn profits serving bottom billion customers.
The first division of Windhorse International, Spring Health Water (India), sells affordable safe drinking water to rural Indians through local kiosk owners using a simple electro-chlorination technology.
Spring Health aims, within ten years, to reach at least 100 million customers who live on less than $2 a day.
I had the opportunity to interview Paul on my podcast, The Soulfully Optimized Life.
In our interview, Paul goes deep and shares stories and wisdom from the experiences he's had as a social entrepreneur.
In the episode, you'll learn...
- How Paul went from a practicing psychiatrist to a successful social entrepreneur.
- How having product placement in a Bollywood film was Paul's greatest marketing strategy.
- How Spring Health India is supplying clean water and boosting local economies in India.
- The powerful practices you need to know to create maximal impact as a social entrepreneur.
- What you should focus on to eliminate poverty globally.
- The business solution and strategies to ending global poverty.
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Paul is eager to connect with ambitious, driven, inspired, motivated, and hungry individuals who want to be a successor of his in running one of his social enterprises.
If this sounds like you, reach out to Paul by using the contact form on his website.
Now, I want to hear from you in the comments below...
How do you want to help people move out of poverty and into abundance?