Pedro brought a new concept of ‘social intrapreneurship’, starting a social enterprise within his capacity as an

employee of an organisation. A global citizen, he has lived and worked in USA, Mexico, Germany, India and now, in Singapore. From a side project to becoming a movement,

he helps the creative community to give back while empowering others.

p edro AdriAn Agui rreCo-founder of Make The Change

pedro, you are truly a global citizen, having lived and worked in uSA, Mexico, germany, india and now, here in Singapore. Could you describe your path to what you’re doing now?I always liked to travel and discover new places, and I try to take all the opportunities I have to explore the world. It all started with being a tourist, but I wanted more. So I decided to move and live in different countries and through the experiences, it gave me a bigger perspective of things. I was interacting with the locals and adopting their cultures, and this made me realise how things are different to each culture. There are always opportunities to connect cultures and build something new.

All of these experiences had brought me to where I am today. I consider myself a changemaker; I am trying to make this world a better place through the many things I’ve seen in my trips and experiences gained abroad. Make The Change project started because of an existing problem and

we try to find a solution to that problem.

Being a global citizen helped me understand people and cultures better and that is a skill which can only be developed through living abroad.

How did starting a social enterprise in Singapore came about? I have been involved in the social enterprise scene for many years and I know of the struggles relating to developing creative marketing materials specifically amongst social enterprises and NGOs, due to financial resource constraints.

Make The Change started 2 years ago, whilst I was working for M.A.D. School. The school has courses in marketing, advertising and design. I saw the students’ pieces of works and was very impressed but I soon realised that their works will never be pragmatically implemented and used in the market.

inTerVieW

We are continuously learning many things just like any startup, and grows from every experiences. We initially envisioned Make The Change as a side project to support youths in building their portfolios through providing real impacts for good, but now it has become a movement helping the creative community to give back and empowering others.

<< I then discussed with my boss about the idea of connecting our students with social enterprises so that their works can be more than mere class work and be implemented in real life. That is how Make The Change started; we are trying to solve creative problems of social entrepreneurs.

You brought the new concept of ‘social intrapreneurship’, starting a social enterprise within your capacity as an employee of an organisation. Many of us share a similar dream of contributing back, yet still hold a strong position within our careers. What were your thoughts at the initial stage of Make The Change? did you envision its growth to what it is today?Well when we started Make The Change, we wanted to create opportunities for the students f rom M.A.D. School as I saw that they could make real impacts to social enterprises with their creative skills. When we started offering our services to social enterprises, we received many positive responses, leading to the decision of creating Make The Change a social enterprise by itself.

At the start we were only offering creative services, but with the right connections

and many open doors, we started offering creative workshops for marginalised groups like youths at risk and people with disabilities as well as students in secondary schools.

I never saw getting the involvement f rom corporates and getting their employees to interact with our beneficiaries as one of the main objectives but it is now one of the main drivers of Make The Change. We are continuously learning many things just like any start up, and grows from every experiences. We initially envisioned Make The Change as a side project to support youths in building their portfolios through providing real impacts for good, but now it has become a movement helping the creative community to give back and empowering others.

What personal experiences shaped your career and inspired you to become involved with social innovation and entrepreneurship?I was a very active AIESEC member and now an AIESEC alumni. AIESEC members are always trying to make this world a better place which inspires me to become a social innovator and entrepreneur. I had the

privilege to attend conferences in South America, Africa and Europe. Besides learning and being inspired by other members, I also saw how ideas can produce positive differences in the society and decided to use my ideas to make the world a better place.

Why do you think getting more people into social enterprise will have a positive impact on wider society?I think it is always great to have more people educated and being involved in social entrepreneurship and having more businesses which tries to make an impact in the society, but I think that every company should be a social enterprise. The social enterprise scene is becoming ‘in fashion’ now and many people are using it and creating lots of awareness. In reality I think every company should be a social enterprise; giving back to society and not solely focus on the profits.

What do you think are the barriers to making a difference as a social entrepreneur at the moment?

I think one of the main barriers is the lack of financial resources, which constraints the development of great ideas and projects. At the end of the day we are also a start up and faces the same challenges that any start up faces. The added challenge is trying to make our programmes relevant and at the same time to give back to the society.

How does Make The Change go about measuring its own impact?Measuring impact is always hard since we do not have the tools and research to see how impactful our programmes are. How we measure Make The Change’s impact is mainly through talking to our clients and collecting their testimonies. We had helped organisations developed marketing campaigns for their fundraising events and when they achieved their goals, it proves the success of our services. Another example of measurement is our beneficiaries learning a new skill, translating to finding a job which can improve their quality of life.

it ’s great that Make The Change has been growing over the last two years and casting

BuSineSS

<<a wider pool of the positive impacts it has on its students, clients, corporates as well as projecting a better view and understanding of social enterprises in Singapore in general. do you see the growth of Make The Change beyond Singapore? What are the projected key goals of Make The Change for the next five years?Yes I see Make The Change doing impact beyond Singapore; currently, we are working with a few clients that are based in Cambodia. We know that in Cambodia there are many social enterprises which require creative help so hopefully we can work closer with them in the near future.

For the next 5 years the main goal of Make The Change is to become sustainable, continue to grow and keep doing more impact and empowering communities to help make this world a better place.

As an avid traveller myself, any recommendations for the ‘must go-to’ city or place? And what is your next destination on the list?I like travelling using the road less travel, so I prefer to visit places that are not so common and to interact with the locals. I think a must see place that I visited recently is Laos, it is a very nice country with many things to do and see.

The next three places that are in my wish list to visit are: Bhutan, North Korea and Israel. These three places are very interesting and intriguing with lots of history and things to explore so hopefully I can visit them next year.

For the next 5 years the main goal of Make The Change is to become sustainable, continue to grow and keep doing more impact and empowering communities to help make this world a better place.

One exciting aspect of 3-D printing’s potential impact is on medicine; f rom prosthetics, to the bioprinting of cells, to lifelike models of

organs, and to the possibility of implantable tissue. The proliferation of 3-D printers has had an unexpected benefit: creating cheap prosthetics. 3D printing is revolutionising prosthesis manufacturing, enabling fast, accessible and low cost production. But we should expect big things, as

this is just the beginning.

W|M

BuSineSS

3d prinTing & proSTHeTiCS