We started Ashoka here in India with a simple idea: that you needed social entrepreneurs to deal with problems that don't fit the business paradigm.

There are millions of people who can get things done. There are very, very few people who will change the pattern in the whole field.

Entrepreneurs almost always have to step out of existing institutions that embody old ways of doing things to build their vision.

The most critical variable [to becoming a change-maker] is one's willingness to give oneself permission. To break the mental chains that make us small because everyone tells us we cannot.

What is our job as entrepreneurs if not to change things that are crazy?

We need to teach empathy as we do literacy.

The job of a social entrepreneur is to recognize when a part of society is stuck & to provide new ways to get it unstuck.