Thursday, May 17, 2012
Home » Blogs » Natascha Chtena

"It's Not the Idea, It's the Person Behind the Idea"

blog | | By Natascha Chtena
Share |

Created in 2008, Sandbox is a cutting-edge global community of young achievers aged below 30. With 16 hubs in four continents, the network continues to grow worldwide by identifying and 'incubating' exceptional young people in an environment where they can link-up with like-minded peers, learn from senior leaders and gain access to opportunities that will help their careers and hopefully help solve the most challenging problems of large organizations and governments.

As the network introduces its first hub in Africa - in Nairobi, Kenya - I met with Co-Founder and Director of Sandbox, Christian Busch (pictured, preparing for a TED talk), to discuss Africa’s entrepreneurship potential, the significance of an elite education, community psychology and how Sandbox dinners and events are where the magic really happens.

Out of what need was Sandbox born?

We had a feeling that there was no real meeting place for people who are truly passionate about doing extraordinary things, and who try to push the boundaries within different fields. We thought how cool would it be to create a meeting space where the most amazing people from different areas could meet up and move beyond their own networks and their own fields, and connect with those like-minded people who have similar ambitions. In that spirit, we tried to come up with a framework for identifying such individuals all over the world, then also creating the kind of trust between them in order to build meaningful relationships. That’s why we believe Sandbox is much more than just connecting people, it’s really all about building a family of extraordinary friends who then incubate each other in an environment through which they get access to resources that allow them to grow and “graduate as role models” by the time they are 30.

How does it go beyond mere socializing and where does change/action come about?

I believe it starts with the selection. The selection is based not only on whether someone is an entrepreneur or is pushing the boundaries in their field, but especially on the question of what they can contribute to the community. We believe that all those people individually are amazing movers, but if they worked together, they could achieve even more. Individuals, in fact, join with the idea that they will be part of a community where people help each other, which means much more than mere socializing. Also, we have very active local communities and ambassadors in those 18 “hubs”, as we like to call them, like Sebastian Lindstrom in Nairobi, who make sure that the people involved are feeling that they are all “together” to take action. We are convinced that the true, big collaborations come about over years, as you develop trust amongst people. Then, the great opportunities come up through the amazing people that you have around you, not based on a transaction where you say “Oh there’s an amazing big project, let’s join it”. Having said that, we also have fixed projects where we try to get Sandboxers involved, before approaching larger organizations and trying to basically solve the issues at hand.

But how does this work locally?

Locally, at dinners for example, people discuss their honest challenges, as opposed to the ones they might mention at a conference just because they sound cool. If you are in an environment where you feel comfortable and where you can honestly share your challenges, that really pushes you forward.

You recently returned from a three week trip to Kenya. What exactly was the trip regarding, was it like an “inauguration” of the Nairobi hub?

When we usually start a hub, what we do first is informally build a community of people. So Sebastian went there five months ago with the What Took You So Long Foundation crew, identified the right people from different fields and built-up an informal community; then we made him ambassador. When we launch a new hub, we always try to send out one of our team members to meet people locally so, yes, in a way, one could say it was a sort of “inauguration” of the Nairobi hub. We especially believe that there is potential for a true community in Nairobi and what we believe to be a strong “ecosystem” of partners.

Is this “ecosystem” self-sustainable?

No. You obviously need the community, but then around the community you have to build ties with strong corporates, capitalists and incubators, like the iHub or the mLab in Nairobi. I think one great thing I learned in Kenya, and which I found very exciting, is that there is a true eagerness in exactly those kind of people to get involved with the younger generation. There was a strong disconnection so far: on the one hand the old elites, the old governments, the “old people”, who always kind of close down, and on the extreme other, the youth. Today, I think, we have the first elite individuals who actually want to showcase and support real role models, instead of the stereotypical kind of people who have been making their money through channels that we shouldn’t probably discuss here. Individuals who you feel are trying to give this younger generation a chance by allowing some very special 28-29-year-olds to inspire role models for younger kids.

Do you think that in order to be a successful young entrepreneur strong ideas, commitment, versatility and the like are enough? Or are family ties and a certain education still the defining factors?

I’m doing a PhD in social entrepreneurship at the LSE, and I’m looking exactly at those kinds of questions. Part of our Kenya tour was also about trying to understand how you can make sure that social entrepreneurs - but also other entrepreneurs who have the perseverance, who have potentially the ability to do special things - are nurtured and brought forward. And the interesting thing is that their success relies on a combination of what you mentioned. On the one side, especially in societies like a lot of Kenyan parts, success in any form is still unfortunately based too much on the old kind of social structures and too little on performance ability. On the other, the chance that I see now is that this is breaking up because of the initiatives that I just mentioned. I believe that if you create the kind of ecosystems where accessibility is not defined by the idea of who knows who by birth, but is more defined by the people you meet on the way, you can change prevailing social structures. People like the iHub, for example, where you can just jump in and those people see with who you would potentially work well with, these are great initiatives where you can get away from the old idea that, even if you were a great kid in Kibera, there was really no way to climb up because it was just not accessible to you. I think now there are more channels. Yes, a lot still depends on what context you come from, but then if you bring the right perseverance, especially through social media now, there is such a great chance to directly get access to people that you wouldn’t have access to before. I think that if you are resourceful enough - as resource is the new capital - you can do it. Basically, the reason why social media are so important is that they connect people who care with people who want.

How do you assess potential Sandboxers in places like Nairobi?

In the Western context it is of course much easier to assess people, because we are more familiar with what makes someone in the West successful. When you have a slum kid in Kibera, that creates amazing design objects by recycling used material, it is much tougher to evaluate whether they can achieve a lot themselves, but also whether they have the potential to inspire others, to be real role models, which is what we want from them. I think the problem that I see with a lot of ideas is that people bring in their ideas and then they think “OK, it’s the bringing in of the idea that matters”. But what people actually invest in, whether you are talking about financial or about social capital, is not the idea itself, it’s the person behind the idea. It’s the question of who actually the person is and whether they can implement their idea. What I find most exciting is that the people in the Nairobi context understand that if they have a brilliant idea, they have to find a way to build a network of trust around themselves, rather than around the idea, and then they can take it form there. And we are exactly the kind of network for that.

Sandbox is “starting off” in Africa with the Nairobi hub. What’s next?

We want to expand to Ghana and South Africa.

On what criteria do you base your choice of hubs, particularly in the context of Africa?

On the one hand, our choice depends on the potential to build up an innovation community at a given location, so the question of what is the entrepreneur capacity there, who are the potential partners there, how can we enter the community or the market - market is a bad word though -  the local sphere if you might. On the other, it is the question of how a potential hub fits into the global vision of Sandbox. At the moment, the way we expand is that we target the main innovators in certain parts of the world and then we create a list and decide based on the factors I named above.