Adam is a Founder and the Executive Director of Student Hubs as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Hub Commercial Ventures CIC, sister organisations with a joint mission to promote social action, social entrepreneurship and citizenship. Turl Street Kitchen, in Oxford is one of the Hub’s first commercial ventures.  Adam is a trustee of Students Supporting Street Kids and had a short stint before university working in an investment bank. 

Why do you do the job you do?

Society needs to be more integrated.  Sometimes it seems that there is a crippling lack of communal endeavour and shared values. There are few institutions left whose aims include bringing people together, prioritising collaboration and partnership and creating a solid infrastructure of support for the volunteering lifecycle from birth to death. I see us as playing a small but crucial part in this lifecycle which hopefully produces more engaged and relational human beings who are always aware of each other’s needs and are able to respond quickly to alleviate human suffering.

What are you most proud of?

Well I’m continually amazed of the things that students and recent graduates manage to get up to in terms of making a difference in their communities. So I’m very proud that we’ve managed to help some of that happen.

What keeps you awake at night?

Our cafe-bar-restaurant, Turl Street Kitchen, is sometimes open until 3am, so occasionally that. Otherwise blissfully nothing. Far too much to keep you awake in the day to take those worries into the night!

What were you doing 5 years ago?

We’re just about to hit our fifth birthday, so five years ago we were a bunch of first and second year university students rather naively setting out into the world with the outlines of an organisation that had a much dodgier name at the time. Wild ambitions and few resources I think probably described us well – with just enough stupidity to carry us through. Little did we know that the joys of business plans, fundraising, committee meetings were stretched far and wide ahead of us.

What do you expect to be doing in 5 years’ time?

We’ve just laid out a five year plan so hopefully I’ll be looking back at everything we’ve achieved. Year on year we’re looking to get more students, doing more, more effectively, for longer. We want to be working across a wider range of universities and trying to engender social action across the whole of people’s lifetime, not just as students. We quite fancy running a few more restaurants as well…

If you were Prime Minister for the day, what would you do?

I’m fascinated by changing the way corporations operate, so probably something about changing governance to embed social and environmental values right at the core of all organisations, public and private. Super boring maybe, but something that would make a huge difference to altering the way we think about the value and purpose of business. There is much to be applauded in the way we do business today, but shareholders are too detached from the corporations they own to have any real influence. We all know this isn’t the right way and the recent surge in social enterprises, mutual and coops shows that it isn’t the only way anymore either.

What do you think On Purpose brings to the social enterprise field?

On Purpose shares a lot of our values; driving top talent towards making a real difference in the social sectors. Its testament to the successes of On Purpose that my only recommendation would be to work with more and more people. If many of the students we worked with ended up as On Purpose Associates we would consider it job done.

One of the great things about On Purpose the exposure we get to different organisations. My first placement is with O2, a very, very big company with a surprisingly flexible approach to how we work. O2 has raised and changed my understanding and expectations of what an efficient and professional workplace should look like. It can look like an office, a meeting room at a client’s or partner’s premises, a café, one’s living room or even a bench in a park when it’s sunny outside. This flexible workplace has of course been made possible because O2 can provide staff with the opportunities and tools to enable them to work from anywhere.

What’s in it for me? As I see it, there are multiple benefits of being able to work remotely, both for businesses and their employees. Given the average cost of desk space in the UK is between £6K and £12K per year, having a flexible workspace can offer substantial savings. Running companies remotely can also be beneficial in light of events such as the Olympic Games, unexpected snowfall or even school holidays that make it complicated and time consuming for people to get to work or stay at a desk for the time needed to get the job done. And let’s not forget about the importance of being able to work remotely and having access to documents when commuting between meetings.

And how does this help ME? I can imagine you think “I don’t want to work 24 hours per day!” Me neither. In my opinion, having work-life balance means being able to choose when to work and when not to. I usually go to the office when I have meetings (and I have lots of them). However I definitely prefer to stay at home when I need to do some analysis and serious thinking. Or, I can spend time saved on commute to work longer hours, exercise or go to the doctors. Come June and July, I’m also planning to spend some time working in the nearby park. The UK is not that generous with sunshine….so one of the added perks of a flexible workplace is that I can enjoy rare bursts of sunshine, whenever they occur.

Niraj Varia is the Chair of On Purpose.  Niraj has been involved in a range of work in the social sector, focusing on African development and social enterprise. His work in African development ranges from supporting TechnoServe in the development of agricultural value chain interventions in Eastern and Southern Africa to the development of an SME Fund for East Africa.  He also supported the development of the FranchisingWorks initiative that is using franchising to generate employment in England. Originally from Kenya, he has also worked as an actuary and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company.

Why do you do the job you do?

I believe that using private enterprise is going to be the most effective way to eradicate poverty at scale.  However, this will only happen if people with skills and experience are willing to apply those to the challenges facing the poor.  I am doing what I am doing because I could not expect the others (who are, in truth, more needed than I) to do this if I was not willing to myself.

What are you most proud of? 

Over the years I have worked in the social enterprise sector, I like to think that I have encouraged and developed many other who want to enter the sector or develop in it, and have even made small contributions that helped a few social enterprises achieve great things.  This is my proudest achievement – helping bring in and develop the people behind the solutions of the future.

What keeps you awake at night? 

The fear that the perfect solution to a serious problem will pass me by because I was looking the other way, or because I don’t have time to chase it down.

What were you doing 5 years ago? 

Sleeping very little and working very hard at McKinsey & Co. and loving the experience as a change from my former life as an actuary.

What do you expect to be doing in 5 years’ time? 

Running my own little social enterprise in Kenya

If you were Prime Minister for the day, what would you do?  

End farm subsidies and tariffs.  They cost tax-payers billions, increase prices, destroying livelihoods among smallholders in emerging countries and only really help huge multinationals.

Why are you involved with On Purpose?  

Talent is consistently one of the top three challenges in every organisation (private, public and civic sector).  The social enterprise sector is critical to addressing social challenges today and growing in importance.

When I was asked if I would like to help a social enterprise that develops talent for the social enterprise sector, it was a no-brainer for me – that is why I got involved.  More than that, in the almost 3 years I have been involved, I have built great friendships and met amazing people – that is why I have stayed involved.

Catriona is Director (a.k.a Pirate Captain) of Hackney Pirates, an innovative education project that develops literacy and creativity in young people, by giving them one to one attention in an unconventional learning environment. Previously, Catriona
 was a ‘Teach First’ teacher at Salisbury School (now Nightingale Academy), Edmonton. As subject leader for Citizenship she developed and implemented a school-wide active Citizenship curriculum to give young people the knowledge and practical experience they need to be informed, critical and engaged citizens. Catriona has also worked at Ashoka, the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, where she led the Venture programme to select and support leading social entrepreneurs in the UK.

Why do you do the job you do?

Because I know that The Hackney Pirates is helping young people succeed who would otherwise be at risk of failing. Because I found so frustrating the number of children who were failing in our school system for reasons which shouldn’t have been a big problem, like speaking English as a second language. Because I think that we need to update the type of learning that goes on in schools. And, because I get to be a Pirate Captain.

What are you most proud of?

Working with an amazing team of people who are good at things I’m not, like refurbishing an old college to make it look like a pirate ship, or organising a festival. It means I get to share in a thousand achievements and successes that I’d never be able to create on my own. We’ve now trained over 250 volunteers, which means that there are 250 people who each bring their own dynamism, ideas and passion to young people’s learning.

What keeps you awake at nigh

Last night it was our upcoming event on 25^th April – The Young Pirate Apprentice – you should come! http://youngpirateapprentice.eventbrite.com.

Hackney Pirates search for volunteers

What were you doing 5 years ago?

Teaching Citizenship in a school in Edmonton (north London) which had the second lowest results in London, as part of the Teach First programme. I was the first teacher of the subject to join the school, and I taught over 500 pupils every week. I was focused on giving every young person the chance to work on an active project which gave them the chance to tackle a social problem. I am still very passionate about giving young people the chance to get the skills, knowledge and experience to be active citizens, but there were so many pupils who were not literate enough to engage in the curriculum fully, and I learnt that literacy is really a first step towards full citizenship. I came away with a firm belief in the power of good education of shape children’s lives, and very frustrated at all the things we were failing at.

What do you expect to be doing in 5 years’ time?

Developing ideas that solve social problems. I’d like to live abroad later, so perhaps The Hanoi Pirates? Or the Cape Town Pirates? But I don’t know yet whether this is a solution which works in other places, so wouldn’t plan to take the Pirates elsewhere unless there was a need. I still have a great deal to learn about how you tackle social problems in the most effective way.

If you were Prime Minister for the day, what would you do?

1. Commit to not making any politically motivated decisions about the structure of schools which are going to have a 4 or 8 year life-cycle – these are just distracting everyone from what really matters.
2. Work out how we can help our schools teach young people real life skills that produce confident, articulate and entrepreneurial adults
3. Make International Talk Like A Pirate Day a national holiday

Why are you involved with On Purpose?

I’ve known several people involved with On Purpose in different ways, and have been so impressed by their diversity and quality. On Purpose Associates are such a bright, interesting and engaging group of people to be around.

Hackney Pirates is always looking for new volunteers to join the crew.  If you are interested, visit their website at www.hackneypirates.org

At the start of April, I attended the book launch of On the Up  at a packed out Royal Commonwealth Society. The crowd were all there to hear about the inspiring stories of social entrepreneurs in Africa which have been lovingly documented in Nikki and Rob Wilson’s new book.

In 2011, having left READ International, the student-led charity they co-founded, Nikki and Rob (who now work at Wings for Life and Ashoka respectively) embarked on a remarkable journey through Africa.  Together, they traveled from Cape Town to Cairo, finding and documenting a number of extraordinary entrepreneurs who are transforming ordinary people’s lives .

On the Up is the story of what they found. From rats sniffing out landmines, to water pumped via playground power, to a child soldier who became an acclaimed rapper the stories they found were incredible.  Here is my video review.

Here’s the official On the Up Video:

One of the best aspects of being an On Purpose Associate is finding out the stories and impact that people can have… it’s inspirational stuff. In addition, a number of this year’s placements support entrepreneurialism in Africa – see ToughStuff, Progressio, and FARM-Africa.

If you would like to know more about On Purpose or On the Up, visit www.onpurpose.uk.com and www.ontheup.org.uk.