Social entrepreneurship in Indonesia has been trending lately, it is trending because Indonesian

entrepreneurs are now more concern towards the social condition of Indonesia. Crowd-funding is
one of the most popular ways of social entrepreneurs gathering fund with less to no interest
compared to the bank, for example: gandengtangan.org.

Social enterprise is a startup which focuses on tackling social issues that exist in this society.
Whether to create a products or services, they all need to tackle social issues in order to be
classified as social enterprise.

One of the social entrepreneurs that are known to create huge impact in Indonesia social life is
Tri Mumpuni. She creates an institution name Institut Bisnis dan Ekonomi Kerakyatan (IBEKA).
The company focused on helping to electrify poor communities and remote areas that have not
been in the coverage of PLN as an electricity provider across Indonesia. The company that she
leads is able to electrify those areas that have not been covered by PLN thru micro-hydro power
plant. Basically, micro-hydro power plant is a power plant that creates electricity by harvesting
the energy from the river’s current.

Tri Mumpuni also plan ahead of time before establishing the micro-hydro power plant. To run
the power plant, you need to do maintenance. Maintenance require funds, so before Tri
Mumpuni proceed on establishing the power plant. For Mumpuni, the key to bringing about rural
electrification is keeping the system community-based. In order for the project to sustain,
Mumpuni said that it needs to be community-based. It allows the community to have equity in
funding the system, make decisions for its design and operation, and develop the rural programs
that will benefit from the generated revenue. All of these endeavors are made possible through
the local cooperative mechanism Mumpuni has introduced. The power plant built by Mumpuni
not only provide electricity to the community but also provide additional revenue for the
community because they are able to connect to the PLN grid and sell the excess electricity.

From my point of view, this project brought by IBEKA is a very humble project; it provides
many advantages towards the poor communities and people that are in remote areas that have not
been in the coverage of PLN. As what Mumpuni said, “Electricity is not the main goal.
Electricity is only a tool that helps create momentum for the society to enhance their life quality
and make their financial life better overall.”
Although the project is very good. Good in every way including the goal of its current project.
There is still room to expand. Poor communities or those who live in remote areas has a lot of
necessities that currently the government has yet to give, such as health care, education and
many others. I see a huge prospect of creating bigger impact, because IBEKA has built over 60
power plants in multiple villages. Of course from the experience gathered, they know exactly
what they need and how to provide it to them. All they need is the execution.

Social entrepreneurs are still entrepreneurs. This means that as entrepreneurs they still want their
business to sustain and able to make profit although it is not the main focus. The main focus of
being social entrepreneurs is creating impact towards the society. They create impact in society
by creating products or services or perhaps improving the technology in order to overcome social
problems that exist in society.

Social entrepreneurs earn more respect in society compared to other entrepreneurs whose focus
is on making profit. Therefore social entrepreneurs have a better opportunity in penetrating new
market when they expand their business because they have earned respect from the society.

References:

What is a social entrepreneur ? (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.schwabfound.org/content/what-social-entrepreneur

Yusra, Y. (2017, July 04). Melihat Potensi Social Entrepreneurship di Indonesia | Dailysocial.
Retrieved from https://dailysocial.id/post/melihat-potensi-social-entrepreneurship-di-indonesia