WHEN DUTY CALLS…
Have you ever noticed what happens when an emergency was reported at the hospital, police station, fire office, or at the warfront? Ideally the police blow their sirens and announce their arrival at the scene of event to pick up all the pieces, collect evidence, take pictures & samples and note every narration down, then analyze it in order to get a case in the court room if ever the culprit was taken. Doctors also examine the severity and magnitude of the injuries, take samples, analyze results and try to save lives. Fire officers also arrive only in time of necessity to quench the burning flame, check for survivors and take samples trying to find out the cause of inferno. On the other hand, soldiers don’t have emergency situations, they on themselves are the emergencies. What they have is what they call an ambush, that’s whenever they were caught unaware and often bear the maximum damage possible from their opponents.
Another distinctive personality that attend to emergencies is the Intellectual Entrepreneur (IE). Known as social entrepreneur, they drive social innovation and transformation in various fields including education, health, environment and enterprise development. The IE pursue poverty alleviation goals with entrepreneurial zeal, business methods and the courage to innovate and overcome traditional practice. IE always focuses first on the social or ecological value creation, innovates by finding a new product, service or a new approach to continuously refine and adapts approaches in response to feedback.
An intellectual entrepreneur (IE) is not different from others, only that when emergency happens, IE don’t go there in the time of dangers, they first of all position themselves in a secure angle and try to observe the situation from secondary sources of information, access the relevant data and understand the dynamics of the whole parameters in an informed perception. Information is the key here. An IE approaches an emergency in a quiet different way, often unannounced, in a friendly manner, polite, and at times without knowing what to do at the first place. But by applying practical, innovative and sustainable approaches to benefit societies with emphasis on those marginalized and poor, also approaches that cut across sectors and disciplines grounded in certain values, this distinguishes the IE from the rest of the crowd of well-meaning people who dedicate their lives to social improvement.
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After studying the scenario and extracting relevant information from direct or primary sources, the IE interprets the results in a special way by brainstorming on the outlined possible causes of the situation, possible effects, magnitude of coverage, and demographic distribution of victims plus also the actual cost of managing the idea at heart. From there the IE moves to devising an action plan which constitute everything from day one analysis to relevant literatures concerning history of occurrence and similar cases, statement of purpose, goals to achieve and statement of time. Who is to do what and what result is expected out of it. Of course monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is one important aspect of the plan here.
Some IE prefer to be named social entrepreneurs since all they do was not for a profit but a way of offering themselves to service to humanity. All that concerns an IE is to uplift the bench mark of prosperity among fellow men. To create a platform that serves as a gate way to liberal integration of citizens. Often by creating and promoting economic activities that target the lives of the most vulnerable among the populace, the IE seeks for internal and external funding in order to achieve accordingly.
When duty calls, the intellectual entrepreneur prepare himself to the rescue of humanity. With nothing in their minds but the zeal to preserve lives like the doctors do in the hospitals, like the police do to serve and to protect the people, as the fire man does to stop the inferno and just as the soldier does in times of ambush. Only that an IE carries no tool, what matters most is the two eyes in the front and the Brian that lies behind the eyes. Yes, the IE engages on one of the most difficult thing to do today which is thinking. A healthy impatience you may say, social entrepreneurs cannot sit back and wait for change to happen — they are the change drivers.
Ideas are what keeps the IE going. By subjecting the thinking faculty to the hardest and smartest possible outcomes that affects the lives of people for good. Even though there are some precincts to what they can do pending on the policy and rules they adopt for themselves, I dare say no one is above the caring hands of the intellectual entrepreneur. Emergencies are dynamic and they can pop up at any point in time without notice.
When duty call…. You see us!!!
