Learn how global leaders at Davos 2026 are spotlighting entrepreneurship and social innovation to fill gaps in underserved markets and transform disruption into growth.
At Davos 2026, leaders argued that entrepreneurship can profitably “fill gaps in underserved markets” if designed for inclusion, quality, and long-term capital. Physician-entrepreneur Shuchin Bajaj described building Ujala Cygnus hospitals in small-town North India on “the unit economics of inclusion,” flipping healthcare from “a very high cost, very low volume model” to “very high volume, very low cost” while treating quality “as an investment…not as a cost.” His rule: “If you’re not both market minded and mission driven, you will soon be neither.”
Prosus’s Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa emphasized ecosystem-building in underdeveloped markets through patient investment, skilling, and targeted support for female tech founders, noting the importance of “working as ecosystems.” Schneider Electric’s Gwenaelle Avice Huet said social innovation must be “connected to our business,” embedded as “corporate citizenship,” and measured with sustainability KPIs “the same way” as financials; impact requires “long standing commitment.”
SAP’s Gina Vargiu-Breuer positioned social innovation as “a business imperative” that combines “performance and purpose,” citing impact investing, 43,000 pro bono hours, and social procurement: shifting even a small portion of procurement can scale impact. Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta closed with skepticism about “professional pledgers,” urging concrete private-sector action as public aid becomes less reliable.
And welcome to this session, this wonderful panel on putting entrepreneurs where markets are not. We see entrepreneurship and innovation playing such a fundamental role in economies around the world. And as we think about social innovation and social entrepreneurship, they are playing an ever bigger role on continents all around the world. So we have a wonderful panel today. My name is Rich Lyons. I'm the chancellor of University of California at Berkeley, and my field is economics. And I also served as the dean of the business school some time ago. So this is an area of great interest to me. Even though I'm not an expert specifically in this field. I'm going to get the panel introduced. Actually, I'm going to let them introduce themselves so you can get a little sense for some of the work that they're doing. I've got a question for each. And there's a little bit more coming at you here today. So why don't we start over with you, Gwen, maybe you could just give us a quick introduction of what you're up to and your background.
So I'm Gwen, I'm an engineer. I'm working for a company called Schneider Electric that is very much positioned on energy technology. And I think on those topic matters because it's energy access and all that kind of stuff. So I'm in charge of industrial automation, and in the past I had also in charge of corporate social responsibility. So I am keen to be with this panel and to exchange on what we can do all together in that same direction.
Thank you for that. And so it is very helpful. We've we've put together a panel that spans lots of different elements, larger enterprises, smaller enterprises. For those of you that are on social media, if you would also use the hashtag hashtag w 26, we'd appreciate that on any of your social media channels and activity. Thank you for that for this session. So we'll turn to you please in introduction.
Hi, my name is Sachin Bajaj. I am a doctor by training and I'm the founder of Ujala Cygnus group of hospitals. We have hospitals spread across North India focusing on communities that did not have access in the small towns. And we operate at very, very low price points. So a very affordable, high quality healthcare chain focusing on communities that do not have access.
Thank you. Suchin to you, please, Gina.
Yes. So my name is Gina. I'm the chief people officer and part of the executive board for SAP, one of Europe's, tech company. And, so I'm, I joined SAP two years ago. And before that, I have a career with Siemens, always in HR space and by training. I'm an economic psychologist.
Thank you. Thank you, Gina, and please.
Sure. Hello, everybody. My name is Puti Mahanyele-dabengwa and I am the group executive director of Naspers and Prosus. Naspers and Prosus are a consumer internet business, and we operate in 100 markets around the world servicing 2 billion people. And we're largely in the global South. We come originate from South Africa. And so a lot of the businesses that we operate in are in the Global South.
Thank you for that. Thank you for that. So you can see the wonderful mix here. I'll start in no particular order here. We'll start with you, Shushan. So you are a Schwab Foundation awardee. Just wanted to point that out. You've been working at the frontier, as you said, of key social issues, specifically health care, given your background as well. This chain of hospitals in India, benefiting the most vulnerable groups, as you said, you're also financed by a return seeking investors. So so there's, you know, where does funding come from? And as we think about that continuum from kind of purely return, seeking to purely social gain seeking, it is a wide continuum. How do you square the circle between impact innovation and financial returns?
Let me start by saying that, impact and return for us are not two sides or two ends of a spectrum. They are actually two sides of the same coin. I started out 18 years ago when I was studying to be a gastroenterologist at one of the biggest hospitals of Delhi, when I saw a very young relative of mine dying on the road while trying to access healthcare come to Delhi from a small town. And then I saw another relative, an older person who did manage to arrive in Delhi, but then had to sell his house to fund the treatment, the healthcare that he was seeking. So that is when I decided that the real need was in the small towns, and financial outcomes were as important as physical outcomes to these communities. And those are the moments that shaped Ujala Cygnus into what we are. We are not a charity, but we are a business focusing on communities that have been left behind by the traditional market places. So how do we square this circle, you ask? Me first. I think the first thing that we do, and the first principle of designing such a business, is that we have to work at the unit economics of inclusion. Inclusion has to work at unit economic levels, not at just big intentional levels. Right. Because we have now 26 hospitals, operating across six states of North India. We see almost more than a million patients every year. And at 10% of the cost of a big city hospital doing exactly the same things. And we have been champions of various government schemes, like there's this large insurance scheme run by the Government of India, which is the largest in the world. 700 million people are covered by it. And we have been the champions, even though the price has been very, very low. Most private hospitals shy away from it. So, for example, for doing a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, you would get about $150, all included for a caesarean section, you will get about $100, all included, including stay medicine, surgical costs. We have been doing that. So the first innovation that we did was we tried and flipped the business model that traditional private healthcare has deployed. It is usually a very high cost, very low volume model. We flipped it into a very high volume, very low cost model. That was the first innovation. Then I think the second thing that we've done is we've treated quality as an investment that will give us multifold returns and not as a cost or a spending. So when we started out in these small towns, we were the first ones to get NBA accreditation, which is the highest accreditation you can get for quality in hospitals in India. And people used to ask me, why are you spending on doctor training? Infection controls, all these processes. Nobody is going to pay you for this because, you know, the community wants to pay much, much lesser here. But luckily I didn't listen to them and that quality led to more patients coming in, lesser legal costs, lesser complications, better reputation for us, not just in the patients, but amongst the doctors as well, because to attract a cardiac surgeon to come to a small town like, say, Karnal or Varanasi, you need to make sure that the doctor trusts your system completely and says, if I operate on a patient, my patient will go well. So this quality has given us multifold returns and it's allowed us to attract global capital like the private equity investors say a partner with the best institutions sit at this high table because we focused on quality from the very beginning. And third, and I think the most important thing we did was we aligned with the right capital. So you have to be very, very clear on who you want to partner with. Healthcare impact businesses are not really a quick flip business that, you know, you come in, you make money, exit out. It is a very long term compounding game, and the capital has to really ask the question, not how much can I make by a quick exit, but how much can I compound impact by staying in long term? Yes. So this is the capital that you really need to align with. So I think coming to your question on how do you square this circle of financial returns and impact and innovation? Let me flip it and say, how can you afford not to integrate all of this? Because at Ujala, Cygnus and at generally the show of community, I think what we have been realizing and really proselytizing is that the future of business has to be both market minded and mission driven, because if you're not both, you will soon be neither. Because charity alone cannot scale, cannot be sustainable, and the pure capitalism of yesteryears does not really have a future in the markets that have been ignored so long, and especially the younger people now do not want to buy from you. If you are focused purely on maximizing shareholder value. So you have to be both or you will be neither.
Got it. Thank you for that. And just a very quick follow up question. When you unit economics, are we thinking about a unit as a hospital or as a unit even more disaggregated than that.
So we really dig deep down into each and every operation because, you know, you have to eliminate all inefficiencies if you are building for a low cost operation. And efficiencies are the root of all profitability. So we have to dig down to each and every procedure, each and every medicine used, each and every patient seen whether as an OP or an IP, while at the same time maintaining the same quality as you would in a big city hospital. Right. Because doing a cardiac surgery, doing an organ transplant, doing a knee replacement surgery, doing dialysis, doing cancer treatments, if you lose sight of the quality, then there will be no hope. Because in these small towns, word gets around very fast. The word of mouth is very clear. If the patient feels that they have not been treated properly, or if there have been complications, they will stop coming to you. And we walk the talk, right? It's not like I will go to a big city hospital and expect the community to access my hospital. So my wife is a gynecologist. My daughter was born in our hospital because she trusts the fact that she will be taken good care of. My son has had a couple of surgeries in our own hospitals, so we access the same things because we are very confident that what we are offering is absolutely world class.
Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Putin. If we could turn to you, please. So markets that are not yet developed, right. You that was in your intro comments. How do you how do you approach that when when there's, when there's so little infrastructure on the ground.
So we've had the, the, the experience of going into markets long before there were known as, as you rightfully say, if I look at some of the markets that we've been in, we've been there for 30 years. In fact, even in developed markets like the EU, we've been there for over 20 years now. And, you know, and in many other global South markets, we've been there for for decades. And how we do it is that we tend to look at small and medium sized enterprises. I'll give you an example of one of our businesses, Ifood, which is based in Latin America. Ifood. When we invested into it, it was an early stage business. And when we we continue to invest in it, we tend to be long term investors. So we grow with the entrepreneurs. And so from that perspective, we've seen Ifood grow into not only a business that is in Brazil, but it's it's the it's the largest it's the largest food delivery business in Latin America. And, you know, it has done so much in terms of ensuring that there's so much skilling as well. And what we've seen in our business is it's not just about looking at commercial returns, but it is about what you're doing socially. And so ensuring that people have access to skilling and so ensuring that drivers, for instance, have access to skilling, have access to the ability to grow beyond just the work that they're currently doing. And then if I look even at what we are doing, what we've done, for instance, in India, what we did there was that we looked at the issue of female tech preneurs because we said when we look at many of our entrepreneurs, of many of our businesses, the majority of them are men, by far. And so we started looking at how we could develop more female tech preneurs. And so we started an entity called Tech Founder. And in India, we ran it and, you know, opened it up for anyone with a tech platform that they wanted to develop. And we took, the ones that were shortlisted, the three that were shortlisted brought them into New York, introduced them to investors, and have continued to engage with them. Then, having completed that one in India, we came to Africa, where we did again, similar competition for female tech preneurs and, you know, and we had a huge, overwhelming response from across the African continent. And we, you know, selected the three that we were going to work with, provided them with capital, and then also started a process of introducing them to formal, you know, capital raising markets. It is so important for us to be able to do this, because when we look at some of the businesses that many of these tech preneurs are developing, it goes across from medical facilities to agriculture to, you know, it's a number of different and gender based violence, you know, issues that are being dealt with by society. You know, we found a lot of these female tech preneurs have come up with solutions to those. And so it's a process of working alongside them in ensuring that these businesses can be able to scale beyond what they are doing. These are businesses that are looking at the social challenges that we face as societies, but also have a commercial impact so that they're able to sustain themselves as well. And, you know, for us, this is the manner in which we've run our business. And, it's really worked well and we'll continue to do so.
I love that. I love that, you know, that access to skilling, among the other points that you made, I think of it as like ecosystem development. Right? You are you're not just investing in an enterprise. You're helping to grow its ecosystem.
That's precisely it. Fabricia, our group CEO, actually came in and introduced that, ensuring that we could start working as ecosystems. And so whether we're in Latin America or India or whatever part of the world it is, we are building ecosystems to be able to, you know, to develop and make sure that we can achieve as much as possible. But on the issue of skilling that that is something that has been pivotal. And in fact, what we've done is we've started, in Amsterdam, for our EU market, we've opened up an AI house where we, you know, invite entrepreneurs from across Europe to come and listen to different ways, about a genetic AI, about different types of LMS, about, you know, all different types of technologies that are useful for them as they are growing their businesses.
Love it, you know, convening people in that way. And of course, the whole, if I can call it this business model, and it's going to attract capital into into your investing capacity. So it's just a lovely story. Can we turn to you, Gwen, and give us, give us some perspective now, when when you think about what you're up to, you announced that that you've, your signature of the Rise Ahead pledge, which we'll talk a little bit more about later. Committed Schneider Electric to increase investments in social innovation this year, you're announcing a new partnership with EDP, to support social innovators who contribute to the fair energy transition. What needs to happen for us to see more of these partnerships going forward?
Big question. Well, first, rice had, you know, pledge was initiated a year ago for us at Schneider. We are still super committed because we consider it's part of our mission as a company. We need to deliver a mission that is about access to energy, access also to water, because we see numbers of villages and rural environments that have disconnected from the rest of the world, and we need to bring that access. The mission that we have is connected to our business, and the business is electrified, digitized, Automatized. And I'm saying that because many companies can think that social topics initiatives are disconnected from business, that's not what we think. You know, it's really connected. Being a sustainable company is taking some commitments and turning around the business in that direction. I'm saying that because, you know, in terms of social commitment, it's not a new story. I'm saying the pledge is one year. The reality is that we have been committed for the past 15 years on those topics. And I think it's a journey. And this is super important to have long standing commitment when we see all the geopolitics and everything that's happening, when you have long standing commitment, that's where you can make a difference. So I'm super happy to be part of this company because of this journey. We still have a long thing in front of us, but at least we have already done quite a bit. And we have learned. We have learned how to make it happen, how to make it more meaningful, how to make it more pragmatic and operational. Yes. And I will give you a few examples, because we have built an entity that is called corporate citizenship within a company that is truly committed to all that, with in particular two layers which are impact investing, but also youth education and entrepreneurship. And at the beginning, we didn't know how to build that right. But finally, since 2009, we have been deploying 100 million capital equity in and carbon finance on this impact impact investing. And we have through that supported 60 initiatives and ventures that are really on the ground now. So we see immediate impact. It's not just a topic in corporate documents. We see immediate impact.
And connecting to your business.
Exactly. And this is super important today. Investors have to realize and that's a commitment that we have. Sustainability is part of our business journey. And especially for example, we have taken some KPI commitments that we deliver to the market every quarter same way than financial capital KPI. Yes, this is just important because we think that it's robust, it's something tangible, and it should give confidence for investors. And when they invest in companies like Schneider committed on sustainability, it's good for business. Yes. So Aisha, there is ample of impact investing. But another example which is around youth education, you were talking about the female and I can tell you we are so proud in some of the geographies where we can initiate with vocational training, with the schools relationship, very young age, female to go in that direction, you know, into electricians, turning into automation experts. It's so difficult to attract those females. But when you are there, young generation bringing them on board, it's opening up a new life for them. So that's something that we truly believe. That's something that we are very much advocating for. We have trained believe it 1 million people, 1 million people, not necessarily working for us, but this is a commitment that we have taken and we have done it. And from entrepreneurship, it's the same story because entrepreneurs, they make the growth of some areas in Africa, some parts of the world, and we need to hug them because they have very tangible ideas, but they don't know how to access the finance, how to have technical validation of their ideas, how to give market access to them. And those big companies can help them build that. So that's why we are so committed in entrepreneurship and making sure that a company, you know, in a very tangible way, those entrepreneurs. And that's all about the partnership with EDP. Yes. How to scale that. And we think that alone one company is important, but it's not changing everything. We need to partners. We need to build those ecosystems. So that's why we're starting with EDP with this edge transition program, very focused at entrepreneurs, making sure that we build those local tools to help them navigate and help them scale their business. Social entrepreneurs, we have announced that very recently and we want more to come. We want more companies to join, because I think the more we have complementarity in terms of business model, understanding of markets, etc., the more we can bring to entrepreneurs very concrete and tangible elements to help them scale.
Yeah. And these these are multiplier effects, right. As you're growing the talent that that is the ripple effects from from these I want to touch on one element of what you said. I mean there are many things that we could touch on. You talked about the phrase or used the phrase corporate citizenship and it started to connect, it seems to me, to corporate culture. Right. The idea that this is really become a very important part of what your enterprise represents, right? And so could you just say a few more words about that?
And you're absolutely right. I chose this wording for exactly this purpose because when I joined the company five years ago, I knew that Schneider was so committed on sustainability, but I was struck to see how embedded it is with the culture. Yes. And I can tell you, I was CEO, took this commitment like 15 years ago. Nobody was talking on sustainability. The way we were talking, like the past few years, nobody. And initially it started small, but he engaged throughout the organization. We want people on the shop floor to understand what sustainability is about and to make sure that they show initiative on the shop floor. Circularity is one topic, for example. So it's not something that is corporate level. It's embedded within and throughout the organization. And that's where we innovate the most, because our people, as the ones that are designing our commitments.
Love it. Thank you very much for that. Tina, could could you give us some perspective on on what you've been working on? You know, we've the ecosystem development is a theme that's come up in social innovation and some of our other talks. So SAP focused on ecosystem development for quite some time as well. Social innovation plays into this strategy. Why does SAP invest so consistently in this social innovation ecosystem?
Happy to share. And to start with I also would like to to share what I think why the topic is so important. Social innovation. Because at SAP, we deeply think and believe that social innovation is a business imperative. It really helps us also to unlock new growth, but it also builds resilience. And most importantly, it also creates actually, inclusive progress. And I think this is extremely important, to do that, and to enhance to advance also that topic. Right. And when you are putting actually social innovation at the core of everything, what we do, be it product design or be it workforce development or procurement, this is where I always say when you can combine actually performance and purpose. And I think performance and purpose are also reinforcing each other. And this is actually where transformation is also happening. So when you look at SAP, our customers are generating 84% of global commerce. And our reach is actually a strength, but it also comes with responsibility. And that's also exactly why ecosystem investment is at the core of our strategy. We are also working across the public sector, the private sector, the social sector. And that's also a reason why, the partnership we have with our global alliances, our social entrepreneurship is working so well because we can we are able to scale, together because we would not be able to deliver at that scale as a single organization. That's just impossible. And I would love to give also one example what we're doing. We do a lot. But one example, so we also have a partner for impact investment. So this is working capital fund. And we were able to invest €2 million actually in social enterprises that were improving actually the transparency, the traceability, but also the human rights in supply chain. So this is just one example where we are also investing. But of course external partnerships are important. But the same importance we are also attributing to our own employees. And that's why we are also investing heavily in pro bono consulting. So we do that virtually, but also in person. And just to give you also some numbers, just in 2025, our employees have generated more than 43,000 hours of professional expertise and consulting for 150 social enterprises, and nonprofit organizations. So this is pretty amazing. And I'm also happy to to announce that we also have now a new collaboration with Microsoft and Moving Worlds, on a new pro bono consulting program that is called Scale The Impact of AI, because we would like to connect social innovators also with the implementation of AI at scale.
Love it, love it. Could you also say a bit more about you mentioned social procurement, which has become such an important part of the Rise Ahead pledge, but it's also just an important concept. Could you say a little bit more about that and also connect it to the report, the Social Procurement 2020.
Absolutely. Thank you. So also here to put it into perspective, I think we can highlight how much technology can contribute actually to the opportunities we have to create impact. So I was talking about how much impact we are generating and how much global commerce our customers are producing. So 6.4 trillion USD are actually generated, are flowing through our SAP Business Network yearly. Right. And we are connecting actually global global traders across 190 countries. And what we're doing is actually that we are enhancing the visibility of social enterprises, with towards interested buyers. And can you imagine, I mean, when we're just shifting just a portion of that budget of procurement towards these businesses, how much social impact we can generate? And that's also why I'm very proud, I must say that we are supporting, actually the state of the social procurement, report for the second year, together with our partners and, and the World Economic Forum. And I would like to invite also, Dan, now to maybe share some more details on the social procurement report.
Thank you. Gina. And yes, social procurement really is such an important topic. As you said, with social procurement, you provide financing to social entrepreneurs in a way that links revenue to impact. So with every dollar that you spend as a company and you spend that on a social entrepreneur, it means you're increasing the impact of that entrepreneur. And so in the pure spirit of ecosystems, together with SAP, pre Wave and 20 other ecosystem organizations, we've published for the second year in a row now the state of social procurement 2026. Pre wave gave us data on 180,000 data, 180,000 supply chain issues between 2024 and 2025 and of 25. And we looked at what are the actual issues in these global supply chains. And it turns out that 18% of supply chain issues are linked to social issues that tops environmental issues, and also only second to legal and regulatory issues. So addressing social issues in supply chains really contributes to resilience. And together with the 20 partners, we highlighted how social procurement takes shape in over a dozen regions and countries across the world, and what the kind of regulations are that actually support the practice of social procurement in different regions and countries. And thank you for the partnership in doing so, and fostering that social entrepreneurs can get access not just to the platform, but also to the many corporate partners that are part of the Corporate Leadership Council and the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship.
Thank you for that.
And thank you for that. That concept, I mean, the leverage in it is enormous, among among many other features. I want to come back to the Rise Ahead pledge, if we could. The Rise Ahead pledge is has more than one half more than half $1 billion is already been committed to the Rise Ahead pledge since its launch in 2024. And Putin, maybe you could say just a little bit about the Rise Ahead pledge. And, you know, the well, you could give us a little bit more background on the Rise Ahead pledge. Thank you.
Well, we're very proud to be, you know, participants in the Rise Ahead pledge. We in our business are committed to ensuring that we are supporting entrepreneurs in a very holistic way. And so the Rise Ahead pledge for us really speaks to that, ensuring that we are procuring, in a manner that is, is, is really the most it makes the most sense. And also looking at many other areas of business in which we can ensure that from both the social and commercial perspective, that we are looking at how we approach our businesses in a manner that is most fruitful. And so we we're very proud members of of of it, and we look forward to contributing and participating in this pledge as we move forward.
Yeah, thanks for that. And for those of you that haven't seen it, it's easy to find online. And there are many different categories ways that you can participate in the Rise Ahead pledge. It's not a cookie cutter. You must do this or you must do that. It's here's a menu of things. You must do some of them. And that's effectively the commitment. But so do give it a look if, if and when you get a chance to do that. So I, we have a little bit of time left. I want to there's so many themes that have come up here that, that I mean, the, the, the on the ground elements, what each of you said are very, very important. And then there's some sort of, you know, mezzo level takeaways. And let me just say a few things about these mezzo level takeaways, because I see it really in the comments that each of you mentioned, there's discipline in what you do, for crying out loud. There is a lot of discipline in this, right? You talk about unit economics or, you know, connecting it. Okay. So, so it's so much of that, partnering in ecosystems. I think that's another macro theme here that you've just you've thought deeply about it. And, and it is a very powerful part of what you do. I'm going to use the word alignment. The idea that, you know, you are in a particular business, and, and we wanted to be aligned with what we're doing. So that takes a little different shape depending upon what, what which of the stories we heard. And then I also this a note the concept of leverage keeps coming. Coming in. Right. It's like how do we when we think about scaling impact? Ultimately leverage is a really important part of that. But I think you're finding leverage in really creative ways, right? You're making yourself bigger. You're impact bigger in really creative ways. And I suspect in ways that you may not have seen when you first really, really dove into that. So we have a little bit of time here before I, I turn it over to our, our closing remarks. But, anything either of you would, would like to add. And, you know, obviously, the four things that I mentioned discipline, partnering, alignment and leverage are not the be all and end all. They're just some of the things that that came to mind for me as I was listening to you. But, any thoughts you'd like to add with the, with the short amount of time, any any of you, please?
I think the root principle for us is equity and inclusion. And it it's not only financial barriers that prevent people from rising up in life. It can be geographical barriers. They're social barriers. We've heard stories like, we will not spend this much money on the treatment of this woman, because in so much money, we can actually do another marriage and get another woman. So social barriers on your caste, on your sex. These are some of the, the main factors that we look at. So equity and inclusion has to be baked into the business model from the very beginning along with sustainability. So you can't choose either of them. Your Pin code or ZIP code should not determine your health destiny that if you have a heart attack in a small town of kettle should not mean that even if you have a lot of money, you will die because there is no doctor for the next 100km. So. So all of these things you have to bake in right from the very beginning. When you start thinking of interventions into the community and don't go serially one by one, that okay, let us start with this. And then we look at the other things later, because then you will not be able to scale and you will not be able to survive.
I love that point. Love that point, you know? So I'm an educator in a university, and we often use a phrase that to me connects directly to that. You can't be what you can't see. There's just a lot of futures in an 18, 19 whatever year old that they can't see yet. And part of our job is, is to help them see those futures. Another way to think about it is, I think for a lot of the stuff that you're doing as social innovators and entrepreneurs, we need to, as universities help affect the cognitive shift from they do that other people do that to I do that.
Yeah.
And that's more than just knowledge. That's like identity shifting. Yeah. Please.
Yeah. You're absolutely right. Because I think we we have to operate as ecosystems. When I look at, at any particular country, it's important for us that we're able to engage with universities because universities are not just looking only at the curricula, but they are also developing a lot of small and medium sized enterprises. And then beyond that, it is also important that we are looking at ensuring that we are providing access to, to, to skilling, but also engaging with regulators, as well. So, so, so all of these things, being able to operate as an ecosystem is something that's fundamental to, to to all of us.
Yeah. Sorry I steered it back to university. Yeah. It's a very selfish thing for me to do, but it is just the lens that I see through. Please.
I would just add reiterate one topic, which is the long standing commitment. I think that all of us.
Yes.
We've been there for quite some time. And it's important because sometimes the market itself or the world itself is shortcoming. You know, we'll look short term, but the reality is that what we are talking about, if we really want to have meaningful impact, it requires time, it requires investment, it requires to build all those relationships. I'm saying that because I will give you another example. You said access to, hospitals, you know, medicals. We are working on access to energy. Yes. We have taken a commitment to give access to 35 million people, and we will achieve that. It's not happening in a day. It was a very long standing work and we made innovation. We invested in technology for that purpose. So I just wanted to reiterate that because all here we are in alignment. But the reality is that we know life how it is ups and down. Yes. And we need this commitment for the long term. And that's really a differentiator.
It's fundamental isn't it. And great founders have that right, that conviction level. Right. It's like are you really convicted. And funders want to see that as well. Right.
Bringing a sense of belonging purpose for people.
And that's really it. Right. It's not not an empty sense of conviction. It's like, no, I want this to happen more, more than anything. And you can see that in who you're investing in or who you're partnering with. So I want to turn it over for.
Someone, please. Because I said at the beginning, I think technology is also extremely important for scale and for making the connections also possible. Yes. Because without that, I think it's difficult to to have that ecosystem built up. And I also would like to add, that's another initiative we have we have university alliances at SAP. We have more than 3000 universities in our network, and we are connecting and reaching 1 million pupils every every year. And students, and we are also providing our software, to the universities, to the students, so that they can learn, that they can experiment, that they can also have access to our learning platforms and also certifications. And we are also supporting, Unicef Generation Unlimited, for example, also with tuition fees. So this is also important. Right. So so technology plays an important part for scaling and for connecting the ecosystem. And to reach have this huge reach also of our people.
100% helping us collectively affect the cognitive shift from they do that to I do that exactly. Thank you for that. We we it is an honor and a pleasure for me to turn this over to closing remarks from His Excellency, President of Timor-Leste, Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta. So, His Excellency, please to you.
I don't know how many of you know about Timor-Leste and know about me. So I have to start with basics. We are 25 year old, democracy, 1.4 million. A few weeks ago, we joined Asean as an 11th member. We have the best possible relationship with all of our neighbors, in particular Indonesia. Excellent relationship with the United States, as with China, with India and everyone. And, we have a zero political violence. We have a zero ethnic or religious based, tension. After independence, we did not accept suggestions from friends in Washington and in Europe for, to set up a special tribunal for the crimes of the past of the other side, we opted for reconciliation. And that's been very successful. And, we have had experience, disappointments with relying too much on international partners. Some partners over the years have become professional pledgers. They go to every pledging conference they pledge, and then you don't see the money. The first time I heard about this was with Kofi Annan. He was secretary general. We are all friends. We knew each other when we both were young. And he told me, Jose, pay attention. When you hear about pledges, don't believe them, don't count on them. And they said, there's a pledging conference on Kosovo, and the UN got only 20% of what was pledged. In our case, we have been more active and successful, and almost we extract every pledge that was, was pledged. We we extracted it and, to join Asean was a long journey. I said a year, two years ago in frustration, that it was would be easier to the road to heaven to get to heaven and to go to Asean. That apparently shook a bit, Asean leaders. And a year later, we were formally admitted. Now, although I was, president second time I was in government on and off over the last 25 years. But I was very active with civil society, with the private sector. One initiative that very successful, and I'm sorry, I have to read from my notebook. And the only half work is just broke down, yesterday, but half is still working. The it's called with one seat, in, 15 years, we planted more than 800,000 trees each and every one tag verified. And it is not only you cannot only plant trees, it has to be agroforestry because the people don't eat the trees. They need, food. So it's an agroforestry. And international rating agencies. Rate our project number one. Number two, in the world in terms of credibility, because if you hear a country, I don't mention the name of the say we planted 100 million trees, well, only 10% survived. Another one say we planted 10 million. Well, only maybe, 1 million survived. Ours is tagged, verified by these rating agencies that we pay for. They come from UK, they come from the Netherlands. And, every tree is tagged 3000, 4000 families involved in an area called Baja. And we have a. And then I signed the first carbon certificates when I was still former president. I was president 2007, 2012. Then I was out, then again 2022 to 27. But during that period I was active doing this and many other things. So I signed the first carbon certificate that already brought more than 3 million to $4 million to the community, and that working with the community in a place called Baguio, that is, not many people know about and who had been the people who donate my my activity. Actually, I don't do the work. I just write letters soliciting help in Australia and elsewhere, so I don't take much credit for that. But it was initially almost 100% supported by private, people in Australia and elsewhere. Only when the European Union, through the first ambassador came, he went to see the project. He was enthusiastic persuaded then. But of course, you know, the European Union bureaucracy, from the moment they identify a project, they interested. It takes four years before a decision is made. So the second ambassador came Andrew Andrew Jacobs French. He went to see and then we got $3 million for from the European Union. But these birds every six months, after countless countless reports experience, is that, particularly with the current world situation, when suddenly USAID is closed down, hundreds of projects around the world closed down in Timor itself. But fortunately, we have a liquidity. We didn't panic. Okay? The US closed down, USAID interrupted all the programs. That's fine too. We can take over from there. And also, and you call it millennium MCC, Millennium Challenge Corporation that committed hundreds of millions of dollars to particular project in my country. They committed about $400 million, but it took it went on and on and on for 20 years when it was beginning to start implementing, suddenly it was stopped. And not because we are not a democracy. We are rated number one. Democracy in Asia. Reporters Without Borders in Brussels rated US 2023 the 10th freest media in the world, number ten in the world France, UK 2627 United States 40 something, Australia 30 something. And we were number ten. So what is the reason why, was closed? So civil society, private sector 50 years ago, 30 years ago, private sector individual companies didn't have that much money. But today that trillions of dollars in the hands of people in Europe, United States, but particularly in Asia. So it is important that, private sector wake up and the beyond forums like this do things concretely on, on the ground. I see here the, the logo world Economic Forum committed to improving the state of the world. Well, how how long, WEF has been in existence? Well, not great achievement. You know, I don't blame WEF, but I also tell my Nobel laureates, colleagues, friends, we all, me and many others, we meet, we made conference on peace, and I say we must have been sending the wrong message because, there was just got worse. But there are some great stories. Stories of reconciliation, stories of success, even in the midst of the turmoil. Thank you.
Thank you. You're excellent.
Thank you.
And thank you all for being part of this session. We appreciate it. And thanks to our panelists. How about some hand for our panelists?
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you.