Lighting the spark

I got my first taste of entrepreneurship at Newcastle University when I set up a stand selling baked potatoes to fans attending football matches at St. James' Park. My room in the halls of residence was opposite the turnstiles and I felt there must be some way of capitalising on this great location. Profits were meagre but it was great fun and taught me that having strong social objectives (getting overweight fans to eat more healthily) can help to bring the public sector on board (the police superintendent who challenged me for my hygiene license didn't close me down when he heard the application was in the post!)

From this I moved on to work in Brussels and the UK on regeneration projects, particularly those focused on rural areas.

At a meeting I attended on social inclusion and ICT, a senior civil servant announced a new programme of funding and registers of interest needed to be submitted by the end of the week. I got a proposal in before the deadline and I was successful in securing "Wired up Communities" money to connect disadvantaged communities to the internet. We are based in Alston, a picturesque town in the South Tyne Valley, isolated by the surrounding Pennines. Indeed, our bid for Alston Moor was selected due to its remoteness and the distance that people had to travel to access basic services. The original funding paid for 675 PCs, the broadband network, and much more.

The key to getting the funding was:

• Working with a funding programme which was new and not very bureaucratic
  
• Having a good vision which could mean all things to all men
  
• Knowing the community would support the proposal
  
• Having the confidence that we could deliver (even though we were not sure about how we would do it!)

Cybermoor Ltd, the UK's first broadband community co-op, was set up in January 2003 as a social enterprise. Some 14 jobs have been created and at least 3 businesses have been attracted into the area because of the project. Improving the level of skills among residents has been one of our key successes. We have encouraged 72% of residents to use a PC to learn from home.

One key factor behind our success is that we provide a one stop shop for local people who want to get online. By providing the PC, the connection and the website, people have a single point of contact if should any difficulties arise. Our local base also means that we can't hide behind a call centre to avoid problems.

We invested our funding in a wireless broadband network (telephone lines in rural areas can struggle to deliver good quality broadband) which gave us much greater control over the customers' connection than most ISPs. In 2002, few ISPs were offering services to remote rural areas and our innovative approach drew people from across the country.

Cybermoor is not the only social enterprise in the market town of Alston; there are 12 others for a population of 2,500. Where multinationals fear to tread, they supply everything from bread to heritage services, driven by a desire to produce quality products and services. Cybermoor has managed the "Business with Altitude" project to bring together these enterprises to share resources and develop skills.

So what makes a good social entrepreneur get out of bed in the morning?

• Having a great idea that they want to deliver, often in the face of overwhelming opposition from sceptics in conventional business, the public sector and finance
  
• An eagerness to deliver some public good with their time and their enterprise
  
• The hunger to make deals and create profits for their enterprises
  
• Coming up with innovative solutions to problems, sometimes messy, but practical

Social entrepreneurs, who know everything there is to know about their customers, are aggregating demand and running more effective locally based businesses which are more resilient to these outside shocks. Social enterprise is the business model for the 21st century.

Daniel Heery is founder of Cybermoor and a Social Enterprise Ambassador.