Where James is from

Anyang, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

 

Interview

What was your dream when you were a kid? What was the reason?

President, Very powerful.

 

What was your dream when you were 18 years old? What was the reason?

No, I lost it.

 

What made you start thinking about social entrepreneurship/social enterprises? When was that?

The moment I felt full satisfaction on my behavior was to help other and something good. So I decided to do meaningful work in my life.

 

How much do you think social entrepreneurs play an important role in the world?

Without social entrepreneurs’ work, the world will be regressed. Fortunately, I found there were a lot of social workers, US!!

 

What would you say to future social entrepreneurs / those who are interested in social entrepreneurs?

Social business has been recognized as non-profit activities like donation, digging wall. Its concept also widely changed as many for-profit companies contribute social impacts. That means future opportunity will require you ready for profound social knowledges.

 

What is your favorite quote? Who said that quote?

Begin without thinking the end. – My quote.

 

Who James is

James is a determined person. He has a family of 4 and had a successful career before coming to SF and studying in our master’s program. It was a courageous decision because  he has never studied abroad before. I do not think that I could do the same.

I wish everyone could have seen how James behaved at Hult International Business School. He tried to catch every word from professors and classmates at classes, was able to express his own remarks and not only presented well but also answered questions from the audience. He read case studies and class materials before the classes and prepared well.

I could see how hard James pushed himself to challenging situations and he tried to overcome the difficulties to boost himself to be better and better.

James is very adaptable.He communicates well with others without any barrier or filter. He shows who he really is and never pretends to be smarter or cleverer than who he actually is. James is always smiling and you can tell he has a big heart.

 

Awesome Episode

James told me that he would go to run at Bay to Breakers, the big 7 mile running event in San Francisco, with Rodolfo in May. James and Rodolfo ran a few times together to get ready for the big event. I did not know about the event but was definitely interested in it. He invited me to join, so I decided to run at Bay to Breakers. I could not meet James at the event in the end, even though we both ran there, but I was very very proud of James because the run must have been challenging for him. However, he practiced a lot before the run, trained himself, and he ultimately reached the goal on that day. This is James. Everyone, you should keep that in your mind.

 

The Power of MSE

What James is holding is a symbol called “go-en(ご縁)”, which means ‘fate’, ’destiny’ and ’special tie.’

I believe that it is meant to be that we met in San Francisco! I studied Social Entrepreneurship with James for a year, saying “We will make the world a better place.” I would love to spend the rest of my life with MSEs (Master of Social Entrepreneurship; my classmates) until the very day I die. They have already completely changed my life.

At the same time, however, I also think that we should not be together all the time, because that is not the reason why we learned Social Entrepreneurship. That is not how we will deliver the impact we want to give to society and to the world.

I think MSEs are like dandelions. We were seeded at the first day at Hult and we bloomed on our graduation day. Our mission is that we spread all over the world like dandelions and seed the future, the next generation, from each place where each of us has landed.

本当にありがとう(Honto ni Arigato-); Thank you very very much for everything!! The world needs you! Let’s make the world a better place together!!