Being Successful in Business While Helping your Community

Written By: Francisco Lingad, ANCL Partners BC, Vancouver, BC & Futurpreneur Canada Mentor

In terms of technological and entrepreneurial innovations, the community should be the focus of entrepreneur’s attention. Entrepreneurial activity fuels commercial activity in the community, and leads to the creation of new jobs.

Elon Musk, Canadian-American business magnate and Paypal founder, was the Inc Magazine 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year recipient for his work on Tesla and SpaceX. He believes that technology needs to be designed to help the people as well as create jobs. All investments need to be focused on how to simplify the lives of citizens.  He is an example of an entrepreneur who is looking into innovation to help improve people’s quality of life. Musk is a model businessman, who is not thinking of his self-interest when investing.

Last year, Musk unveiled plans to build a new generation of transport called the Hyperloop, which is a speedy, sustainable and cost-efficient train with no rails topped with solar panels, and run by both electric motor and air-cushion dynamics.

Elon Musk’s businesses are big businesses – Tesla Motors, an all-electric car company, Hyperloop, an electric power train system, plus SolarCity, an industry leader in clean energy services. All these are conceived to help combat global warming and minimize air pollution.

Musk’s fortune has more than tripled in the past year, clocking in at $2.7 billion for 2013. Stock in Tesla Motors, the electric car-maker he founded, went up 625 percent in the past year.

I believe that many businesses, big or small, if evolved within the framework of our community, and green environment, can be successful, as this is a current trend for businesses. Also, the levels of consciousness within people and the green community they live in are consistently increasing.