The Editor’s Post: ‘Heart connections’ and AI lessons from two weeks with the global social enterprise community

As Josh Stoltz turned away from the audience, overwhelmed by emotion, the impact of being acknowledged by an international audience of his social enterprise peers was laid bare.

Josh was taking part in a panel discussion at the Rural Social Enterprise Gathering held this week in the Malaysian state of Sabah. He’d just held his phone up and invited the audience to wave to his mum and dad, who were watching via a livestream. It was then that Josh started to well up. 

Josh grew up in Benzie County, Michigan, where he now works as executive director of social enterprise Grow Benzie, which describes itself as a “rural prosperity incubator”. He describes his background as “pretty poor”, and international travel is still a notable occurrence for members of his family – he’d never been to Asia before. 

But it was more than the glamorous destination that had convinced Josh’s parents to watch a social enterprise panel discussion from the other side of the world. For Josh, being invited to speak at the event was a culmination of his 11 years of work at Grow Benzie (he was the organisation’s first full time employee), international validation of what remains a fairly unique business model in rural America, and recognition of the many hours and vast amounts of perseverance he’d poured into serving his hometown community. 

He said he felt the event was “a real turning point” for his leadership of Grow Benzie and the symbolism of the moment had overwhelmed him. Josh is a real gentle giant, and there’s something about large men being emotional that tugs at my heartstrings. Thankfully for Josh, and me, a resounding and supportive round of applause got everything back on track. 

Emotions have been high for many of us over the past few days, as we reach the end of an intense couple of weeks. Many of the 212 delegates at the Rural Social Enterprise Gathering had come straight from last week’s Social Enterprise World Forum 2025 in Taipei, and so had enjoyed eight straight days of social enterprise visits, conference and networking.

Alongside bringing you coverage of Social Enterprise World Forum – you can read my stories from the event here and here – we took the opportunity of having many of the world’s leading thinkers on impact in one place to explore a topic high on many people’s agendas: how social enterprises can use AI for positive impact, and how they can do so without compromising their ethics and values.

Working with James Gauci, founder of social enterprise technology studio Cadent, we’ve shot a short film exploring those questions. We heard from social entrepreneurs and ethical technologists – including Taiwan’s ‘cyber ambassador’ Audrey Tang – about how smaller, locally controlled AI models, data sovereignty for Indigenous and local communities, and open source systems can provide a route to ethical uses of AI to deliver greater social and environmental impact.

We can’t wait to bring you the finished film – watch this space.
 

Those ideas have particular relevance for Tonibung, a social enterprise in Sabah which Rural Social Enterprise Gathering delegates visited on Sunday. Tonibung provides sustainable technology, like water turbines, to deliver electricity to Indigenous and rural communities, as well as other technical solutions like solar-powered food dehydrators which enable produce to be stored for longer, and trains those communities in the maintenance of the technology.

The logistics of Tonibung’s work are almost unbelievable. Founder and technical director Adrian Lasimbang told me about one project where it took two years to get all the materials and equipment to a village because there were no roads – everything had to be carried by hand through thick jungle. 

Social Enterprise World Forum founder Gerry Higgins ranks Tonibung in the top 10 social enterprises he’d ever seen. He told me “The world is full of well-intentioned, donor-driven initiatives that have brought technology to rural villages without the right attitude or infrastructure, which means the world is also littered with failed technology that hasn't worked as soon as the first thing went wrong. The Tonibung approach is born from deep knowledge of how to engage with communities. This economic model is the most sustainable one.”

Lasimbang had also attended the Social Enterprise World Forum, where he joined a session in which Aboriginal Australian social enterprise consultancy First Nations Economics presented on Indigenous data sovereignty – the idea that if data is gathered about a community, that data shouldn’t be held by the organisation running the project, but with the community themselves. In addition to protecting their privacy, that community can then use that data for further decision making. 

At the Rural Social Enterprise Gathering, Lasimbang informed delegates that all Tonibung’s designs are open source, to further spread their impact, and I discussed with him the value of open source mapping in unmapped regions, where many of their projects take place. 

Read more about the Rural Social Enterprise Gathering visits to Sabah social enterprises in my first story from the event. 

This newsletter intro is longer than we normally aim for – a reflection of how rich with ideas and insights the last two weeks have been. As many delegates have told me, the two events have also been a source of deep connection, solidarity and friendship. Or, as Josh likes to say, “heart connection”.

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Image: Josh Stoltz (second from the right) at the Rural Social Enterprise Gathering 2025.