Brainstorming Future Solutions

Steve Satterwhite is president of EO’s Houston chapter. As host of the group’s North American conference, he felt he had to respond to this question:

“What can we do as entrepreneurs to now kind of move beyond thinking about our businesses and entrepreneurship to think about the power that entrepreneurs can bring to solve some of the world’s toughest social problems?”

The organizers of EO’s international conference — held earlier this year in Cape Town, South Africa — had used some of their funds to build an orphanage.

Satterwhite partnered with the Houston Food Bank on to launch SPARC — short for Swap Places, Ask, Receive, Connect. The aim is to bring together entrepreneurs with food bank users to brainstorm solutions to the most pressing problems of the working poor.

SPARC kicked off on Saturday with a food fair at the George R. Brown Convention Center. It included 700 CEOs from around the world, as well as representatives of dozens of Houston social service bodies. Satterwhite’s hope is that SPARC will provide a model for visiting entrepreneurs to take back to their home cities.